TV Retrospective: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 2 episodes 11-15

Infiltration

We approach the Skrull section of the Kree-Skrull war, the episodes that follow will this 2-parter will be more stand-alones and 2-parters rather than contribute to an overall story.

We open at SWORD headquarters where Damaclese picks up a space-ship entering the earth’s atomosphere, Miss Marvel is in pursuit and is alerted to it being a Skrull ship, she calls in the Avengers for some reason. Inside the cockpit of the ship are the Avengers?

Yeah, whilst the cover the Skrulls try to make is quite clever, it’s still obvious that they’re skrulls thanks to Thor’s side-stories.  Iron Man says they were captured by Skrulls recently after the Asgard crisis. The Hulk managed to break himself and the others out and there we are. Just so happens we’re in Wakanda, and the people are watching.

Meanwhile at the house from the Iron Man movies Tony is busy trying to find a way to detect the skrulls but having little luck (again, it would have been nice if it wasn’t entirely obvious to the audience who the Skrulls were) Tony is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Doctor Doom.

Carol somehow buys everything as we cut to Nick Fury examining lists of potential Skrulls, including some X-men cameos. Daisy reports that the Hulk was captured by is untraceable now. As the heroes head to Wakanda the real Black Panther stands at its defence along with armoured troops and weapons

Doom know about the Skrulls and how to detect them, he would’ve been able to do this soon had Iron Man not destroyed his scanner back in the Private War of Doctor Doom. He gives Iron Man the key, designed to work with his armour, not wanting the Skrulls to take over ‘his’ world. He leaves saying that fighting the Skrulls would be beneath him.

Fury sees footage of the Hulk being surrendering to the Hulkbusters, Fury remarks that it doesn’t seem very much like Cap, then they recall footage of Cap being quick to battle against the Skrulls, which clinches it that Cap is the Skrull in the Avengers. She tells Quake to tell Widow to bring in Iron Man

As the Skrulls take out the Wakandan defences, the real avengers arrive, well Wasp and Hawkeye anyway. Iron Man installs the scanner in his armour, Black Widow arrives to send him to Fury. The Avengers begin fighting their Skrull counterparts, Skrull Iron Man tells everyone to target the panther. Skrull Thor is taken out and his identity as a Skrull is revealed. Black Panther has taken out his Skrull duplicate, finally convincing Carol which side are the Skrulls.

Carol fights Skrull Iron Man and the Hulk, the Wasp takes down Skrull Cap and Iron Man. Hawkeye takes down his Skrull duplicate and Skrull wasp with an arrow catch and throw. Skrull Iron Man is still in the battle, so the Black Panther and Carol land him another blow. The Avengers prepare to leave to New York but Black Panther decides to stay, he can still not trust them. Carol brings in a speech saying that the experience has made her do a complete 180 on her previous stance on the matter.

Iron Man arrives to talk to Fury but Fury was concerned that his agent inside SHIELD, Mockingbird, didn’t tell him about the Hulk’s attack (again, this might’ve been interesting if we didn’t already know that she was a fake) Skrull mockingbird takes out Fury, Quake and Black Widow and uses a virus uploaded into the Iron Man suit (mostly likely using the data stolen Cap had from the Skrull assault) to take him down. She gives the signal to start the invasion as a massive ship arrives.

Like I said, this would’ve been a better episode if we didn’t already know who was and who wasn’t a skrull from previous episodes

Rating 7.5/10

Secret Invasion

At A.I.M. headquarters, the scientist supreme, a skrull, has modified a satellite system they’ve taken over to wipe out every human on the planet, when confronted about this by a scientist he takes them out.

We see Damaclese base and the SHIELD heicarrier, as well as avengers masnion are targets of the Skrulls. We also see the invisible woman set off a timer in the baxter building. Maria Hill confronts Quartermain as he sets the self-destruct as the real people arrive on earth.

The alien from a few episodes back orders all SWORD personnel off the station. Maria Hill gives an evac order and is shot, only to be revealed to be one of those model life decoys fury occasionally uses. As Avengers mansion, the Heli-carrier and Damaclese base explode and the baxter building is sent, Maria Hill departs from the scene.

Cap calls the Avengers into Washington DC where they’re quickly shot down as a skrull ship, with an army of super-skrulls with various powers attack.

The real Maria arrives at Fury’s secret bunker and chases off the Skrull Queen. She’d found them weeks ago and kept it quiet. They need to save Iron Man to publically reveal the skrulls. To do that they need to remove the arc reactor in his chest.

The Avengers are taken out by the super-skrulls and they finally work out that Cap was the skrull among them. They use a camera-man at the scene to broadcast the skrull’s message from ‘Cap’ asking for the human’s surrender.

