TV Retrospective: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 2 episodes 16-20

Assault on 42

Whoever said building a prison in another dimension was a good idea?

So, we open with Whirlwind being transported to 42 with Thor, Cap, Miss Marvel and the Wasp, these will be our avengers for today. After Ultron’s well… You know… the prison is now guarded by SHIELD agents. The lights begin to flicker and the Leader is screaming in pain claiming ‘they are coming’

Quartermain is on the base investigating the power fluctuations. The power comes off and Quartermain, Miss Marvel and Cap to investigate, one of the cables has been eaten through. Cap theorises it was someone trying to get in.

Thor and the Wasp answer a SHIELD call for help and fight off a monster, they find the control room has been completely trashed by the same creatures. The warden has been taken hostage by them. The communication is down so they have to wait till next shift of guards before they can leave.

More bugs break a hole in and the fight begins, I’m kinda surprised the humans can breathe since there’s not atmosphere out there. Miss Marvel and Thor pursue them and find hundreds of the creatures outside.  Thor and Miss Marvel manage to survive the ambush but more are on the way, a lot more.

They need help to stop them and call upon the prisoners to help. Mar-vell clearly wants to help. Cap promises to support them on parole if they help. Radioactive man, the Executioner, the Leader and Abomination alongside a few AIM goons volunteer to help. Zemo does too, but Cap refuses. Blizzard. Arbsorbing man and Whirlwind also join the fight.

Thor tells the Executioner about Surtur’s control of the Enchantress and promises to give him the chance to see her freed if he fights honourably in this battle. This is the last time we’ll hear anything about Surtur.

Cap and Miss Marvel begin strategizing as the aliens approach. The Leader begins screaming in agony, hearing a high pitched squeal. They fight and seem to be winning but they stop, but the leader of the creatures, Annihilus arrives and knocks them all back. They get up an continue the fight with one of the AIM goons and blizzard being killed I think. Becoming overwhelmed they fall back with the Wasp, absorbing man and radioactive man covering them.

They reach the cell blocks but the roof appears to be open here (which makes me wonder why they bothered ripping holes) Annihilus and his creatures attack, taking down several of the mandroids. They begin a tactic to stop Annihilus but the abomination decides it’s time to leave and the Leader asks him to take him to the gateway.

Radioactive man, the remaining AIM agents and Whirlwind fall and Quartermain says it’s time to blow the gateway. The Leader and Abomination arrive. The leader reveals that with the computer he can disrupt Annihilus’ energy and leave him vulnerable. Carol lets him do so under close guard.

The Leader’s plan works and Thor manages to destroy the cane. No longer under his control, the creatures take Annihilus.  The Leader is relieved to be able to think again.

It’s a great idea to have some redemption for the villains they locked up in 42 and this is the perfect way to do it. The villains aren’t less villainous for their actions because they’re acting within their own interests, survival in this case.

Rating: 9/10

Ultron Unlimited

He’s back…

We begin with Miss Marvel meeting with absolutely not a robot Iron Man, who says that her place on the team is about to be disbarred. Iron Man attacks but Miss Marvel fights back and reveals Iron Man to be a robot before she eventually succumbs

Miss Marvel’s robot duplicate arrives and inserts a mental interface lizard thing onto her so the machine has access to her memories. The vision tells Iron Man and Miss Marvel bots to observe and analyse Thor.

The vision takes Carol to their headquarters where she sees Ultron. They wish to replace everyone with robots. Cap is practicing at Avengers Mansion when Hawkeye interrupts using his holo-shield. After some character development Vision and the Cap and Hawkeye bots attack. They fight but Hawkeye is knocked out and it seems that Captain America is dead. And if for a second you’ve fallen for this, there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you

The vision attacks the wasp but his imperative is to not damage her (it seems Ultron’s upgrade from the last episode he was in has been nullified) The wasp knocks him back so the vision attacks, burning her shoulder, he seems confused about how he managed to deviate from his programming.

Meanwhile the robo-vengers attack Thor. They manage to overpower him. We cut to Ultron’s layer where Ultron lays into the vision for hurting the wasp. He plans to transfer the Wasp’s mind into a robot body.  The Wasp comments that Ultron is becoming more human before Ultron has her knocked out.

