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.  

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E25 Review: Ethical Debates

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 25: Live Kree or Die

A bit of a fun, if generic "adventure in space" episode, with the biggest conflict in this episode being Captain Mar-Vell and his angst over whether he should obey the will of the Kree Supreme Intelligence (a giant floating head made up of the brains of all of the smartest Kree) or to assist humanity in attaining freedom. It's an interesting enough moral conflict to drive the episode, I guess, and even if the conclusion is a bit obvious I actually do like Mar-Vell's internal conflict as he struggles to see his Earthborn friends being tortured and nearly dissected, until he realizes what needs to be done, and he ends up being the one to kill the Supreme Intelligence, and highly implied to replace him after this episode.

The rest of the episode is... it's okay. After the Falchion gets blown up, the Avengers are split up, with one team fighting Kree soldiers and another team fighting random alien beasts. Oh, and Black Panther is alive after a huge, huge ass-pull that honestly don't even really make sense and is treated with such fanfare that it really causes the episode to halt. Again, kind of ruins the whole point of the dragged-out sadistic choice in the previous episode.

Still, we do get a lot of fun, badass scenes, and when Thor truly gets angry and starts warping the weather of the Kree homeworld, it truly is a sight to behold. Also equally badass are the Avengers finally cutting loose in that courtyard. Ultimately it's an episode-long series of action scenes with a couple of Mar-Vell trying to convince the Supreme Intelligence to not kill humanity. There was an unintentionally hilarious moment when Mar-Vell accidentally convinces the Supreme Intelligence that humanity is special -- and that is why they must be destroyed. 

It's a fun little final run, and wraps up the Kree conflict perhaps a bit too neatly. Maybe we could've worked it out a lot better if Mar-Vell had been allowed to confront, oh, I dunno, Ronan or one of his other superior officers? Or if Ms. Marvel's own Kree-born powers are tied into it somehow? I feel that this episode ends up feeling a lot less epic in emotional scale and plot twists as it could've been, but definitely a serviceable end to the Kree conflict. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E24 Review: Sadistic Choice

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 24: Operation Galactic Storm

From this episode onwards we're having a two-parter that wraps up the Kree storyline, and then a series finale. It's been quite a while since we've started reviewing Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and I'm actually quite glad to have watched it despite my problems with the pacing and character balancing that plagued a good chunk of the second season. It's a bit of a shame, then, that these final episodes are also pretty problematic, although they tend to make up for it in fun action scenes. "Operation Galactic Storm" is finally the long-awaited arrival of the Kree, where the full might of the Kree Empire is determined to destroy Earth and turn the remains into just a pit-stop in their huge Kree/Skrull conflict. We get a fun little cold open as the SWORD-commanded Falchion One ends up encountering a distortion which turns out to be a wormhole that allows a good chunk of Kree ships to enter and set up a proper portal system for an invasion force. 

But as Falchion One comes under assault by the far superior Kree weaponry, the Avengers end up having to face off against the strike-force sent by the Kree to Earth. Oh, and we get some intro-dump from Mar-Vell, and he also modifies the Avengers' Quinjet and spacesuits in like the span of three seconds to allow them to survive the heat of the sun. That was a bit hard to swallow, timeline-wise. Oh, a bunch of Kree ninja attack the SWORD base, but Yellowjacket and Agent Brand elect to stay behind and hold the line while the Avengers and Mar-Vell go off into space. We get a couple of great fighting scenes, of course, whether on Earth or in space (Black Panther calmly just teleports a Kree robot into the sun!). 

After a fun bit of a scuffle against the Kree ninjas, Yellowjacket and Brand manage to drive off a good amount of the Kree, but not before they escape with Ronan and his big hammer in tow, and leave behind a continent-destroying bomb. And... and this is a bit of silliness, honestly, where we spend way, way too much time with Brand panicking and Yellowjacket insisting that he's totally not Hank Pym before whipping out his gun and shrinking the bomb into such a small size that the explosion is nothing more than a puff. Yes, Yellowjacket definitely deserved that punch to the face for being such a dick when everyone's literally praying for their lives. 

