Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes

[Prowl1984]

I know it hasn't officially started yet but has anyone been watching the Micro-episodes on youtube? I wasn't impressed at first, wasn't too fussed on the animation or the voice acting but the more of them I watched the more it started to grow on me! The short character based stories seemed completely unrelated but are now starting to thread together quite nicely and I've found myself loving the animation! anyone else have any thoughts?
 

[Prowl1984]

So now that the series is pretty much in full swing is anyone watching it yet? It's pretty good considering it's being shown on the Disney Channel...
 

[Baxter]

I'm really enjoying it. Its one of my favorite shows on TV. Animated or otherwise.
 

[Prowl1984]

Yay I'm not the only one! It really is a great show, I'm just hoping it doesn't go the way of Wolverine and the X-Men and get cancelled before its time! I'm liking how all the seeds sown in the mini-episodes are all coming to fruition, the best so far being Gamma World.
 

[tahukanuva]

I've caught a few episodes. It's a durned nifty show. I really quite like the Zemo.
 

[Prowl1984]

Originally Posted by tahukanuva

I've caught a few episodes. It's a durned nifty show. I really quite like the Zemo.

voiced by the guy who played Byron in Babylon 5 dontcha know! looking forward to seeing how they handle the Skrull/Kree war
 

[Ozz]

Between this, Spectacular Spider-Man, Wolverine and the X-Men, and Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Marvel cartoons are pretty great lately. If only they weren't cancelled prematurely.

In Avengers, I especially like that the various plots are moving forward at the same time, like you had Black Panther getting scenes in every episode between The Breakout and the one where they go to Wakanda. IMAA lacked that - episodes about Makluan Rings rarely touched anything else, and so on.

I never liked Wasp more than in this cartoon.

I also dig that the guy voicing Iron Man sounds like Robert Downey Jr. half the time.
 

[Prowl1984]

The voice talent as a whole is pretty awesome. I've never been a big fan of Wasp but i'm loving her in this show! I forgot all about Spectacular Spider-Man! I'm assuming it's been cancelled like WATXM? Haven't checked out Armoured Adventures yet.
 

[Ozz]

SS-M was cancelled, because now Marvel is doing their own cartoon, Ultimate Spider-Man. Which is a shame, as Spectacular already had Ultimate vibe and what was foreshadowed (Hobgoblin) seemed interesting.

Armored Adventures is a fun take on Iron Man and his supporting cast as teenagers. Pepper is even more awesome than Wasp in Avengers.
 

[ArcadeGannon]

Avengers is an alright show, but I do like Armored Adventures more. And I have to agree, Pepper is a really cute and fun character and definitely my favorite
 

[Prowl1984]

Just watched the first 3 episodes of Armored Adventures, not too bad, took a while to get used to the teenage setting of the show. Really not keen on the animation though, the characters faces are severely lacking in detail and expression but Iron Man and the background animation is pretty good. I'll stick with it and see how it plays out, i didn't like "Transformers: Animated" at first because i didn't like the animation but then came to love that show so ya never know.
 

[Ozz]

The animation is something you have get used to, I guess, but so was the one in X-Men: Evolution and it didn't stop me from enjoying the story.

I'd also advice not to check who's appearing in future episodes. There's at least one nerdgasm moment near the end of the season.

The bad thing about the series is that for some reason it was released in fullscreen on DVD. I thought that when you're releasing a product you want people to buy it, but I guess I was wrong.
 

[angloconvoy]

Just started watching this and so far I'm pleasantly surprised. I feel pretty much the same way as I did about the Lionsgate Doctor Strange animated. When they set the bar this high, a live action movie is going to have a hell of a time trying to live up to it.
 

[Cliffjumper]

AFAIK, the live-action film isn't a to-the-letter adaptation of The Ultimates, so it's on a hiding to nothing anyway... I'm not even sure it's worth bothering to go and see a film on the characters when Bryan Hitch has drawn them, there's no way it'll look as good.

