Basics of Superheroes: Earth's Mightiest Heroes part 1

While the main focus of this blog will be on movies, simply because that’s where the big bucks and most people’s attention are, I decided to open with a general review of a TV series instead. Said TV series is The Avenger’s: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and it is by far the best adaptation of the source material I have seen.

First a little background on the series itself. The series ran from September 22, 2010 to May 5, 2013. An impressive run, but keep in mind there was a ten month gap between season 1 and 2. David Yost served as Head Writer for the series. If you don’t recognize the name, look him up, he’s done several popular Movies, Comic books and TV series, a fair number will be covered here later. The show features a large Marvel Universe, where most of the villains the team encounters have been in existence for some time and have fought individual members prior to the shows start.

An interesting side note, this series features a combination of two distinctly different Nick Fury’s, the Director of SHIELD (The Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, think International Police Force). For the most part he resembles his younger African American counterpart from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, but for the first half of the series he has the black and white hair style of the main continuity. It’s revealed early on that he had a few years drained out of him by a supervillain. Now, back to the main point.

The series centers on the Avengers. I know what you’re thinking, “No Duh,” or something along those lines. Let me explain. The Avengers have existed since the 1960s, much like the X-men, Justice League, and so on. Like these other team series members come and go, focus shifts, leaderships change, characters die, get replaced, and ultimately come back to life again, spin-offs are created etc. There are core members, honorary members, probationary members, members in training, and potential members to name a few subheadings. Because of that, the member’s lists for these teams are really, really, really long. In fact there are over Forty Avenger’s before the 90s. A lot of talent to pick from.

Most series before EMH used what I like to call the All-Star Method. They picked the best, most well-known heroes for their team. It works in varying degrees. In the 90s X-men the series starts more or less In medias res, the X-men are an established secret hero team. Their All-Star’s include Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee (less of an All-Star and more of a perfect Rookie) and IGN’s 4th greatest superhero of all time Wolverine. They acknowledge in flashback episodes the original five members (Jean Grey, Cyclops, Ice-man, Angel, and Beast for those not in the know) and make it clear that the X-men roster in universe has changed a bit over the years. Others, like the Justice League, rework origins. They swap out original member Green Lantern Hal Jordan for his second successor/temporary replacement John Stewart, and another original member Aquaman for Hawkgirl. Don’t get me wrong, the heroes swapped in are good strong characters but I personally prefer the EMH set up above these other two methods.

What is this method? Why it’s the Original Team method. No replacements, no right alias different secret ID, no expanded roster for the first few episodes, just the original five members. That isn’t to say changes weren’t made, there were many but in my opinion the original team is what matters.

The team consists of three real big names; Ironman, Thor, and Hulk, and two that have been neglected a bit over the years; Ant-man/Giant-man (I’ll be referring to him as Ant-man for simplicities sake) and Wasp.

Ironman is more or less what the movies and previous TV series have given us before. He’s a showboat and ego centric but overall his heart…er Arc-reactor is in the right place. He finances the Avengers out of his own pocket and even allows them to use his mansion as their home base. His main focus before the series began is on finding stolen Stark Industries Tech and stopping villainous groups like AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics, a group of nerds pushed too far) from abusing it, a plot point that really isn’t brought up again except when he’s shouting that some villain’s latest death machine “Has my tech” in it. He often butts heads with other members, but I’ll get to that in their sections. As the series progresses he develops into a good leader for the Avengers, a job that he splits with Captain America once the old boy is thawed. He also has Jarvis, who is the snide sarcastic Brit you’d expect.

Hulk is the usual furious green beast but they made a rather interesting change. Hulk is a main character but Bruce Banner, the scientist irradiated with gamma beams and Hulk’s tortured alter ego, is merely a special guest star. This allowed the audience to bond with Hulk in a way that I don’t think other shows have allowed. They keep the psychological shtick the two have done for years but it is greatly underplayed in comparison to Hulk’s original TV series. While he is his usual Green self, his intellect is more on par with the Grey Hulk. Basically this means he’s able to hold intelligent conversations with people while still keeping his usual angry demeanor. He still loves to fight and smash but he also holds conversations and forms strong friendships with other Avengers. He is hostile at best with the other Avengers for the first few episodes but later forms strong friendships with Wasp, and two later recruits Captain America and Hawkeye.

Thor Odinson, like the previous two, is very much like his movie counterpart except this Thor is a little more serious most of the time. He’s the god with a pretty serious god complex. Thor flings his hammer, talks a lot of old timey English, and is rather grim. He physically brawls with Hulk on a number of occasions, they are the two biggest contenders for the strongest there after all. He often argues with Ironman over which causes more danger, Magic or Technology. He is perhaps the single most powerful hero on the team and incredibly stubborn, two traits that get him into trouble more than once. In fact the overarching villains of the first season are his adoptive brother Loki, who is also a lot more serious than his movie version, and a crazy magic wielding Asgardian stalker Amora the Enchantress. Despite the baggage that comes with him Thor is a central figure in the Avengers and always entertaining to watch.