Meanwhile, in space, the conundrum is raised -- they have to pilot a ship into the wormhole to allow Hawkeye to shoot and destroy the wormhole generators, but someone has to pilot the Falchion to operate its tractor beam. Around halfway through this operation, the Falchion sustains enough damage that T'Challa is forced to operate the ship manually to maintain the tractor beam as the ship falls into the Sun. Captain America, of course, refuses to leave Black Panther behind, and... and it's pretty contrived, really, and it's the Avengers' own fault for putting all three of their heavy-hitters into the same ship. Apparently this is the decision that Kang was talking about, how Captain America made a decision that will lead to the devastation of the sun and Earth... and with Black Panther's blessing, they just watch as T'Challa's ship blows up, Hawkeye shuts down the wormhole, while the Quinjet enters Kree space.

And it's honestly not the worst ending for T'Challa, all things considered. He's clearly been a little ignored throughout the second season, and I kind of wish that the episode actually built up Panther's role in this episode a little to 'sell' the fact that they're killing him off... but the sheer abruptness of the ship exploding, how everyone is somehow suddenly helpless and how this ends up being Steve's big moral choice out of nowhere felt pretty rushed. Worst of all is, of course, the conclusion of this particular storyline which would be revealed in the next episode, which is just all sorts of messy and walks all over the whole fact of Captain America having to make a hard decision. I dunno. At least the action scenes are kinda cool. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E23 Review: Marvel's Defenders

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 23: New Avengers

Another guest-star episode, and this one doesn't even feature any of the regular Avengers other than at the beginning and at the end! This episode is all about the New Avengers, which gathers a bunch of the guest stars we've seen throughout this season. Oh, and Wolverine. Which I suppose I should be mad about since he shows up without any foreshadowing and takes up a slot that could've been given to Ant-Man II or Falcon or Bucky or Doc Samson or Black Widow or another Fantastic Four member... but fuck that, it's Wolverine. It's hard to say that I'd prefer any of those over Logan.

Anyway, the episode quickly sets up the story -- the regular Avengers get wiped out from the timeline when Kang somehow breaks free. A brief flashback later on tells us that a bunch of alternate-universe Kangs, the Council of Ricks Kangs, freed him and tells him to clean his silly mess. Before Iron Man's "death", however, he managed to activate the New Avengers protocol, telling Jarvis to recruit a bunch of other heroes. 

And the lucky heroes? First up, we've got everyone's friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, who's ripped away from enjoying an Aunt May sandwich to being overwhelmed by the raptors and ninjas and robots coming out of the timeline. The other heroes are a bit more professional. Wolverine is feral as he slashes and murders raptors (offscreen to us, but not to poor Spider-Man). War Machine is all business, and we have him meeting the far more jovial Thing, leading to a fun little moment of confusion when the Thing is confused as to why Tony Stark somehow became a black man. Meanwhile, Iron Fist's voice actor kind of mangles Japanese pronunciation, while he and Luke Cage are all business as they kick ninja ass. 

After a rough introduction and a bit of an intro-dump by Jarvis, the New Avengers take on Kang and get absolutely curb-stomped. Which... yeah, when compared to the likes of Thor and Ms. Marvel, none of these actually really match up to them, power-level wise. Even with War Machine and the Thing standing in for Iron Man and Hulk, the rest of them are just kind of street brawlers. Spider-Man ends up taking charge, and we get a pretty damn badass bit as the other New Avengers distract Kang long enough (with the "play of the game" going to War Machine and his badass Leeroy Jenkins charge) for Spider-Man to blow up Kang's machine by letting his spider-sense tell him which parts to break. The episode ends with Kang being defeated by a dozen-strong Avengers squad and thrown into some swirly time void, and the six New Avengers being given honorary membership as reserve members.

(And it's just about as well that they are reserve members, because I don't think Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, Yellowjacket and Vision even had two lines shared between them for the past three episodes.)

