Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 1, Episode 9: Living Legend
So this is the "dig Captain America out of ice" episode, which could've easily been a boring superhero origin story segment. But it's actually done reasonably well, acting as a dual origin story for Captain America and his modern-day nemesis, Baron Zemo. Well, not so much an origin story for the Captain as going through the motions of something that needs to happen. While looking for the Hulk after the events of the previous episode, the Avengers end up meeting Captain America's frozen body in the ice, and everyone who isn't Thor recognizes this in-universe icon immediately.
And, in an actually cool bit that actually does make sense, Captain America assumes that these strange robots and shrinking men are actually Hydra creations, and considering the weird-ass monsters that the Captain fights in WWII, it's not that hard to believe him. Oh, and we get the pretty cool moment where Captain America basically lays down the pain on four Avengers at once. And, yes, they're aiming to subdue rather than defeat, but it's still pretty badass to see what's otherwise a strongman with a shield do battle with metahumans, a high-tech suit of armour and a literal god. The Avengers manage to talk him down, and even Iron Man treats Captain America with a lot more respect compared to his Avengers counterpart, seemingly because they don't seem to share the instant rivalry they do in the live-action movies.
Eventually the explanations come out, and Captain America is just insanely shell-shocked at the revelations that everyone gave him. He's woken up a couple decades into the future, everyone he knows and love are dead, and, sure, his country might've won the day, but the world he knew is basically over. And that moroseness is definitely well-shown in his quiet scenes as Iron Man and Wasp try to talk to him.
Meanwhile, on the bad guy side of things, we get the origin story of Baron Zemo via a flashback when he fought Captain America during WWII and gets doused with a bunch of ambiguous cheimcals that apparently gave him immortality. In the present day, Zemo challenges Strucker in the Hydra base, and apparently Strucker had, in the past, usurped Zemo and allowed him to be captured by SHIELD. But Zemo has no interest in Hydra, leaving the organization for Strucker, before stalking off to do what he wants to do -- kill Captain America. Baron Zemo then enlists Arnim Zola -- here in his full headless-torso-robot-creature comic book glory, and unleashes a bunch of... goop monsters that look like rejects from a Ghostbusters cartoon? Huh. That part was a bit hard to swallow, but okay. I do like the fact that the depraved mad scientist Arnim Zola names his creation "Doughboy".
The Doughboys attack the Statue of Liberty, and none of the Avengers' attacks really manage to put a dent in them. There's a fair bit of repetition in the Doughboy attack, but the focus is clearly Captain America in the mansion, where he battles with Baron Zemo alongside Wasp, and the show manages to make Captain America's shock and resolution when faced with a threat he does know, and his gradual transformation from morose to resolute, really well. Oh, and Black Panther is observing the whole thing, and ends up assisting Captain America for a single move before slinking back into the shadows. We get a cool scene of Captain America slamming his shield down to protect the Wasp from a grenade, before the two of them head off to save the rest of the Avengers from the Doughboys (because Wasp's bio-energy powers can affect them).
It's a pretty simple but well-executed episode, and in addition to integrating Captain America to the central cast, also helps to build up Baron Zemo as a strong contender for a recurring villain, because at the end of the episode the Enchantress recruits Baron Zemo for an organization of her own, which definitely is neat. Zemo's a great antagonist here, clearly intelligent in a way that's far, far more personal in his vendetta against the Captain, putting him in relatively stark contrast to most other Captain America villains I've seen (which admittedly aren't that many). Good episode, though. A neat, self-contained episode that goes through the motions of the Captain's reintroduction into society, but also manages to tell a pretty great story on its own right.
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