Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 1, Episode 14: Masters of Evil
It's a bit inevitable that this episode was going to happen, although I genuinely thought that it would take place a wee bit later in the season's run. But I suppose the Masters of Evil are more of a recurring threat? In any case, though, we get a fun bit as the Masters of Evil -- comprising of Zemo, Enchantress, Executioner, Wonder Man, Abomination and Crimson Dynamo -- slowly track down one member of the Avengers at a time and take them out. I know that this is a kid's show and it'll never become so dark as the Masters of Evil executing Wasp or Tony Stark while they're unconscious, but the Mastesr of Evil do kinda let their guard down so many times, yeah? Eh.
Oh well. It's the sort of suspension of disbelief that I signed up for when I watched superhero cartoons! After a neat callback to Wasp's pre-Breakout episode with Enchantress posing as Blizzard, the Masters of Evil take her out, and then quickly infiltrate the mansion. Tony Stark, working on his armour and muttering about how he only has five or six (this was before Iron Man 3, after all) gets blindsided. Hulk gets sent to Jotunheim, while both Thor and Captain America get caught alone and double-teamed by different members of the Masters of Evil. Again, not the most original superhero plotline out there, but it's executed well enough and the battles are entertaining enough.
Even if I do think that Crimson Dynamo's armour looks stupidly goofy, and not in the charming way that MODOK does.
Black Panther and Hawkeye are the only ones left, and while the likes of Zemo never outright dismisses them as worthless (especially with Zemo himself having no special powers of his own, as the Abomination points out), we do get the subtext that those two aren't a top priority because they're considered normal humans and thus not quite in the same ballpark. And while Zemo and Enchantress gloat over their nemeses respectively -- which is a part of the episode that could've been done better as opposed to having them basically repeat the same lines of motive rant they've repeated a couple of times -- the two remaining Avengers infiltrate the mansion and do their best against the Masters of Evil... but they are apparently the distraction for Ant-Man to sneak around and do what the Avengers are planning to do.
There's some sort of "Avengers have teamwork, the Masters of Evil are threatening to break apart at the seams" moral, I guess, but it's not conveyed as quickly. Zemo and Enchantress clearly have ulterior motives but they work together remarkably well, while the only friction the group has is between Abomination and Zemo. Still, the sight of all eight Avengers assembled together against the Masters of Evil is pretty damn cool, with Ant-Man's transformation into Giant-Man and punting Abomination out being pretty badasss. Also, apparently Thor's hammer can also create portals to bring Hulk back from Jotunheim? I could think of like seven different ways that could've been useful in previous episodes. Everyone gets some cool moments to shine -- Wasp zipping into Crimson Dynamo's armour and blasting him in the face, Hawkeye stabbing a gas arrow onto Executioner's forehead before Giant-Man slaps him into the ground, the sword-vs-shield fight between Zemo and the Captain...
Of course, while the Avengers lick their wounds gingerly after this victory, the Masters of Evil are a bit more frayed (although, again, it's just Abomination and Zemo, the others seem to be pretty chill about it). Oh, and Arnim Zola's hanging out with them. Enchantress and Executioner show basically just who's pulling the strings, though, with Enchantress telling Zemo to shut the fuck up while she reports to her true master, Loki, noting that all the pieces are in place. It's a neat first act conclusion to these Masters of Evil dude, showing them take a loss but still managing to make the team feel threatening. While the plot of this episode might feel a wee bit basic, the fight scenes and the sheer awesomeness of having a superhero team fight a supervillain team will most certainly not fail to please.
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