Maria saves Iron Man and says their next move is to take out the skrulls after calling in a friend. Cap and the rescued humans arrive but it’s already too late for them. But hope comes in the form of Iron Man (where was the camera when that happened) and he’s brought Thor for backup. In case you’re wondering, no, Thor remains part of the team for the remaining episodes, and the Surtur crisis is brought up twice in the remaining half of the season. He manages to stun several of the super-skrulls and takes down the skrull. Cap battles Skrull Cap as the Queen orders the satellites activated.

They project a sonic wave that stuns all the avengers except Iron Man and Thor. Iron Man tells Thor to destoy the satellites (there goes HBO again) which is does so impressively easily making me wonder why they even bothered. Skrull Cap has the holo-shield and appears to be winning the fight. Cap says the human spirit is something the skrulls don’t understand before laying a beatdown on Skrull Cap as Thor deals a final blow to the super-skrulls. The Skrull Queen is then taken out.

The baxter building was sent into another dimension but the real invisible woman was somehow able to get them out (go figure. SWORDs base may have been destroyed but thanks to Tony passing on his detection tech, they’re well equipped enough to go hunting for the last skrulls on earth, meanwhile the skrull queen and the super-villains and the skrull queen are locked up in a special section of 42.

Weirdly it’s Cap that walks away, they won but the broken friendships and trust will need trusts (except Cap’s trust wasn’t broken, he never lost faith in the Avengers, he wasn’t caught up in the paranoia, sure the world doesn’t trust him as we’ll soon see but it seems odd to me)

Rating 8/10

Along Came a Spider

Look, it’s not unheard of that a voice actor has his lines redubbed. Robin Williams redubbed over Castello as the Genie in Alladdin and the king of thieves (one of the few bearable things about that movie) At the time, Marvel/Disney had just reacquired rights to use Spider-man in an animated series, and they were going full steam ahead with Ultimate Spider-man. I suppose they wanted to promote Drake Bell as Spider-man, which is why they did the re-dubbing, seeing as they couldn’t exactly replace the main characters who had already recorded a full season’s worth of episodes. That being said I’ve always believed that Josh Keaton is a much better spider-man than Drake bell. So with that rant out of the way, let’s dive in.

Cap and Iron Man are called to the statue, where Cap’s statue has been pushed over by an angry mob, leaving only Bucky’s intact. He says nothing but it’s clear he’s upset. We cut to the daily bugle where J Jonah Jameson (Voiced by J K Simmons as well) has been smearing Cap’s name across his paper for a week. Tony tries to give him assurances from various high levels but Jonah shrugs it off.

Tony offers an exclusive with Cap, Jonah calls in Miss Brandt and Peter Parker to conduct the article. Cap is overseeing a prisoner transfer of Madame HYDRA, the AIM scientist and King Cobra to the Baxter building. The transfer begins as Miss Brandt tries to quiz Cap, but he takes full responsibility for what happened and will not elaborate. One of the lead convoy trucks is blown up by Rattler. The serpent society have come out to break out Viper and Cobra.

Peter manages to sneak off (ditching his camera at some point) as Cap is defeated by the serpent society, Spider-man arrives to save them by a stray shot sends the convoy truck and some of the street crashing down, the truck breaks a hole through a subway trapping a few civilians with them.

Quartermain is injured but alive and the prisoners are intact, but they have the company of the subway passengers as well. The radio in the van was destroyed and the Avengers ID cards aren’t working after the bombing of the mansion. So they have to head to a nearby exit on foot.

Some of the civillians are distrustful of both Cap and Spidey but with the tunnel still looking unstable they have to move to the nearest access ladder. Spidey goes out in front using his spider-light thing to guide the way (a torch that is red and black) Viper warns Cap that the society will not stop trying to free them. Oh, it looks like the A.I.M. Scientist is gone.

Spidey’s spider-sense goes off and he goes to warn Cap. Cap regails him with stories about Spider-man’s own actions and how his situation relates. He will let his actions define him rather than printed words. Now, OK, that’s fine and very Cap to do, however it wouldn’t hurt to defend yourself. Taking responsibility for what happened will ensure people believe it.

Spidey’s sense goes off again as the serpent society attack. Viper demands her release lest the others suffer the consequences. Cap and Spidey attack, allowing Caly to escort the civillians away, however they’re surrounded. Quartermain tries to fight but is quickly overwhelmed, Spidey helps but the battle causes the tunnel to collapse, Spidey holds up what he can, leaving Cap facing the serpent society, including the freed Viper and Cobra on his own, all with the danger of spider-man failing and the tunnel collapsing.