Overall, though, despite my jadedness about how this episode has been handling the actual Avengers, any excuse to see Spider-Man and Wolverine team up with a bunch of honestly charming characters is pretty rad. Kang is honestly kind of flat in his return, and both War Machine and Iron Fist are also kind of bland, but we get a lot of fun snarky dialogue from Luke Cage and Thing. Overall, an honestly pretty fun and grand little guest star episode. And also our last guest star episode, as we ratchet up towards a season finale.

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E22 Review: Everyone Is A Dick To The Hulk

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 22: The Deadliest Man Alive

Just how long did they drag out this Hulk-gets-captured storyline? Pretty dang long, honestly. Since episode 9 of this season, around halfway through the Skrull Invasion storyline. We're nearly over with the second season, with around four or five more episodes left, and they didn't really think of getting Hulk back until now? Jeez, no wonder the big green brute is angry. Hell, I'm surprised he's not even angrier at the whole thing!

And, yeah, Skrull Cap might be the one who got Hulk arrested. Hulk himself seems to be aware that it wasn't the real Captain America that got him captured by the Hulkbusters around halfway through the episode. But the Avengers bar Wasp and Cap are honestly pretty ready to hang Hulk up to dry as "yep, he's crazy and uncontrollable" around halfway through the episode, and honestly considering they are the indirect source of Hulk's imprisonment and anger, hanging him up to dry just because he's a loose cannon is genuinely such a dickish thing to do. 

Of course, there's the whole deal with the Red Hulk helping to beat the Hulk during his first rampage, setting up a sob story about how he was mind-controlled by the Red Skull (which is an actually neat continuity nod) and ends up getting a lot of good publicity as he basically ends up being accepted by everyone in the Avengers. Of course, Captain America and Wasp refuse to believe this, infiltrate the prison Hulk is kept in, and Wasp discovers that Hulk is being triggered to become extra angry with a device implanted in his head, with a remote that Red Hulk controls. Is... is shooting Bruce Banner in the head that hard, Ross? Jeez. 

Anyway, the final battle ends up happening between Red Hulk and the Hulk, with Red Hulk's real motivations honestly feeling quite muddied. What was his end-goal? To get the Hulk captured because he's a monster? You already have that. To infiltrate the Avengers? Then what's the point of making a different Hulk look bad? I guess Ross is just crazy in his own personal warped vision of what his 'duty' should be. The eventual battle with Hulk and Red Hulk in the harbour, with Hulk caring more about saving civilians and the Red Hulk dismissing them as collateral damage, is a simple superhero-y trope, but a pretty effective one. We also get a nod to how Iron Man doesn't actually trust the Red Hulk, having installed nanites into his ID card to help disable Red Hulk in the end.

But he was still a dick to Hulk, and apparently everyone but Steve voted for Red Hulk's inclusion. Small wonder Hulk walked away at the end of this episode, although it's in far more amicable terms than I honestly would've expected. "WE TRUSTED THEM!" indeed, Hulk. I guess you're just a better person than I am. 

Oh, and we get the revelation that Red Hulk is actually Colonel Thunderbolt Ross himself, making him an extra flavour of hypocrite. I just really didn't think that Red Hulk's secret identity was such a huge deal that it needed to be dragged on for that long (I was spoiled on the Red Hulk's identity around halfway through the season). I dunno. This episode in a vacuum is a pretty solid one -- Hulk being caught in a "me against the world" mentality, the Red Hulk's slimy integration into the Avengers, Cap and Wasp's infiltration, and all the action scenes... all great stuff,  but the way that this whole Hulk storyline has been handled throughout the second season is just sloppy and honestly pretty poorly paced. I think that's a huge problem of the second season of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes in general, honestly. Each individual episode tended to be good, but seen as a whole, the new characters mostly all remain static, and other than the Skrull/Kree invasion, a lot of the longer-running storylines felt pretty underwhelming. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E20-21 Review: Who's Bucky?

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 20: Code Red; Episode 21: Winter Soldier

This is kind of a two-parter, isn't it? So I'm reviewing these two episodes together. I don't actually have much to say about "Code Red" individually, so talking about them together is probably going to give me a bit more to work with. 