[Not directed at anyone] I'm never sure why people get het up about films of comics - at least of good comics anyway. We've already got the comics, and in some cases (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Ultimates) they're perfect as they are, so what's the point in going to see them as a film that might at best get a fair bit of it right, and might at worse assume that Night Owl and Batman are the same basic guy or that V needs to be wacky?[/not directed at anyone]
 

[angloconvoy]

I can answer your question there, to a degree. It's fun to slag off crappy movies, especially ones basic on beloved characters. Same applies to poor sequels. They don't cheapen the good material, as long as you have the ability to box them off seperately.
The Lionsgate Ultimate Avengers movies were about as good a film version of Ultimates as anyone could expect, I'd say. Also, Planet Hulk made me happy enough.
I think the real thing, though, is seeing anything which you personally have an attachment to watered down for general consumption. It always gets a person's back up. It's not only comic movies, but sports, alcohol, renaming him "Slave Jim", whatever.

That said, recently comic movies have been doing enough to entertain me for the duration. I even enjoyed the Wolverine movie that straight up admitted it was a Wolverine movie. Didn't bother watching Watchmen as the trailer really didn't catch my interest (apart from reminding me to finally get around to reading the damn thing, which I'd been meaning to do for years).

Of course, my comment about the Avengers show and Doctor Strange setting the bar high is more one of mild bemusement on a corporate level. The higher you set the bar on a low earner, the more effort and money you're going to need to throw into the big earner.
 

[Cliffjumper]

It just makes me wonder why people get excited about them is all, because surely from the point of view of a comic fan, it's not going to be improved upon as the best comics work best in that medium (even with something 'cinematic' like The Ultimates - half the joy is drinking in the detail of the artwork which you couldn't do in ten seconds of a Helicarrier falling out of the sky).

But I always thought it was all a bit of a chance for comic fans to show off, really. They can all go "Look, there's a movie based on Ant-Man coming out, and I've been going on about Ant-Man for years, how ahead of the curve am I?". And then they can look down their noses at the thing, glad that it's so different from the source, and keep their elitism.
 

[angloconvoy]

Hah, from my years as one of those folks who hang around in a little comic book shop I've seen plenty of that. That said, when they made the Ghost Rider movie, I was actually happy enough that they bothered (and managed to include Sam Elliot) that I could forgive Nicholas Cage being in it. They're making a sequel too, which Cage reckons he made more of an effort to be more in the spirit of the thing and a bit less rubbish (I'm paraphrasing, but that was basically what he said). Still, I do find it fun to pick these things apart and make the comparisons. And I do hate the Constantine movie mostly on it's own merits, but trying to pass it off as an adaptation does admittedly further colour my opinion.

Actually though, you're right when you say the best comics work best in that medium, but super heroes as a franchise (primarily as in Marvel and DC) have been proven to be versatile, with one character being fantastic and terrible even within the same media (including the comics)
 

[Cliffjumper]

Yeh, I do think it works better for your big supername properties - with something like X-Men or Batman you just have to get a few basic things right and you can otherwise do largely as you wish with the storyline because, let's be honest, how few normal people have any idea what the plot of even big hitters like DKR or The Killing Joke is?

What I really don't see the point in is trying to directly adapt storylines rather than characters - only 300's really come close, and that's only because 300 being based on something which really happened, meaning they could just make Mental Gladiator. It's the "Oh, this comic's done well, let's make another comic into a film without bothering to read it first" attitude that bothers me - watch V for Vendetta and tell me whether you think the Wachowskis actually read the whole book, or just skimmed it and decided to nick the names for their stupid Bush allegory.
 

[angloconvoy]

I never read 300, but from what I heard, the movie was basically a frame for frame copy of the comic. In which case, there seems very little point apart from bringing it to a wider audience.

I think you've hit the nail on the head though. Using the characters in a different canon is all well and good, but trying to adapt a particular story usually falls flat.
 

[Cliffjumper]

Originally Posted by angloconvoy

I never read 300, but from what I heard, the movie was basically a frame for frame copy of the comic. In which case, there seems very little point apart from bringing it to a wider audience.

Aye; the original comic is just the battle of Thermopalae (I know I've spelt that wrong) turned up to 12 (the original incident seems to be an 11 anyway...). Adapting the comic rather than the battle meant they could get away with making things a bit more OTT and reap the comic-film audience.

There's a lot less nudity in the film, though... I wonder if it would have attracted quite such a wide macho audience if the Spartans had spent most of the films with their cocks out.