Marvel animation-- Avengers Assemble and Hulk: Agents of Smash

[Christopher]

kirk55555 wrote:

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She-Hulk is my second favorite superhero after DC's Captain Marvel, so I'm excited for the hulk cartoon. That said, I HATED Eliza Dushku on Buffy, and i've never seen her in anything else, so it sucks that she's voicing she-hulk. Hopefully she doesn't suck at voice acting.

I think Dushku is a very good actress, and she was good as the voice of Catwoman in Batman: Year One.

I still think having a new Avengers cartoon is stupid. why not just continue with the first one?

The impression I get is that it's because of a change in leadership at Marvel Animation, with Jeph Loeb taking over production of the shows and deciding he wanted to go in a different direction creatively. This is what happens when new people take over a company -- they have their own ideas they want to pursue and so they set aside their predecessors' ideas.

I'm also not a big fan of the roster (I get it, Marvel had a successful movie, but you don't need to modifiy every version of the avengers to fit with the movie). Having the Falcon over Hank Pym/Wasp is....weird, especially with ant man getting a movie apparently.

Well, including the Falcon makes sense because it's an all-white roster otherwise -- same reason EMH brought in Black Panther pretty quickly and the Ultimate universe made Fury black and Wasp Asian. What annoys me is that they don't seem to have any interest in including more than one woman on the team.

[kirk55555]

I get why they put falcon in, but why not Black Panther? Or War Machine? I wish they'd put someone cool on the team who isn't very well known, maybe Mar-Vell or Photon (who would fill the diversity thing, and add another woman to the team). I liked the roster of the other cartoon, and I think I'm going to miss an Avengers show not having Black Panther, Hank Pym or Miss Marvel.

[Skywalker]

They probably put Falcon in to build up some familiarity for him before he makes his film debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

[kirk55555]

I hope he doesn't debut in that. They need to focus on Winter Soldier. They don't need a Hawkman rip off there just for diversity. He would be such a stupid live action character. I've enjoyed him in the comics, I could like him in cartoons (although there are others I'd prefer in his spot) but in live action he'd just be in the way.

[Skywalker]

He's already been confirmed for the movie, to be played by Anthony Mackey. I wouldn't worry, though. I'm sure the majority of the focus will be on Cap and Winter Soldier. But Falcon is an important member of Captain America's cast of characters. He's basically Steve Rogers' best friend in the modern world, so it wouldn't really make a lot of sense for him not to show up.

[JD]

[QUOTE=Christopher;7114177]

kirk55555 wrote:

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Well, including the Falcon makes sense because it's an all-white roster otherwise -- same reason EMH brought in Black Panther pretty quickly and the Ultimate universe made Fury black and Wasp Asian. What annoys me is that they don't seem to have any interest in including more than one woman on the team.

Yeah, I'm rather disappointed that they only have one woman on the team. Marvel seems to have a pretty good line up of female superheroes, and it would be nice to see more of them in the animated shows.

[Nick Ryder]

Well keep in mind, people were bitchin' about it just being Wasp as the only woman on the team - but then they brought in Ms. Marvel and Black Widow cameo'd quite a bit. So we'll see.

I think, don't quote me, but I think basically in the new show A:EMH will have still happened, so I suppose events and things that happened in that show still happened - they just have a few new voice actors and a new roster. Which honestly, happened a LOT in the comics in terms of the roster and even feel of the book. So as long as things that happened in the old series still happen I won't be too disappointed.

Plus it's been obvious that the cartoons are turning into the comics in terms of linking up with the movies. I mean some people think the comics are promotion for the movies. So yeah, the Avengers team rejiggers to resemble the movie Avengers team a bit more. I'm not entirely happy with the whole move to the "Man of Action" team - I kinda prefer the current creative team - but... hey not up to us.

The Hulk series seems a bit too light hearted but I'll give it a chance. I think some of my favorite Hulk stories lately were the ones where basically the whole "Hulk Family" got together to kick ass. So we'll see. I just hope Seth Green doesn't use his "Chris" voice and just talks normally.

[Mark_Nguyen]

Christopher wrote:

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Not that I know of. Apparently there's still talk about a possible third season for IMAA.

I haven't been holding my breath. :P They would have announced something by now, and as much as I liked the show, they came to a fairly satisfying conclusion that I can live with, both story and character-wise. I'd love to see more with solo shellhead and a more mature Tony. The 90s Iron Man cartoon was dreadful IMO but I'd think they'd give a solo show to Marvel's most popular movie character and not their least (at least until Avengers IMO, but I digress).

Mark

[Nick Ryder]

Yeah IM:AA is sorta over for me - I mean we already had two seasons over the past... uhm... 4 years? LOL It's got a worse record of keeping to a schedule than an Image comic.

I wouldn't mind seeing a spin off solo Iron Man seres as long as it kinda ties into the Avengers series. Maybe with more focus on Tony, Pepper and Rhodey. I do like the idea that are trying to keep a consistant set of voice actors for some of the primary characters though. I mean I like the current voice - but the "new" guy has already voiced him in the Iron Man Anime, he'll be voicing him in that Hulk/Iron Man movie. Fred Tatasciore as the default Hulk (while yes I do like the Planet Hulk voice - at least it sounds like 'Hulk' when I watch other media he's in) Nothing breaks you out of things when you expect to hear a certain voice (or even vocal style) and you hear someone else.

Now I do hope they bring Ms. Marvel back on the show soon enoug I mean c'mon her friggin' name is MARVEL.

[Chris3123]

Avengers Asssemble to premiere July 7, and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. on August 11.