So "Code Red" starts off pretty simple, with a problem-of-the-week. In this case, a mist that transforms anyone it hits into sick, Red Skull-like people. While Iron Man's sealed suit and the aid of Thor manages to clear out the offending mist, and he manages to whip up an antidote, Captain America is out of commission and the Avengers start to fall ill one by one. Throw in Senator Dell Rusk (who is totally not evil) playing the role of so many evil anti-superhero military antagonists and painting the Avengers as irresponsible vigilantes that cause the spread of this plague in the first place, and we have some cool superhero-on-superhero action as the Red Hulk, Dr. Samson, Falcon and Winter Soldier charge in to bring the Avengers in.

And the fight scenes are cool, don't get me wrong, with the Avengers having to fight fellow heroes while also simultaneously fighting off succumbing to the infection and having to synthesize the antidote. Lots of great moments in the episode, and I don't fault the episode for that. Captain America, meanwhile, realizing the rather childish play that Dell Rusk is actually an anagram for Red Skull, quickly makes his way to the White House to confront Red Skull the moment he regains consciousness, while the rest of the Avengers fights the heroes.

The thing that really irks me, though? All of the other heroes are actually just mind-controlled, instead of believing that they're doing the right thing. It's a pretty bullshit cop-out to what could otherwise be a pretty neat conflict. Sure, Red Hulk's already evil and Winter Soldier being under mind-control isn't a problem, but the shock value of seeing Dr. Samson and Falcon, established heroes (Samson more than Falcon, anyway, as far as the show's concerned) and all the talk about following the country ends up being kind of nonsensical when, for the second episode in a row, hey, these conflict aren't done out of their own free will.

Oh well, we do get a badass punch from Captain America that sends Red Skull out of the White House, and that scene where Iron Man, chased down by fighter jets, shoots a missile from over the ocean all the way to the White House to inject Captain America... and then it gets caught by Winter Soldier. Badass. Winter Soldier breaking through Red Skull's mental programming and deciding to help out Steve was also kind of cool.

The episode ends with the Winter Soldier shaking off Red Skull's mind control, but it's clear that his mind is still jumbled up, which leads us to episode 21, "Winter Soldier". Red Skull's captured, but Captain America have a lot of questions regarding the identity and true nature of Winter Soldier. We also get copious amounts of flashbacks to the WWII era, in case you forgot. Captain America basically has his suspicions, but is afraid of voicing those out loud.

Meanwhile, Red Skull's master plan of reactivating a bunch of Sleepers -- big-ass giant AT-ST robots that combine together into a giant Red Skull themed Gundam. Um... okay, Skull. That's a plan I can get behind due to how ridiculous it is, even if I don't think it really is a Red Skull style plan. The Avengers go off to deal with the giant robots, while Captain America hunts down Nick Fury to help him deal with the Bucky problem.

And Fury apparently has personal history with Winter Soldier, noting that he's, of course, in every war over the past couple of decades, and that Fury's own team was one of the victims of Winter Soldier's high bodycount. We get a pretty tense face-off as Cap, Bucky and Fury end up facing each other, while a Sleeper gets reactivated nearby. Turns out that Winter Soldier's not fully aware of  what he's doing while mind-controlled... not fully, anyway, and it's a pretty well-written scene when Steve, Bucky and Fury confronted each other. This is how mind-control episodes should really feel like. Sure, you're not technically responsible, but you will feel all the angst and guilt everyone directs towards you. And Bucky, well, he just wants to ruin everything the Red Skull has built just to get revenge for what's been done to him. 

Of course, all the Sleepers arrive at Washington DC, combine into a Megazord which somehow is powerful enough to withstand Thor, Ms. Marvel and Vision all at the same time. Don't think about it too much, because it does lead to a pretty badass -- if expected -- moment of Captain America choosing to not abandon Bucky and save him this time around. Winter Soldier doesn't actually join the Avengers like the last couple of guest stars, but it's still a pretty decent story and a fun two-parter that really tell the Bucky story pretty well. 

