TV Retrospective: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Season 1 episodes 11-15

Panther’s Quest

We’ve seen him in past episodes, he’s been hinted at for a while, but it’s time to put him where he belongs, in the Avengers.

So, they look at security footage from the last episode (too much continuity for you, Loeb?) and discover that he might have some very good tech at his disposal, then he deliberately trips the alarm and attacks them. Thor isn’t there this time, so I can’t laugh at how he’s defeated.

Anyway, T’Challa and explains the situation. Cap naturally is a little against going against the Wakandan people but when he explains about the vibranium mound and its capabilities he comes around.

They take a look at an image of Wakanda, revealing that HYDRA, led by the Grim Reaper (he really gets around) and joined by Ulysees Claw. So they head off, Cap uncertain about the height of the people.

They get shot down thanks to Tony’s ego and are quickly ambushed by the Wakandans, they get through and meet the very grouchy HYDRA and claw, they battle but the worry is that the vibranium will absorb too energy and explode, with that much half of Africa would be destroyed.

When Claw tries to stop the fighting, Reaper thinks they’ve been betrayed and knocks Claw into some active vibranium, turning him into a creature of pure sound (don’t ask how that works) the Panther and Man ape fight as Cap takes on the two wives. Despite man-ape cheating again, Black Panther powers through and wins the fight.

Claw’s form is being projected from his weapon thing and can be contained with vibranium they manage to win the day. The Black Panther decides the next logical move is to let a council lead his people so he can fight with the avengers, go figure

Oh and Gamma world starts a few second early.

There are a few odd things about this episode, I thought Panther’s motivation for joining the avengers after everything was actually quite weak, but ultimately it’s a strong episode.

Rating 7.5/10

Gamma World part 1

So, you might remember in the first part of the breakout the leader taking over the cube. This’ll play out here.

But first, we’ve got the Avengers vs Hawkeye , the have him cornered but SHIELD flash a bright light on them and he gets away. Quartermain wants a word with them about what’s going on at the cube.

They fly out, meeting up with Samson and see a massive green energy dome expanding from the cube. Oh and Thor’s with them now and Ant-man is in Wakanda. The dome converts people into gamma monsters, and it’ll hit a town within 6 hours, a major city in 8. The avengers are assigned to enter the cube and take down the leader the man running the operation

Meanwhile Black Widow enters a HYDRA base with Hawkeye watching from a way away. He uses a gas emitting door opening arrow (those exist apparently to get in and starts kicking ass) meanwhile those that need it (all except Iron Man and Thor) suit up in some radiation protection suits to enter the dome.  The suits seem fully equipped to handle the wasp’s powers surprisingly.

They’re attacked by some former shield agent gamma monsters and thanks to Samson and some double-teaming they take the down. Once the agents are outside the cube, they’ll be reverted to normal. Meanwhile Hawkeye takes down an entire HYDRA unit on his own and prepares to fight the Black Widow.

Once inside the cube, they’re attacked by the U-foes, all enhanced with boosters. They manage to take them down, but more arrive. Bigger threats like Zzzax who manages to expose both the Wasp, several SHIELD agents and Iron Man to the gamma field.  They are attacked again by the U-foes, joined with Zzzax and the gamma enhanced wasp and shield agents. Badly outnumbered, and with Panther having disappeared, Iron Man realises that they need to go for the generator and shut the field down. Samson and Thor are sent to do so, leaving only Cap and Iron Man to fight

Meanwhile Hawkey and the Black Widow fight. Hand to hand Hawkeye is outmatched, but at range. Hawkeye has the edge and captures her. Wanting to take her to the avengers. Thor and Samson find the generator but it’s protected by a gamma enchanced wrecking crew (who in this version are also gamma villains) Samson’s armour is destroyed but because he was already gamma enhanced he doesn’t change.

Thor and Samson are outmatched but the distraction allows Panther to destroy the generator discreetly, that was the reason for his retreat. The leader wasn’t there because he’s already in Nevada, activating another energy dome over Las Vagas (at least I assume it’s Las Vegas)

It’s another very well done episode with a lot of action scenes. I think it felt it a bit jarring going between the two plot threats of the story, but we’ll see why they’re both important in the next episode

Rating 8/10

Gamma World part 2

Yes, it is Las Vagas he’s starting with and we see instantly the city turning into gamma monsters. The field catches many of them by surprise as they’re no longer wearing protection. Hawkeye is about to catch up with the Black Widow but they turn around when they see the dome.

Cap, Iron Man, and all the SHIELD agents in the area are affected by the dome. Only Thor and Samson escape but they are vastly outnumbered and captured. The skybike crashes leaving Widow free, the Leader broadcasts on every channel warning that the gamma dome will surround the earth, giving his speech to all the cameos he can muster.

Hawkeye knows his best bet is with the Hulk, but a hulk buster unit already has him cornered. Hawkeye leaves the Black Widow to her fate. Thor and Samson are tossed before the leader, Thor is forced to fight the abomination.

The Hulkbusters once again have Hulk in their sights, and once again are pathetically ineffectual, actually they manage to knock him out until Hawkeye comes to help. The Hulkbusters run scared without their machine. Hawkeye wants banner and threatens to take the Hulk down, the Hulk finds that so funny he reverts back to Banner. (Here’s how to do humour, you don’t have to have a pun every other minute)

So, we get an egotistical speech from the leader about he’s so much smarter than everyone else and bla bla bla. Thor uses this to summon Mjolnir from the wrecking crew trying to lift it. Banner manages to inoculate Hawkeye against the gamma energy, and pinpoints the dome in Las Vagas.

