Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S01E19 Review: The Fall of Kang

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 1, Episode 19: The Kang Dynasty

The final part of the Kang trilogy of episodes, "The Kang Dynasty" acts like a mid-season finale of sorts. It's a pretty explosive climax as we get to see the finale of the three-part Kang invasion. Again, I just really sort of wish Kang was a bit more developed beyond being a pretty generic quasi-antivillain antagonist, because beyond having a vague reason to justify his conquest of the 21st century, Kang's pretty... bland, isn't he? 

Still, the situation's pretty cool. While the Avengers have won in New York thanks to the Ultron army, Kang's, y'know, invading the entire world. Oh, and Kang's ship, the Damocles, is about to unleash a huge city-destroying cannon to blow up New York. We do get a pretty goddamn badass moment as Thor flies out and shouts FOR MIDGARD at the top of his lungs, really selling the fact that, yes, this dude is a war god, as he meets this 41st century laser head on, dissipates it, and still survives. It does sort of take him out of the action, though, and we already had Black Panther be absent thanks to the previous episode. I guess it is to make the climax involve a bit less people and a bit more focused? Eh. It's a pretty damn badass moment, for sure, and if we're going to write Thor out of the climax, I can't think of a better way. 

(Also, while Black Panther doesn't really make a significant appearance here, we do get to see that the ships over Wakanda are next to go, meaning that Black Panther and the Wakandan army basically single-handedly wiped out the Kang ships without the aid of the rest of the Avengers and the Ultron army.)

The Ultron army sort of acts like a disposable group of elite mooks as they sort of fall one by one to Kang's forces, while the Avengers themselves dress in some snazzy space armour -- Wasp's and Captain America's look particularly badass. The team ends up being split up, with Wasp and Iron Man battling people in space and acting as a distraction, while the rest of the Avengers bust in. Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Ant-Man and Ultron fight a trio of Kang's Elite Guard, who are apparently able to stop time? There's a pretty cool bit that it's actually Hawkeye and his primitive arrows that take them out, giving everyone's favourite purple archer some much-needed badassery. Oh, and Wasp tricks Kang's ship into blowing up a hole in the Damocles so she and Iron Man can zip in. 

The final battle is a bit interesting. Iron Man and Ultron hack into the Damocles's time drive, wanting to send every single ship in Kang's employ back to the 41st Century. (No real reason why, if that plan worked, Kang couldn't have just returned back in time, but eh) We get a bit of a repeat of the battle between Kang and the Avengers in episode 17, but it doesn't take that long, thankfully, thanks to a pretty badass "I discovered how to get past your shielding" moment from Iron Man, and the fact that Ultron manages to hack through Damocles's system thanks to its adaptive capabilities. 

Of course, it comes to Wasp to actually defusing the conflict. She talks to Kang's minions and discovers off-screen one of Kang's biggest motivations, the fact that Princess Ravonna is dying, and that ends up being the clincher to stop Kang and the Avengers fighting each other. And both Iron Man and Captain America end up agreeing with Wasp's sentiments, sending Kang's fleet except for the Damocles back to the 41st century. The battle is over, and they didn't even have to kill Ravonna to do it! It's a bit of a fun-paced ending, and it's a good move for them to focus the entire arc on Iron Man and Captain America, and we get the two of them acknowledging their character growth throughout the three episodes after the episode ends. 

The episode does give us a neat little epilogue bit. The Damocles still stays in orbit, and SHIELD has taken over and is studying the tech on the ship under the direction of Carol Danvers, making it pretty interesting because they might actually have a fighting chance against the Kree/Skrull conflict after all. Oh, and Ultron activates himself online without any human interaction, clearly setting hiimself up as a future antagonist. Ravonna and Kang are both taken to Mr. Fantastic (and Herbie!), who makes an appearance in the flesh. And Kang, stripped of his armour and technology, is a prisoner, and gives your generic ominous warning.

Overall, the invasion isn't the most exciting storyline, all things considered, and I really think that episodes 18 and 19 could easily have been compressed into a single episode, cutting out the Kang's Elite Guard and some of the more repetitive alien invasion moments. And I kind of wished Kang himself didn't end up being so one-dimensional of a character. But ultimately I can't say that I didn't enjoy this Kang three-parter in the simplest sense. It's a pretty fun bit, and a neat and suitably epic storyline to act as a mid-season finale. If I sound a little underwhelmed, it's because I sort of am, but that speaks to the quality of this series more than anything.