Overall, it's a problematic two-parter that perhaps tries to do too much, and maybe a giant robot isn't quite the final boss I'd envision for what's otherwise a pretty down-to-earth story about spies, mind-control and World War II, but it's still pretty neat, and if nothing else, the Bucky story is well-realized. Not a bad set of episodes at all. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E19 Review: Ego Complex

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 19: Emperor Stark

What initially started off as "the new guy's spotlight episode'' ended  up being a pretty dang good episode! The episode starts off with the automatic repairs done to Vision two episodes ago completing, and Vision wakes up... in a world where Iron Man is like supreme overlord of the world? With Avengers and giant Sentinel-esque Iron Man drones patrolling the world? It's an interesting concept, and while it's not Stark's ego that went haywire and merely a mind-controlling villain in Killgrave (known here by his far less cool comic-book moniker, Purple Man), it's still very interesting for Vision to try and figure out how to handle this situation. 

Purple Man's taken over Tony Stark and used him as a conduit to spread his own influence and powers through a satellite, and we get a pretty cool scene where he tells Tony that everything he does is basically a corruption of Tony's own desires for ego, for control, for power... yet it's not Tony that's at the helm, but the Purple Man. With a voice provided by Star Trek's Brent Spiner, the Purple Man is a pretty gloriously sleazy villain. I'm not sure how much of his taunts are true, and at the end of the episode it's the same doubts that end up plaguing Iron Man's head. Sure, there's the whole mind control aspect and Captain America is quick to quash that particular train of thought, but Tony Stark's seen just how out of control his own ego can get, and what's to say some part of him doesn't actually want this?

And while the episode doesn't actually go deep into exploring the deep mental ramifications of Tony's control by Killgrave, the Vision story is pretty well-told as well. Free from the origin story baggage, Vision is free to just be a hero. And while he suffers from the same problem with Ms. Marvel that he's just... a hero without any real specific characterization, we do get a lot of great moments thanks to his more logic-oriented mindset. He ends up facing against Captain America and makes use of Cap's speech from episode 17 about what separates humans and machines to break him free of Killgrave's control.

Next up, Vision and Cap face off against Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel, leading to a pretty badass moment where Cap and Hawkeye argue about allegiances, with Captain America telling Hawkeye that "you've never listened to anyone's orders, now you're going to die because Tony Stark tells you to?" It's a line that really builds up on one and a half season's worth of history with Hawkeye easily being the most independent of the Avengers, and it's at this point where poor Marvel's lack of significant backstory ends up hurting the episode. She breaks free because... she feels bad for killing? That's not quite the history and emotional-driven freeing of mind control that Cap and Hawkeye went through. Oh, and Ms. Marvel ends up succumbing to the mind control again halfway through the climax, just because.

Of course, the Avengers take down the satellite, Iron Man manages to break free of the Purple Man's control at the last second, and in-between it all we get the utterly badass moment with Vision. "I will deal with Thor", he says, stepping out of the Quinjet and then increasing his density a couple hundred times before dropping down like a meteor to meet the charging Thor. Pretty badass sequence.

Overall, despite my complaints, an actually solid episode that I enjoyed the whole way through. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E18 Review: What? Your ANTMAN is evolving!

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2,  Episode 17: Yellowjacket

Another episode that I am not the biggest fan of. We haven't seen Hank Pym in a while since the show sort of writes out his absence in that he's handed over the mantle of Ant-Man to Scott Lang... but Hank Pym himself ends up apparently going more and more crazy until he ends up being a bit of a hermit, trying to sell the idea of an even-smaller micro-sized prison to Tony and Janet... before he gets totally blown up! We get a funeral scene, and Janet ends up going on the warpath in trying to find out who the hell killed the man she loves. And those scenes are actually pretty well done. The Avengers scrambling to, well, avenge one of their own, and trying to talk Janet down from doing something stupid.

Complicating matters is the fact that a new vigilante calling himself Yellowjacket is making waves through town, being popular with the crowd for the decisive and seemingly final way that he deals with villains. The problem here is that Yellowjacket is also hunting down the Serpent Society and seemingly vaporizing them instantly, while the Serpent Society are the main suspects in Hank Pym's alleged death.

