Guilty Pleasures #32 - Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow

You may remember way back when I reviewed Ultimate Avengers 2, a not particularly well received sequel to a better, though far from perfect movie that was Ultimate Avengers. I’m not going to review that movie. But there is a movie I am going to review and it came in the same collection. Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow.

I don’t have a lot to say about this one so let’s just dive in.

We open… somewhere where 4 children ask a man who will later be revealed to be an elderly Tony Stark to tell the story of the Avengers. For some reason he won’t refer to them by name. So Cap and Black Widow fell in love and had a kid, Giant Man and the Wasp fell in love (they kind of always were but… that’s a kettle of fish for another day) and had a kid, Black Panther found his Queen, god knows who that is and had a kid, and Thor returned to Asgard and presumably fell in love and had a kid. But in the tradition for a story for young kids, it turns into nightmare fuel when Ultron returned and conquered the Avengers. They managed to hide their children away from Ultron, knowing that they’d provide hope.

And so the Avengers lost and all died, good night kids!

So let’s get introduced to the little monsters, shall we? We cut back to them 12 years later where they’re grown to… whatever f*cking age they are. We have Azari, Black Panther’s son who has additional electrical powers for some reason, Henry Pym, the son of Hank and Janet Pym, he’s the annoying one with stinger, flight and shrinking powers. Torrun, son of Thor, who’s been dreaming of finding her way back to Asgard, she possesses a sword which I guess is made of Uru, and James, son of Cap and Black Widow, with almost nothing in common with Black Widow whatsoever, who’s gotten a tad lazy over the years and has that holo-shield thing you sometimes saw in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

I’ll spare the details of the tag scene since it’s largely inconsequential. An alarm goes off and Tony sends them to their rooms, I can see that lasting… Vision enters the room, badly damaged and shuts down. Ultron’s machines have been upgraded and were capable of damaging him even whilst he was density shifting, the damage was the cause of the alarm, his access key was damaged. Tony takes him to the workshop and tells the others to stay put.

Tony unlocks a secret entrance to the workshop and because kids be kids, they’re following, although Azari briefly objects but Torrun absorbs his lightning. Pym opens the secret entrance and they head inside. James remembers briefly being in there before, scared and holding onto a railing. For no reason whatsoever the lights turn on and revealing iron-man versions of their parents. And here they mention Giant Man and Black Widow by name, but not anyone else, which strikes me as odd. James stands by the Cap statue.

They head into the workshop and see Tony working on Thor. Vision reports that in 12 years Ultron has conquered half the planet. Which given that’s Ultron seems a little slow to me. Especially since they knocked out most if not all of the biggest threats. Also Clint Barton’s son is alive because of course he is.

James wonders whether the machine has the memories of his father, and pays no concern whatsoever to his mother, that’s nice. Also, this is the first time we here hear him referred to as Captain America Anyway, he says the word ‘online’ and activates it, that’s really stupid. He wakes up the other suits and they go off to pursue Ultron. James tries to stop them but ultimately it does no good and they launch. Pym and Azari are spotted by Tony.

With the Iron Avengers Launched, Ultron is able to track them down. Tony orders Pym to detach Vision’s head. Ultron easily begins dispatching and taking control of the Iron Avengers. Tony orders the kids to evacuate but Ultron commences his attack. Before they can attack Iron man uses his uni-beam to hold him off.

They enter the control centre, into a Quinjet which Vision’s head takes control of and leaves the area. Iron Man is unfortunately defeated by Ultron but upon realising the children have left, he decides to take Tony in alive. The kids can see Tony’s capture but whilst Vision has control of the ship they can do nothing. Fortunately, Vision suffers a power failure because apparently being plugged into the machine didn’t provide any, sure why not?

James feels guilty about leading Ultron to their house and Torrun wants to fight, so they ask Pym to take the controls and head to the Capital of the Ultron State, Ultra City. Forgive me if I’m looking backwards on this but isn’t Ultron’s imperative to eliminate all life or replace it with robots, why would he need a city?

Anyway, Pym has no idea how to fly the jet and no idea where Ultra City is, naturally they’re landing there in the next scene, or trying to before being shot down by Ultron’s defences and rescued by Torrun. Somehow they make it into the city unharmed and Torrun begins acting like an idiot and getting the attention of the entire city. Look, you may or may not be invulnerable but the rest of your team certainly aren’t. THINK!

Turns out she isn’t invulnerable and she’s knocked out, time for a pound in the jar I think

She’s especially in trouble when the robo-avengers arrive, the others are brought into the building by mechanical hands. Torrun is rescued by Hawkeye’s son, but has to leave her sword behind. Tony is interrogated by Ultron about the children as the children meet the resistance, I suppose, who are wearing leftover Ultron parts and are led by Hawkeye’s son, who I’m going to call Hawkeye since that’s what he calls himself. With Ultron tapped into security feeds, they have to move fast to survive.

They begin shop talk about family, Hawkeye thought he as the last avenger, his father was leading the scavengers and with his death, the burden passed to him. Torrun looks forlorn, she lost her sword and her father did nothing. Hawkeye doesn’t think Ultron takes prisoners but an old woman, who we find out later is Bette Ross, confirms he’s likely alive in Ultron’s citadel.

Hawkeye shows them the way in, but refuses to go any further. They hitch a ride on a moving tower because of course there’s one of those and use an electrical bolt to open their way into the main building. Unfortunately, Ultron’s defences activate and floor begins collapsing around them, well it would be unfortunate if one didn’t have enhanced reflexes, 2 didn’t go through and the other could fly. Torrun still lacks confidence which James to tries restore. Yeah, her confidence is in direct relation to the possession of her sword.

