Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E26 Review: Giant Space Flea

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 26: Avengers Assemble

The final episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is... it's just an excuse for them to gather nearly every single superhero they've introduced in these two seasons and have them have one last hurrah as they fight against Galactus and the Black Order his Heralds. Oh, and to bookend this final episode, we have Iron Man reminiscing about the events of "Emperor Stark" and asking Captain America how they will be remembered. Oh, these final episodes, and their self-awareness and need to have a bit of an emotional moment. I'm not sure just how soon in advance they knew about if the series will end, because I really wished that they had tied "Emperor Stark" and that one Kang episode a bit better with Iron Man's own ruminations if that's the case.

Oh, and also, they built up Surtur throughout the first half of the season to not use him at all, and I absolutely agree that Surtur, or even the Kree Empire in an extended three-parter, probably should've been the final villain of the show. Galactus isn't completely un-foreshadowed. He was part of the Skrull backstory. But that felt so much like an excuse for an easter egg of a popular Marvel villain as opposed to an actually established character in the show's history. 

But the episode quickly sets things up as best as a 20-minute episode can probably do. Galactus's four heralds, each representing an Avatar: The Last Airbender element, show up and start wreaking havoc. We get Terrax summoning rocks around Stark Tower and claiming the planet for Galactus as they construct these giant machines to help Galactus feed. All the heralds are just fancy-looking mini-bosses that gives the bigger cast something to do, and credit where credit's due, at least Earth's Mightiest Heroes avoids the mistake that Young Justice's second season finale makes. You have this montage of all the heroes arriving -- the New Avengers, Black Widow, Quake, Hulk, Winter Soldier, Doc Samson, the Fantastic Four, the second Ant-Man...  basically every side-character the show's ever featured other than Beta Ray Bill. 

Everyone's divided up, picking a herald to fight him -- which takes a majority of the episode. And it's pretty impressive! Yellowjacket, Iron Man, Ms. Marvel, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Samson basically act as the science team as they infiltrate Galactus's ship and figure out how he works -- Reed ends up capitalizing on his commic-book counterpart's rivalry with Galactus, I suppose, in theorizing just how to defeat Galactus. Yellowjacket gets a glorious "you dumb fuck!" moment when he decides to shrink Galactus... an effort that proves utterly futile. Hilarious, though. 

Captain America leads Spider-Man, Quake, War Machine and Iron Fist to fight Terrax, which leads to some fun little snarky moments from the always-enjoyable Spider-Man, and a pretty damn badass rocket barrage from War Machine. The Hulk, Black Panther, Invisible Woman, Ant-Man and Winter Soldier fight the Firelord... and I found it absolutely hilarious and silly that this sequence starts off with Bucky trying to snipe a godlike alien made entirely out of fire. Keep trying, Bucky! (Note that out of this team, the only one who doesn't contribute anything is actually Black Panther.)

Wasp leads Wolverine, Thing, Hawkeye and the Human Torch to fight the water-bound Stardust... which leads to a cool Fastball Special between Logan and Thing, as well as the Human Torch wondering out loud just who had the bright idea of sending him against a water-wielder. (Surprisingly, it's Wasp that gets the kill here!) Thor leads Vision, Falcon, Black Widow and Luke Cage into battle against the Airwalker... who creates tentacle-fists with whirling hurricanes. Okay, then? Thor's "who controls  the elements better" contest with Airwalker is actually pretty cool.

And then, of course, all they did manage to do is kill the heralds, because Galactus returns the machines back to full function, and as he prepares to devour the planet, and while the heroes try their best to hold back a force of nature (personified in a giant man with a goofy helmet) Iron Man and Reed Richards think up of a plan to send Galactus into the Negative Zone where he'll hopefully be satiated by the anti-matter world. Maybe Galactus and Annihilatus can become drinking buddies, then? Long story short, they do it. But not before the most badass moment of Captain America talking about "I can hear it. Thunder." before Thor himself comes down and unleashes the power of a god on Galactus.

God damn if this season didn't make Thor absolutely badass. Between this episode, the climax of the Skrull arc, the Emperor Stark episode, and the climax of the Kree arc, why do you even need the other heavy hitters? 

Anyway, Galactus is quickly defeated... poor dude didn't even get a single line, I think, and the Avengers arrive  on city square hailed as heroes, with Captain America noting that being heroes is what they're going to be remembered for. It's... it's definitely a serviceable finale and an epic one. And as much as I can bemoan the fact that they could've had the second season into an episode that's a lot more interconnected and tighter-paced, overall I've enjoyed watching the season. A step down from the first season, of course, but still a fun one to watch viscerally, with each individual episode being pretty solid even if as a whole it isn't that well-done.

That's it for my coverage and reviews of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The show is concluded after two seasons, replaced with Avengers Assemble, which worked on a far looser continuity based more heavily on the live-action movies, and I've watched a couple episodes  of the first season. Apparently they treat the MCU movies as sort-of-happened-in-some-quantity in the past without really elaborating on it? It's a bit weird, and there's a definite step down in terms of writing quality. I'm not going to review that, I think. At least not individual episodes. We'll see what my next superhero cartoon project will be.