Of course, the twist is that Yellowjacket is actually Hank Pym, who's gone so crazy that his mind has fractured and invented everything that Hank is not as Ant-Man. Yellowjacket is brash, rude and picks fights in stark contrast to Ant-Man's pacifism. A superior or more well-planned-out show would actually make use of Ultron's return last episode and maybe tie this in to the Ant-Man/Yellowjacket story, but no, instead we get this honestly pretty sub-par dragged-out mystery where the rest of the Avengers refuse to believe Janet's claims that Yellowjacket is Hank Pym, whereas Yellowjacket is... just kinda fucking nuts. 

The episode has a climax where the absolutely stupid Serpent Society (their dumbass insistence on fighting while the prison is threatening to crush them is pretty silly) and the Avengers are trapped within Yellowjacket's shrink-gun and the micro-prison, working together with Hank/Yellowjacket to get out of the prison. The episode ends with Hank completely subsumed by the more violent and gung ho Yellowjacket persona and, like Vision, I'm unconvinced that the character shift is warranted. Maybe part of it is that I find Yellowjacket pretty dang unlikeable, or maybe because I'm just baffled that the argument is "should we accept him or not?" instead of getting some real psychiatric help for Hank. It's not really a matter of forcing Hank to be someone who he isn't when he clearly isn't right in the head, no? 

Ultimately, the best part of the episode remains Janet. From her frustrations on the first half of the episode, to her desperation to get Hank back... and her final conversation with Tony and her desperate pleas about how she's "always been the happy camper" and she's only ever going to ask for one thing -- to get Hank back... it's pretty haunting and well-written, showing just how desperately Janet misses and loves Hank. But, of course, the show insists on pushing this bizarre secondary personality, which I'm just completely bamboozled about. Not my favourite twist, and if this is a more comic-accurate depiction of Hank Pym's Yellowjacket persona (as I've stated, not the most familiar with Marvel comics lore) I'm actually glad they retooled it for the movies. 

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E17 Review: Creating The Thing You Dread

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2,  Episode 17: Ultron Unlimited

So this is an episode that basically adapts Vision's change of heart from being a minion of Ultron into an Avenger. It also has to deal with the return of Ultron from the first season... and it's... serviceable, I suppose. The episode begins with Ms. Marvel being taken out by a bunch of fake "Synthezoid" Avengers, who then proceed to attack Captain America and Hawkeye, with Captain America infiltrating these fake Avengers. It's a standard cartoon episode plotline -- one that doesn't really offer much of a surprise, but has enough moving parts to last the episode.

If nothing else, at least the episode jumps around enough to actually sell Vision's confusion at his directives, unlike Vision's original debut. Vision first breaks through his programming when he accidentally shoots Janet in the shoulder, despite directives to abduct her unharmed, and he starts to show anger and frustration. Again, none of these scenes are particularly super-awesome as far as sci-fi robots gaining sentience go, but it's serviceable.

We also get the handwaved return of Ultron (he just happens to reassemble himself after season one or something), who... wants to transfer Janet's consciousness into a female robot body, Jocasta, because... creepy reasons that I'm not really going to ruminate about a lot? Janet does lampshade that Ultron himself is becoming more human by desiring a "girlfriend", and then we get the team-up of Captain America being revealed as the real deal, while Vision struggles with morality. We get the Captain's huge speech about how "I'm not here for myself, I'm here for my team" and how a mere machine can't understand it. This episode and the previous one really doesn't do Vision's heel face turn any real justice, though. Other than Ultron being a dick to Vision once or twice, there really isn't any proper reason that that particular line would sway Vision to the side of good. 

But, of course, because the comic book demands it, Vision ends up turning against Ultron, being the only one who can phase through Ultron's Adamantium body, allowing Thor to beat Ultron's head off,  and then gets rescued by Captain America. Vision ends up giving a speech about how perfection, in his mind, means becoming more human. Again, all the actual lines are well-written, but neither this episode nor Vision's previous outing really ends up selling the fact that this is a character who have changed because he was inspired by the Avengers. Individually it's an okay episode, but ultimately a bit of a miss for me. But hey, a new member joins the party!

