AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x008

"SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED"
Written by Brandon Auman | Directed by Sebastian Montes

The Plot: The Avengers stop the Mandrill from robbing a bank. Subsequently, the group meets with Tony Stark's assistant, Pepper Potts, to tour their new home, Avengers Mansion. The Avengers test out the facility's training room, then Iron Man briefs the team on the escaped villains.

That night, Hulk begins seeing visions of Bruce Banner, taunting him over his submissive position with the Avengers. Meanwhile, JARVIS informs Thor that there's an intruder in the mansion. "Banner", revealed as the Enchantress, pushes Hulk to attack Thor, but the Jade Gaint leaves instead. When Pepper tells Thor that he needs to find the Hulk, the Thunder God tracks him down in Manhattan and a fight breaks out between the two.

Elsewhere, Nick Fury meets with Tony Stark and tries to convince him that SHIELD wants to help the Avengers, but Stark doesn't agree. When word of the Thor/Hulk battle interrupts their meeting, Tony assembles the Avengers to break it up. Iron Man and Thor quickly realize that the Hulk has been enchanted, and when Hulk injures Wasp, he comes to his senses and leaps away. As soon as he departs, Enchantress and the Executioner ambush the remaining team members.

The Avengers find themselves on the defensive, but Banner convinces Hulk to return and help them. With his help, the group overcomes the villains, but they escape before the Avengers can capture them. Following the battle, Hulk maintains his desire to quit, and leaps away. As he rages somewhere in the arctic, he doesn't notice Captain America's frozen shield nearby.

Continuity Notes: As with the last episode, the group shot concluding the opening credits depicts the founding Avengers lineup of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Wasp, and Ant/Giant-Man.

Mandrill is the first villain re-incarcerated following the breakout, prompting Iron Man to announce that there are "seventy-three to go." Later, Tony says that he's working with Reed Richards on a new super-prison in the Negative Zone to house the recaptured villains.

In a couple of sub-plot scenes, we see Black Panther investigating some storage containers on a dock in Manhattan, then spying on the Avengers as they return to the mansion following their battle. Another sub-plot sees Hank Pym working on his Ultron robot.

The Avengers communicards debut in this episode, along with Avengers Mansion, which Tony explains was previously a museum run by his Maria Stark Foundation. The mansion has excensive sub-levels with laboratories, Iron Man's armory, a hangar (housing two Quinjets), a meeting room, and the afore-mentioned training room.

Thor and Hulk are said to be the only Avengers living at the mansion full-time, and Wasp states that she wants to move in as well, even though she has a Midtown penthouse.

The legendary "Avengers assemble" phrase is used for the first time this episode, as Iron Man says it to summon the group. (I remember being surprised when I watched this show that every character seemed to say it as "Avengers -- assemble!", while for my entire life I had always read it more like, "Avengers, assemble!"

Do I Know That Voice? Not this week.

My Thoughts: I vividly remember watching this episode way back in 2010. It was the moment that made me realize EARTH's MIGHTIEST HEROES was something special. It's a good episode on its own terms, with some nice character moments and the introduction of most of the Avengers classic trappings (which I'll get to in a moment). But more than that, it has sub-plots. Black Panther is seen spying on the Avengers, while Hank Pym is shown working on Ultron. Neither of these things is commented upon or resolved here. They're just little moments which make you feel like you're watching a vintage serialized comic come to life. And they weren't anything I was used to seeing in superhero cartoons back then, for the most part. Aside from the first couple seasons of X-MEN in the early nineties, you didn't see this sort of thing in animation. Even a semi-serialized show like JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED didn't really do something like this, showing a mystery character spying on the heroes without it tying into the episode's narrative in some reason.

Now I will say that my recollection is that after the first ten or so episodes, this style of sub-plot didn't really continue -- but by that point I was already hooked on the show. And for these early installments, at least, we have sub-plots and they are glorious.

Now, on to the Avengers' trappings mentioned above. I'm thankful this series came out when it did, because it was allowed to really play in the classic Silver/Bronze Age Avengers world to an extent that I don't think would be allowed nowadays. Today, most Marvel animation seems to be heavily influenced by the movies. And I don't blame the producers for that; the films are how the vast majority of the public knows and recognizes these characters. But at this very early stage in the MCU, before AVENGERS had hit theaters, EMH is able to pick and choose elements from the comics to suit its preferred approach to the material. And one of those elements is that the Avengers are operating out of their mansion rather than Avengers Tower.

Mind you, I like Avengers Tower; I think it's really cool-looking in the movies. But, simply because it came first and represents the era of Avengers that I love, I will always prefer Avengers Mansion. So it's great to see it here, and throughout the series, as the Avengers base of operations. Plus we have the communicards/identicards, which are totally absent from the movies and which I've always loved in the comics, as well as Quinjets being an Avengers thing rather than something borrowed from SHIELD as in the movies. (Though it would've been really cool if the jets looked more like their comic book counterparts.)

Look, I'll just put it this way: I found myself getting little goosebump flashes through the entire scene where Tony walks the Avengers through the mansion. The only thing missing was an actual human Jarvis as the team's butler. But in any case, the further I get into this rewatch (and I'm only on episode 8!), the more I remember that his series was probably the best direct adaptation of the comics to the screen that we're ever likely to see. I can't wait to see what comes next.

Spoiler: It's the arrival of Captain America in episode 9, "Living Legend". See you for that one next week!