Superhero Hype

[Nightowl1701]

How are they going to set up Agents of S.M.A.S.H. in a way that isn't gonna leave casual/non-comic readers' heads spinning? Story-wise a LOT has happened in the Hulk comic universe in just the last decade, while even the most recent film version of "the other guy" seems stuck in the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno era.

[Christopher]

^You can say the same about a lot of comics series that have been made into animated shows. Green Lantern: The Animated Series builds on a ton of continuity from comics I haven't read, but I haven't had any trouble following the show, because it reintroduced and recontextualized every concept that it drew from the comics, and altered or simplified the comics' version of things to make it clearer. And that's just one example. Just about every long-running comic has a hugely convoluted backstory, but the various animated adaptations have always been able to distill those background elements. Sometimes a show is so cluttered with character cameos and continuity nods that it can be confusing to the novice; I had that problem with the '90s X-Men and occasionally with Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and I would've had it with Young Justice if I hadn't gotten to know the DCU characters from JLU, Teen Titans, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. But sometimes all the necessary continuity is worked in very neatly and unconfusingly as if it were all brand-new, as in the '90s Spider-Man (mostly), Superman: TAS, and the like.

[Nick Ryder]

A part of me is a bit hopeful and yet still worried about how 'decent' these two shows will be. One thing I liked about EMH was that while it was a kid's show, it was still pretty engaging. But I do sort of hope that the animation style, while maybe not exactly like USM is similar - less stylized. I do recall people complaining about how overly stylized they felt EMH was too before it first came on. The massively broad shouldered Thor and people whined to end how much they weren't crazy about Wasp.

So let's not throw this out just yet. Could be better than we realize. Or it could suck balls for the first half season and then it picks up and hits it stride and we go 'wow this is pretty damn good' AND people start stacking it in the same breath as EMH.

As for just Black Widow - like I said waaay back in October - they did bring in other female characters pretty quickly, by the end of the 1st season you already had Black Widow cameo'ing a few times, Mockingbird I think had a cameo. Carol Danvers was set up. So I don't feel too worried that eventually they'll add in another one. My personal hope is that Carol Danvers comes back in as Captain Marvel and not Ms. Marvel - she's Captain Marvel in the comics, makes sense that she should be that in the show.

And why are people complaining about the Falcon so much? Is it because he's never really had much focus - other than those handful of episodes in the last season of EMH and just think of him as a 'lame hawkman clone'. May Captain America fans love the character of the Falcon. Heck Cap's book was actually titled Captain America and the Falcon for quite a while too.

Only thing that's still bugging me is that Iron Man is still "leader" of the Avengers when it really should be Captain America. I know Iron Man is their most popular character but still... although then again, even in the comics they rotated who actually "lead" the team. For a while it was the Wasp even! Black Widow had leadership a couple of times. I wouldn't even mind seeing Thor take a stab at it.

As long as this new series adapts some comics stories - I'll be happy. Heck I'd love to see a version of Fear Itself - which could lend itself pretty well to a pre-Thor 2 storyline - since it's very Asgardian but also brings in a lot of characters - Would make a killer season ender and season opener. Plus it's a fairly recent storyline too so people who go "wow that was an awesome story" can still go back and find TPBs of it fairly easy.

[Christopher]

Nick Ryder wrote:

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I do recall people complaining about how overly stylized they felt EMH was too before it first came on. The massively broad shouldered Thor and people whined to end how much they weren't crazy about Wasp.

I wasn't crazy about EMH's design sensibilities and animation style overall, but I liked the Wasp design. Well, except for those sticky-out bits of hair on the sides of her head. She would've looked better without those.

So let's not throw this out just yet. Could be better than we realize. Or it could suck balls for the first half season and then it picks up and hits it stride and we go 'wow this is pretty damn good' AND people start stacking it in the same breath as EMH.

Naturally. You'd think it would go without saying that you should try something before you decide whether you like it or not. We can have reservations about something based on preliminary info, but we won't know for sure until we see it. Some shows turn out better than you'd expected, some turn out worse than you'd hoped.

As for just Black Widow - like I said waaay back in October - they did bring in other female characters pretty quickly, by the end of the 1st season you already had Black Widow cameo'ing a few times, Mockingbird I think had a cameo. Carol Danvers was set up. So I don't feel too worried that eventually they'll add in another one. My personal hope is that Carol Danvers comes back in as Captain Marvel and not Ms. Marvel - she's Captain Marvel in the comics, makes sense that she should be that in the show.

I hope you're right, but I'm afraid that they're letting advertising demographics shape their choices, and going on the assumption that the young male audience they're targeting doesn't want to see a lot of girls in the show.

And even if they do work more women in eventually, it's unfortunate that we have to start over again, that we're forced back to square one with a new show where the women have to be folded in gradually, rather than just continuing EMH with its already solid cast of male and female heroes. It's still a setback. (Especially if they don't bring back Jennifer Hale as Carol Danvers. Less Jennifer Hale is never a good thing.)

And why are people complaining about the Falcon so much?

I wasn't aware they were. And if they are, I certainly don't agree with them. The Falcon's a character who's long overdue for a focus. He's an important figure in comics history, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics. (Black Panther preceded him, but T'Challa is African, not American.) And he spent years as Captain America's sidekick, which is a pretty prestigious gig in the superhero biz. Not to mention that he's going to be in the second Cap movie, so he's about to become much more prominent.

[JD]

Yeah, it seems weird that people would have a problem with him being in the cartoon, when most of the people on the sites I go to seem really excited about his inclusion in The Winter Soldier.