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E16 Review: The Buggy Prison Break

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 16: Assault on 42

A bit of a fun episode, but also one whose tone is a bit all over the place. It's a fun little prison break episode, where our heroes Captain America, Wasp, Thor, Ms. Marvel and SHIELD Agent Quartermain have to team up with a bunch of villains in the prison cells in order to face off against something that lives in the Negative Zone -- the bug-robot-alien Annihilus and his massive swarm of robot bugs. Oh, and they are trapped with no way to open the gate back to real world from their side, which seems to be just bad design in general, but then we wouldn't have an episode.

We also have a couple of brief fun roles for a lot of previous villains, with Captain Mar-Vell finally being accepted as an ally to the Avengers. Plus, the Leader and Abomination end up being two of the most recurring members among the villains that show up in this episode, particularly when the Leader ends up being the only one that's sensitive enough to 'hear' Annihilus and warn everyone that something's even out there.

And after a bit of a light-hearted japery between Wasp and recurring C-list villain Whirlwind, the episode ends up taking a sharp turn into horror as things start breaking down, Alien style, and a lot of random minor SHIELD Agents get attacked by Annihilus's minions and get straight-up killed. No one mentions this on-screen, of course, but a bunch of SHIELD Agents and even named villains get straight-up murdered, devoured by Annihilus's minions or thrown off into the Negative Zone's void, and I don't think any other episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes ever got this high of a bodycount except maybe the Masters of Evil civil war one... but even then most of the deaths there are sort of handwaved aside except for Zola.

The bugs are also treated as generic one-shot-kill enemies to being a threat, and there's a significant bit of jarringness when the body count ends up coming from the villains who actually decide to help, whereas the cowards hiding in their cell don't actually suffer any consequences. Blizzard, Whirlwind and the Radioactive Man, plus a bunch of AIM goons, all end up biting the dust. Whirlwind, I think, was the only one among them to really show any sort of personality, being sort of a recurring enemy for Wasp and having a brief bit of banter earlier in the episode, but the way they were presumably ripped apart felt undeservedly mean-spirited.

We also get a brief bit with Captain America refusing to let Zemo out, while Thor tells the silent Executioner about Enchantress's fate, presumably leading to the Executioner's eventual heel-face-turn on the side of the good guys had they opted to continue the Surtur arc into the third season. Captain America and Ms. Marvel also have a pretty badass bit where they resolve to blow up the gateway back to Earth to stop Annihilus from arriving. The Abomination assuming that his old boss the Leader just wants to escape is also a fun bit, and just how ready Abomination is to help out Leader is pretty neat for a character that's otherwise been depicted as a simple brute.

Annihilus himself is kind of a bland villain (I was assured by people far more versed in Marvel lore that he is kind of a big deal), but he is supposed to be a forcce of nature. Pretty cool design with that Ultron-esque face, the green-purple colour scheme and the cape-wing things. Not that cool that he ends up defeated by a generic "hack the plot device" nonsense, which I felt clashed rather hard with the horror-survival aesthetic of the episode

Still, despite the weird mood whiplashes, it's still a fun episode to sit through, with loads of cameos from minor villains and a bunch of neat action scenes. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E15 Review: Mortality Clutches

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 15: Powerless

"Powerless" here is listed as either episode 15, slotting in-between "Behold the Vision" and "Assault on 42", or as the final episode of the season, being sort of a bonus episode released in DVD or something? It's a fun little romp for the cast's power trio, and the only resolution to the Surtur plotline that the first half of the season spent an un-insignificant amount of time building up.

Demon!Enchantress shows up in Loki's prison with the snake and offers him a deal, letting him have access to mentally control the Destroyer armour (a.k.a. that thing from the first Thor movie), and here it's given an extra layer of badassery when we realize it's a weapon of equal power to the Thorbuster armour from the season one climax. Oh, and to make things even worse, the Enchantress's power has apparently grown so much that she casts a spell that causes Iron Man, Thor and Captain America to become mortal. Thor's no longer a god and is just some dude with a hammer, Captain America is back to sickly old pre-steroids Steven Rogers, and Iron Man not only gets reverted back to his Mk. I armour, but is also dumb. Thrown into all this? The arguably weakest and most mortal of the Avengers, good old Hawkeye.