They find a vault containing some old Avengers equipment. Iron Man’s armour, Cap’s shield and various other trinkets. Also, this is the first time I see all of them referred to by name, they then unveil a collection of other ‘trophies.’ This is not really important. They rescue Tony but he knows it’s a trap. He built Ultron after all. OK, I was fine with this in Age of Ultron since Hank Pym had not been introduced yet, here Hank Pym is on the table, his son is standing right next to them, why couldn’t Ultron have been a collaborative effort like it was in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes? I get the need to tie him to Tony, sort of, one it provides some exposition and gives a little more weight for Tony to be taken alive, still, collaborative effort.

Anyway, the Iron Avengers appear and Ultron is about to kill James but Hawkeye and the resistance appear having got in somehow, allowing their escape. After exposition about the truth which I would hope is reasonably obvious Bette reveals that the Hulk survived and is in the desert. With Hawkeye’s help, they escape. Torrun is still depressed about the lack of sword. Some drama later they arrive in the desert. Betty already assured them that Bruce Banner wouldn’t help. This confirms that but James has another idea, bring Ultron to the Hulk. And destroying a single body would apparently fix everything. Batman, what do you think of this plan?

Nah, that’s a little harsh, what about you, Iron Man?

Fair.

Torrun still doesn’t have her sword so she backs away, saying they can’t defeat him. Everyone else is in and they begin re-powering the escape vessel so Ultron can sense it and come running. The Iron Avengers are sent out first. Naturally, Banner isn’t too pleased about their plan. Torrun meanwhile falls to her knees and begs for help from her father. At this moment of humility her sword finally comes back to her. She’ll be returning to her normal self forthwith. Arc complete?

Tony tries to help them out against the Iron Avengers, telling them to target exposed joints and not getting locked onto one opponent as Torrun rejoins them. The Iron Avengers attack and it begins. Bette tries to coax Bruce into helping and with Tony knocked out it’s not looking good out there, even with Pym having grown to giant form. James manages to take care of Iron Cap but Black Widow takes down his shield, he uses Iron Cap’s to take her out. Pym takes down Iron Giant Man but he unleashes Iron Wasps from his chest, they don’t seem to do a lot. James helps out and tells Pym and try and anger the Hulk out.

Iron Cap breaks out of his predicament and Steve goes to fight. Iron Giant Man recovers as well. Pym starts blasting Bruce with his stingers but the Iron Wasps’ stings seem to deal the big blow that triggers his transformation. The Hulk comes out and blows up the head of Iron Giant Man, crushes the remains of Iron Black Widow. Ultron arrives to finish him off. Azari destroys Iron Black Panther with his electric powers whilst Hawkeye destroys Iron Hawkeye with some explosive arrows, Torrun stabs through Iron Thor and James finishes off Iron Cap. But the Hulk is ultimately defeated by Ultron.

The children give everything, but in the end, they’re not able to do anything. Pym manages to motivate the Hulk to recover and keep fighting. He gives a major beat down to Ultron and eventually destroys him. Well, that was anti-climactic. Anyway, the Hulk is still angry and targeting Pym because he stung him earlier. I think Pym’s peeing his suit right now. Fortunately, Bette is around and he promises never to sting him again, and that’s enough this time. They head off together. Ultron begins repairing himself but Torrun isn’t having that, she flings the parts into space, forgetting to send them off in different directions and freezing in the process. Fortunately, Thor comes to her to save her, he invites her home but she ultimately refuses, her family is on Earth.

Torrun returns in new battle armour but still with the boob dents. Lovely, for those people who like to ogle over teenage girls. Yeah, I know you don’t want to go full Power Puff Girls reboot and remove boobs entirely but they could be a little subtler than that, come on. They still have to defeat robots in Ultra City so… Avengers Assemble

That was Next Avengers: Legends of Tomorrow. Is it good, but that doesn’t mean it’s terrible either.

For a PG movie, this is quite a dark threat, whilst they’re probably limited with on-screen death, the situation is actually pretty dour. Ultron has control of the planet and has killed several founding Avengers. Only Thor and Iron Man are left. And Thor is gone.

The story is relatively solid, aside from the odd minor plot-hole here; the pacing is decent, allowing for some good character moments, which I’ve largely glossed over in my summary.

Having said that, character is the biggest issue with this story. Pym and Azari have no character arc to them. And for the rest of them, their arc is resolved poorly. Steve’s comeback from laziness is almost instantaneous, there’s not a lot more to his arc although he becomes more of the leader Cap was during the movie.

Torrun’s character arc is that which I mentioned during the film. I get what the idea of it was, for to learn some humility by facing a crippling defeat. However, the problem is after facing that defeat she basically gives up and continues praying for help. It would’ve been better in my opinion if the sword had returned to her after she’d elected to fight again.

With Hawkeye (Jr), his arc was about courage, unfortunately it’s an arc that resolves itself more-or-less off-screen. It gets very little build-up, not helped by the fact we’re almost half way into the movie before we see and the resolution is ultimately what you’d expect from a dramatic standpoint as opposed to a character moment.

The voice acting is pretty strong for the most part, I don’t think anyone was particularly miscast, maybe the actor who played Thor for 2 minutes but…

Despite having a PG rating it delivers on the action, even if some of the conclusions can get anti-climactic and the animation looks good.

Rage Rating -50%

Images/clips used in this review are from Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, Justice League Unlimited and The Avengers/Avengers Aseemble and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use