The civillians pitch in, throwing some of the debris at the serpent society. As the tunnel edges closer to collapse Viper tells the society to withdraw. Cap keeps Spidey motivated long enough for Thor to take out a chunk of the earth to provide their rescue, Spidey passes out.

The Bugle prints a headline that Cap saved civillians from both the serpent society and spider-man, much to spidey’s ire. However the people he rescued knew the truth and that’s enough for now (or so says Cap)

It’s a nice episode, pity really the Serpent Society stuff barely gets a follow-up. And the AIM scientist disappears before he does anything interesting (I think he escaped before the tunnel gave in)

Rating 8/10

Behold… The Vision!

A weapon X facility is attacked by the Vision, easily taking out their highly motivated guards, the head of the facility is not pleased. The vision obtains a sample of adamantium.

Wre cut to Wakanda where Hawkeye, Thor and Cap have travelled, Black Panther has offered to repair Cap’s shield. Cap also wants Panther to join, to Hawkeye’s amusment/ire but Panther refuses.

Janet, meanwhile is at the mansion, having her injuries treated by Jane Foster as the vision arrives at the mansion. He wants Captain America’s shield and interrogates the Wasp for information.  She refuses but Jane doesn’t want to see her hurt and tells him. He causes a collapse in the mansion whilst stealing a Quinjet to head to Wakanda.

They detect the jet and prepare a welcoming party for it but the vision is unfazed and knocks out Thor. The vision changes his objective to obtain vibranium and passes the Wakandan people. The vision uses his  powers to take down the wakandans, but Cap and Vision aren’t so easily defeated, he crushes a tree on top of them and throws Thor away, Black Panther calls his people back as Thor summons a storm that somehow doesn’t set the forest on fire. The vision just walks through it

He heads to a vibranium min and attains a sample of vibranium. The Avengers confront him and although a successful vibranium strike does wound him it seems that the avengers are outmatched and he escapes with the vibranium.

He heads to attain a sample of Cap’s shield and if confronted by Hawkeye. His arrows do nothing and the vision eventually destroys his bow. Cap and Thor try and slow the vision down without much success as the Black Panther activates the sonic beam as vision’s hand is inside.

Cap’s shield is repaired and the vison’s density control is also offline. With the mission set to fail, the Vision aborts his mission and retreats. Black Panther notes that the plan wouldn’t have been successful without the aid of his fellow Avengers.

The vision reports to his master, Ultron. He’s disappointed but it doesn’t matter that much, the adamantium he acquired will be sufficient in upgrading him.

It’s a solid episode, establishing the Vision as a force to be reckoned with, which we’ll see more of in the coming episodes.

Rating 8.5/10

Powerless

This episode was aired a bit out of order, ending up being the last episode they air. Its fine from a narrative as it’s rather inconsequential to the rest of the series; it’s the last major chapter in the Surtur arc they never finished.

We open in the middle of yet another super-villain attack as an armoured truck is levelled by the wrecking crew. The police and the military try to stop them but fail, fortunately Hawkeye, Thor, Iron Man and Cap arrive to help

Amora shows this to Loki and says that she’ll share some power with him to exact on Thor. Her spell hits Cap, Iron Man and Thor are hit. Cap is turned back to his frail self, Thor’s powerless and Iron Man is in his prototype suit (not sure how that works but…)

Now, you may question a few things about this. If Surtur has full control of her mind why would she come to Loki like this. It seems as though she’s a bit more willing in this case, it’s an odd point of this episode.

Anyway, the wrecking crew take advantage and break Thor’s leg, Hawkeye provides cover for their escape. The Enchantress warns that if Thor learns humility the spell is broken (what an odd coincidence) and the Enchantress sends in Loki, armed with the destroyer.

The Avengers head into the subway, Cap wants to set an ambush but Thor is still bummed out over his leg. They’re confronted by the wrecking crew. Hawkeye covers their escape once again but runs out of Arrows. The destroyer arrives and takes down the wrecking crew.

They head into a trainyard where Thor explains the origins of the Destroyer before it arrives. It begins to talk with Loki’s voice. Thor finally reveals his location but as the Avengers fight with the destroyer to little avail, The destroyer swat them away like flies. Loki reveals that his gift is from the Enchantress and Thor says nothing.

Thor says the magic words and the spell is reversed. Between them they manage to shut down the destroyer with a massive electric charge. So much for the ultimate weapon. Amora ties up Loki once again and feeds him to the Midgard serpent. She reports to Surtur, but says the seeds have been planted (assuming that means that their objective was the destroyer arriving on earth)

It’s not the strongest episode, it’s not weak, but Loki’s weaker in the destroyer than he was in his normal body which rather defied the point.

Rating 7/10

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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