Thor manages to beat the abombination and retrieve Mjolnir, but it was all part of the leader’s plan, the absorbing man the chance to absorb the uru of the hammer. The absorbing man takes Thor outside, whilst Hulk and Hawkeye confront the leader.

The abomination and the Hulk duel as Hawkeye has to confronts the gamma avengers, managing to hit each of them with a gamma antidote. The leader decides to engage in a robot suit. The absorbing man is beaten by Thor, he has control over his body after he absorbed Mjolnir.

Thanks to Hawkeye’s interruption the Hulk manages to punch the Abomination out of the city. Thor uses the absorbing man to destroy the leader’s suit, whilst the Hulk takes the gamma generator, which for some reason makes the leader’s head shrivel.

Quatermain analyses the sky cycle footage which confirms Hawkeye’s story. But the Widow was long gone, Hawkeye quits SHIELD to go after the Black Widow, Hawkeye is offered a place on the avengers. But only agrees because the Hulk wants him to. The abomination runs into Zemo’s group, now joined by the Crimson Dynamo.

It’s a very good episode once again, putting the Hulk and Hawkeye into the team in one swipe, the writing is all pretty decent with this series, and I much prefer the characterisation of the leader here than his agents of SMASH counterpart.

Rating 9/10

Masters of Evil

We start off with a couple of references as Whirlwind passes through the street, the wasp is in pursuit, he’s chosen the worst place to return. The wasp catches up with him but it’s the Enchantress in disguise. With her team backing her up the wasp is overwhelmed.

As Tony fiddles with his suit array wasp supposedly enters the building, turns out it’s the masters again, Tony is also taken down. The Hulk is watching TV when the enchantress appears and transports him to the realm of the frost giants. I feel sorry for the frost giants.

Cap is training (there’s a shocker) but he’s taken out, seeing Baron Zemo leading the team as he passes out. Wanting to summon Thor he uses the wasp’s Avengers ID. Thor is in Central Park having a ‘chat’ with Jane Foster when he’s summoned. He puts up a fight but he’s also detained, Black Panther and Hawkeye (who had a scene together I didn’t mention at earlier, Black Panther’s a d*ck) are watching and decide that rather than call in the troops and risk their friends death and a lot of collateral damage, they’d have to sneak in to rescue them.

Zemo is concerned about Ant-man as the last avenger but Abomination tells him that there are 2 others, Hawkeye and the Black Panther begin their stealth attack but are both caught, unsurprisingly but they had a different plan, giving Ant-man access to his lab. Wonderman is temporarily dissipated as the fight continues. Hawkeye manages to take out the enchantress with an arrow (yeah, that was embaressing) rescuing the others, Thor then rescues the Hulk and Iron Man gets a suit. Abomination is kicked out of the house.

They begin to take them by the numbers. Thor and Iron Man take Wonderman. Hawkeye and The Wasp manage to knock out the Crimson Dynamo, whose suit had been damaged from the previous fight. Zemo takes on Captain America (duh) who manages to defeat him. The Hulk takes on the Executioner but Zemo, seeing the defeat as imminent decides to withdraw his men from the battle.

They return to headquarters and argue until the Enchantress shuts them up, she goes off and we get the stunning revelation (I hope you’re ready for this one) that she’s working for Loki (I know, I for one am truly shocked)

This is another intense episode, introducing the masters of evil as a force to reckoned with. Every hero gets their moment to shine in this episode as well.

Rating 8.5/10

459

Time for set-up!

We open with Hank Pym and Janet off to visit a friend, Carol Danvers at a joint SHIELD/military observatory. They’ve spotted something which Carol thinks is alien, but she wants Hank to verify. Hank doesn’t see anything biological. Also working at the observatory is one Walter Lawson, we’ll come back to him later.

The object changes direction, destroying the satellite and the radar at the observatory before crashing nearby. Carol, Hank and Janet investigate finding the thing. “I didn’t say it wasn’t an alien robot” that’s incredibly racist, Hank.

Anyway, the robot draws fire upon them because they were fighting back. When Hank convinces them to stop, it heads to the observatory. He sends Carol to get Lawson away but he’s easily defeated and crashes into the observatory. Lawson reveals that he’s another creature in disguise. Blue.

Calling himself Mar-Vell he tries to hold off the machine, but in the end Carol is injured and the power core destroyed. The other avengers arrive at the hospital for a status update. The robot is a Kree sentry, sent to analyse a threat level of a planet. It’s equipped with a bomb that would wipe out all life on the planet if it was considered too big a threat, and given the fight they put up, Earth qualifies.

The robot digs itself into the ground and without difficulty manages to hold up against most of their attacks. Hank is knocked out trying to protect Janet from some incoming fire, this angers Janet enough to blast her way inside and try and destroy it from the inside. The damage allows the Hulk to tear the machine apart. Thor, Iron Man and Mar Vell take the bomb into space destroying it out of Earth’s range.

Carol wakes up floating, foreshadowing her powers to come

Overall it’s a good episode, introducing the Kree, Mar Vell (aka Captain Marvel (that isn’t DC)), and giving the origins for Miss Marvel. The one element that bugs me is Janet, who seems to be giving Hank a much harder time than she usually does without any element of change within Hank.

Rating 7.5/10

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Images used in this review are from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Marvel's Avengers Assemble and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use