The robo-vengers arrive with Thor. Cap prepares to act but Ultron knew that he wasn’t real when he arrives. He order the Vision to end this. Cap gives his speeches that actually work because Brian Bloom is perfect in this role.

The Vision takes this speech to heart (well, as close as one gets to that given him being a machine) and frees the Avengers. Ultron has his synthezoids attack but the wasp awakens Thor who obliterates his robo counterpart, alongside the Iron Man and Hawkeye bots. The Avengers attack Ultron but with his new shell the blasts have little effect (like they ever did before)

He has the avengers on the ropes until the vision intervenes, he unlocks Ultron’s head from his body allowing Thor to knock it off. The bot explodes and is about to bring the building down on them so they get out, aside Cap who goes after Vision. The Vision says that his definition of perfect means embracing humanity as much as he can.

It’s a solid episode but I feel it was a little too easy for the Avengers, who have consistently struggled against Ultron in the past.

Rating 7.5/10

Yellowjacket

Time to check back in with Hank Pym, who hasn’t been seen in a whole 12 episodes

We start at Greyburn College, Hank's lab is a complete mess and so is he. He shows them a new version of the big but it’s redundant now SHIELDs latest prison, hydra-base is operational. Hank seems somewhat more cranky than usual and asks them to leave. As they leave the lab explodes, leaving Hank presumed dead.

Outside Avengers mansion, Tony stark gives a speech at a funeral with several cameos there to help, including the Fantastic 4, Spider-man and others. Oh and Black Panther is back. Nick Fury gives his condolences to Janet and reveals that the explosion at the lab was no accident, it was murder.

They discover that his most activity on his computers concerned the serpent society (now minus Madame Hydra/Viper) leading them to believe that they were the ones responsible.

Cap and the Black Panther begin a stealth hunt, Black Panther discovers some heat traces, Constrictor is in a fight with a mysterious man calling himself Yellowjacket. Black Panther scans him but cannot identify him. Yellowjacket unleashes some wasps, distracting them whilst he deals with Constrictor. Janet arrives to help, confronting Yellowjacket and ends up believing that he’s hank.

Black Panther doesn’t see that as likely but when Thor finds Yellowjacket he seems to know a little about his tactics. The Wasp arrives too later to save Thor but manages to unmask him to reveal that it really is Hank Pym. Iron Man overrides his blaster and they get zapped into the micro-prison.

The Pym Particles are unstable and the prison begins to shrink, it’s going to crush them. Making matters worse it frees the serpent society escape and begin to attack. The Avengers manage to defeat the serpent society aside from one, who captures Jan, snapping Hank temporarily out of it. He has a plan but it could kill Iron Man, fortunately we all know it won’t.

They make it out of the prison with the Serpent Society unconscious and ready to go to Hydro-base. Yellowjacket wants to be part of the Avengers, Iron Man isn’t happy about it but the Wasp persuades him.

It’s really quite a touching episode and it’s handled really well, the only problem is it’s so late in the game this is pretty much it for Hank’s character development.

Rating 8/10

Emperor Stark

It’s time to see the Vision get the character focus once again

We open with Iron Man and Cap overseeing the repair of the Vision. The Vision enters sleep mode for a 30 day repair cycle.

30 days later, the Vision wakes up to see the mansion rather empty. He exits the house to see Iron Man version of those mutant hunting sentries patrolling the city. Also, Tony’s eyes are purple. He sees a purple energy dome around Stark Tower.

Vision retreats back into the mansion and interfaces with JARVIS, which had been deactivated recently by Iron Man. We get some back-story, 25 days ago, Stark launched a satellite and shortly after he met with the United Nations who voted to disband leaving him in charge. Any resistance, including Latveria were crushed.

Cap arrives and they fight. The Vision projects Cap’s speech from the Ultron episode (most of which was correctly from his point of view) and snaps Cap out of it. Stark is confused and see the Purple Man influencing his actions.

Cap and the Vision defeat the Iron Sentries but Iron Man begins shutting down the computer as the Iron Sentinels attack. They escape with Hawkeye’s sky-cycle. Cap reveals that the Purple Man was defeated by Iron Man but it didn’t last. We see Iron Man attempting to resist the Purple Man’s control but he’s at too close a range.

