We all knew this one was coming for a long time now. The new Avengers show that was given birth to once EMH was shoot in the head and left to bleed out in a dark alley. I was just as skeptical as anyone else, especially with the posters looking like amateur fan art or the promos looking like Ultimate Spider-Man. And now that the first two episodes of Avengers Assemble are out I have to say…. I kinda like it…. Now I know it has a very long way to go before it can reach the level of EMH, but I honestly think the potential is there and the first two episodes, while flawed in some respects certainly gave me enough to stay optimistic of its future quality.
The series begins with Tony sitting a darkly lit room with JARVIS and spying on his forever Avengers team mates: Hulk, Thor, Cap and Hawkeye. We quickly learn that this Avengers team broke up after a while due to their various personal disputes and a lack of proper leadership by Tony Stark. Once Cap is seemingly killed off by his arch nemesis the Red Skull, Tony activates the Avengers Protocol and decides to bring the team together so they can avenge their fallen comrade. We quickly learn that Red Skull has teamed up with MODOK, and the second episode along with several interviews has confirmed that the Cabal will be the main antagonists for the first season.
Quite possibly the best thing about this show right off the bat is the characters and their interaction. Every single member of the team feels right, and once you hear them banter you can see that the creators know these characters well. Thor and Hulk have this sort of Legolas/Gimli dynamic where they like to fight and compete at who’s the better warrior, but are still friends, well sort of. In fact Hulk is just a whole lot of fun, weather he’s by himself or when he’s interacting with his team mates, it’s just really funny in a genuinely funny kind of way. Not that Ultimate Spider-Man 3rd wall breaking bullshit.
One problem you may have this show at first is its voice cast. Cap, Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow all sound fantastic and with Black Widow being my personal favorite. Falcon, Iron Man and Thor is where you might have some problems. Thors voice actor really got on my nerves at first but he managed to deliver his lines well enough later on. Tony’s voice actor is in my opinion better than the EMH one simply because he’s not doing an RDJ impersonation (which failed, badly) though he still has one or two lines where I cringed.
Now we get to the worst part of the show and that is Falcon. In this universe he’s a young SHIELD agent who Tony is sort of mentoring, once Cap is killed and the Avengers Protocol is initiated. He travels to Stark Tower and takes the Falcon costume which was created by Tony, essentially making him Tony’s side kick.
Just the way he’s brought in doesn’t make any sense. If you’re going to have a character that’s kind of tied to Tony and sort of be his side kick, why not simply get War Machine? Although im not sure how much this would help since he’s pretty much the fan boy of the team. Constantly having nerdgasms by just being with these guys and asking them to say crap into his phone so he can use it as a ring tone, he’s annoying, uninteresting and his whole inclusion is pointless. Again I have to ask why they didn’t just put in War Machine.
Another questionable choice by the creators is making Tony the leader of the team. While he did have a similar role in EHM, it didn’t really work there and I always felt like Cap was more of a leader than Tony ever was. It makes even less sense for him to lead here since the members apparently split up mostly because of his ineffective leader ship skills and lone wolf attitude. So why are they letting him call the shoots again?
While the animation is very crisp and clear most of the time, the action at least in the first episode can way too fast, there were several times where I asked myself what just happened? In the second part the action is a bit slower so you can actually tell what’s going and its pretty well done and each character fights how you think they would.
There’s definitely potential here for the show to achieve a level of greatness if the creators iron out some of its problems and expand on what’s already good, this may become one of the better Marvel shows down the line.
FINAL VERDICT: B-
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