Super Saturday: Avengers on XD

So just recently, the new cartoon that I've been watching is Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, which I've been viewing piecemeal on YouTube (apparently all of the episodes are available there). I've basically fallen in love with this cartoon, and it's quite rapidly catapulted itself into the league of my top-ever-favorites, like #1 X-Men Evolution, and #2 Justice League. The fact that it has "Disney XD" branding initially made me very skeptical (along with, I suppose, the art style), but it's turned out to be extraordinarily satisfying. It's actually quite mature in terms of character, plot, and theme. Probably the strongest element is that it pictures a very large world (in fact, I'm becoming convinced that this is the single strongest advantage that Marvel has in any of its best incarnations), with lots of different characters and conflicting power-centers, many of whom are untrustworthy, shadowy, and ambiguous (especially SHIELD and the rest of the American industrial-military structure). It's honestly surprising who's allied with whom -- and sometimes who is disguised as what. I love the fact that the story starts in media res, with a legion of supervillains who obviously have their own pre-existing (but left offscreen) backgrounds, with the whole lot staging a massive super-prison breakout at the start of the series -- and thus setting up a totally compelling long-term plot for the show. The episodes are not self-contained, as this larger plot continues to drive the action forward. I adore the fact that there isn't just one, but a whole bevy of "mastermind" super-villains who are all around trying to hatch their own competing conspiracies. I'm really impressed by the characterizations I've seen so far, particularly of the Hulk and Thor, my top-two favorites superheroes. Some pieces of business are delivered very crisply and tellingly. Example: In one episode, Thor tells Jane Foster about the Odinsleep, in which his father is helpless for a week each year in Asgard, and the ongoing argument over whether Thor should be there at that time. Jane asks why he doesn't go: "It is... complicated," says Thor. "Really?" says Jane, "Because it just sounds like you're mad at your dad. There's nothing less complicated than that." I think that's a surprisingly poignant line for a kid's cartoon. Some other stuff: My girlfriend almost burst into tears at how they told the tale of Wonder Man in episode #10. After the "Gamma World" story (hey: RPG shout-out) in episodes #12-13, we were both so terrified, amazed, and jazzed up that we almost couldn't sleep that night. The show also uses a lot of unconventional (for a cartoon) storytelling techniques, like flashbacks, flash-forwards, parallel locations, unusual perspectives, and occasionally running part of the same story twice from a second character's point-of-view. It also seems like someone gets their face melted off about once an episode, yowch! One downside is that the show started with 5 episodes which set up the main characters individually, and these are a bit slow-going. The real fireworks start when the top characters come together and start sparking off each other; but you will probably still want to watch the setup episodes, or else the "Breakout" story with about 500 different characters all running around may be overwhelming. (When consolidated for "Season 1", the setup stories are episodes 3-7, and the Breakout which happens chronologically later is shown as episode 1-2.) I guess one other thing is near the end of Episode 2, where my #1 favorite hero does this in an attempt to take down the master villain: Dude, you just blew up the entirety of Downtown Brooklyn! Oh well, I guess that would've gotten me out of jury duty the other week. Anyway, for those of you still alive, if you like Marvel comics, then you should definitely watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Highly recommended (caution: very habit-forming!) [Top picture by edwick under CC2.]