Miss Marvel and Hawkeye attack Cap and the Vision, Cap manages to snap Hawkeye out it by remembering that they are almost the exact opposite in personality. Upon seeing the sky-cycles crash, Miss Marvel snaps out of it as well. Cap has a plan. Miss Marvel, Vision and Hawkeye attempt to steal a Quinn-jet but they’re interrupted by Thor.

Cap tries to save Tony but the Purple Man’s control is absolute. The Vision is sent to distract Thor as the others take off (why is this suddenly affecting an Asgardian anyway) they manage to take off but Thor is in pursuit. As they approach Miss Marvel is having trouble resisting the purple man’s control.

Vision does an orbital drop, increasing his density enough to knock Thor down. Carol’s mind control re-engages but Hawkeye gets off the luckiest shot ever and destroys the satellite, relinquishing the purple man’s control of the world. They reactivate JARVIS so Iron Man’s suit can filter out the Purple Man’s toxins and defeat him.

Tony feels guilty but the world was just as much victims of the Purple Man as him, so no-one blames him (which is extremely convenient really) even suggesting that he purposely forgot about the vision. Only Cap could give this speech, god I love Cap in this.

Rating 8/10

Code Red

You know how Roger Craig Smith’s Cap is incredibly bland? This two-parter shows above anything why Brain Bloom is infinitely superior in the role.

So we get the one guy who shouts out abuse at the Avengers for being vigilantes and bla bla bla…

Del Rusk and this would be interesting if we didn’t already know he was the villain. Cap and Iron Man train together. Iron Man offers the leadership of the Avengers to Cap but before this plotline can be resolved a red mist envelops the mansion, turning Cap’s skin red.

The gas begins to escape the mansion and into the atmosphere. He calls in Thor to get rid of the gas, which he does so. Back in the mansion the wasp begins to feel queezy and also succumbs to the virus.

Black Panther says that it might be possible to synthesise an antidote but matters are complicated when Del Rusk contacts them, claiming that was a bio-weapon they stored and beginning a programme to lock them down.

The military surround the mansion as Samson, Winter Soldier and Falcon infiltrate the mansion. Whist heading back to the mansion, Thor is attacked by the Red Hulk. Cap wakes up, not wanting to sit this out and is confronted by the Winter Soldier who knocks him out.

The Black Panther begins to feel faint as the virus is having an effect on him as well. Samson confronts him but Miss Marvel isn’t out and provides him cover. Thor hits the Red Hulk with lightning but it does not appear to work.

Falcon heads to the training room and is confronted by Hawkeye. Hawkeye knocks out Falcon with a sonic arrow and sees that device that dispersed the gas was a military device, he reports to Iron Man before succumbing to the virus himself. Miss Marvel knocks Samson out before passing out herself.

Tony successfully calculates the antidote and begins to produce it. Thor knocks the Red Hulk away with his hammer. The antidote seems to have pretty immediate effects but they discover that Cap is gone. Iron Man discovers that Cap was taken.

Cap is brought by the Winter Soldier to Del Rusk. Iron Man heads out to DC but before he can get close he’s confronted by 2 military jets, make that 5 who box him in. He locks onto Cap and uses a long range missile to fire the antidote, unfortunately the Winter Soldier manages to catch it (that thing must’ve been going way too fast for that to be possible)

Cap unmasks Del Rusk to reveal the Red Skull (the Steven Blum voice sort of gave it away) the Winter Soldier watches on, Red Skull gives Cap to the Winter soldier to finish him off but the Winter Soldier instead injects him with the antidote. Cap manages to knock him out as news crews arrive to capture the moment. Cap goes in search of the Winter Soldier, but he’s already gone.

Red Skull is taken to Hydra base as residual brainwashing of Samson and Falcon is to be treated. That last line Iron Man says strikes me as a tad odd.

Rating: 8.5/10

Next week: we’ll get the true identity of the Winter Soldier, the return of the Hulk, the reveal of the Red Hulk, side characters assemble and we the Kree finally do something.

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