And this all happens in the middle of a fight against the Wrecking Crew (who's missing one member for some reason?), and as much bravado as the three of them can muster, going in with a "we're still  heroes and our powers don't define us" mentality... yeah, someone who's used to fly around as a literal god, it's going to take some time getting used to. As much as this is yet another in a string of season two episodes focusing on the main season one cast, it's still one of the better-written ones, with some really great humbling moments for Thor, as well as a neat showcase of pre-supersoldier Captain America,  showing that even as a skinny, non-roided man, he's still got a lot of heart.

We do get a couple of really fun scenes of Thor angsting about how useless he is as a broken mortal, a lot of cool Hawkeye moments, and a lot of great scenes making use of the underground, abandoned train station that they fight the Destroyer in a fun little 'outsmart the monster' bit. Our heroes win, and thanks to Thor's humility and heroism they earn back their superpowers, and Enchantress leaves Loki back to his eternal punishment. She does imply that apparently this is all of Surtur's plan, presumably to get the Destroyer to Earth and be kept by Tony Stark (there was a huge emphasis on the whole 'sealed forever' deal) but, of course, thanks to the show's cancellation after season two, this ominous bit is sadly all we're getting for the Surtur storyline. Oh well. This is still a neat standalone episode, I suppose. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E14 Review: Born Yesterday

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 14: Behold the Vision

It's time for us to introduce a new Avenger -- or what would eventually become a new Avenger if you're at least somewhat familiar with the MCU at this point. And... and it's a bit unfortunate considering how much this season really likes to have episodes focusing on a single character with a couple of guest stars, which means that a lot of the established cast actually feels under-developed. None gets hit harder by this than Ms. Marvel, who honestly could really use some proper non-action screentime to develop her character. She just shows up for work and that's it? Also, no one even mentions the goddamn Hulk being kidnapped by the Hulkbusters?

Meanwhile, Vision goes around looking for certain objects, making yet another nod to the X-Men segment of the Marvel universe as he assaults the Weapon X facility to obtain a large amount of adamantium while displaying his bizarre and overpowered set of powers, while speaking in computer lingo. That's the cold open, before we cut away to four of our cast -- Cap, Black Panther, Thor and Hawkeye in Wakanda, trying to fix Captain America's broken shield with Wakandan science. Some of the friction from the Skrull war is apparently still around, because Hawkeye calls T'Challa out for bailing out on the Avengers when the going gets rough... but, again, this doesn't really get even properly being made into a B-plot, because we're so focused on the mysterious Vision.

Meanwhile, Vision attacks Jane Foster and Wasp while they're watching a horror  movie in the Avengers mansion (that gotta be pretty scary, honestly, with Vision pulling out a page from The Ring). The sequence against the Wasp is pretty cool, but was it really necessary? It doesn't really add anything to the episode, and this is a part where a superior show would've actually worked in some characterization -- either show Vision's personality, or scrap the entire scene entirely and focus on the Hawkeye/T'Challa conflict.

But nope, it's just action scenes all the way, with the very bland Vision taking the plane to Wakanda, fighting the Avengers a bit, everyone marveling at how strong Vision is, but the Avengers drive him back, Cap's shield is fixed, T'Challa rejoins the Avengers and Vision reports to his master/father, Ultron. It's an episode that's as dry as Vision's dialogue, only existing to be a vehicle to introduce Vision and show off his power. The episode could've had the same storyline as far as an overarching plot goes, and still have a proper B-plot going on -- other Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes episodes certainly have no problem doing that, but Hawkeye and T'Challa's conflict can basically be summarized as Hawkeye taking some piss-shots at T'Challa in the first act, the conflict goes basically unsaid, and after the fight and without any proper character growth on T'Challa's part, he suddenly decides to apologize and rejoin the Avengers. It's pretty lazy writing, if we're being honest. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E13 Review: Does Whatever A Spider Can

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 13: Along Came A Spider

Oh hey, Spider-Man! This is definitely a fun episode, but what else would you expect from an episode featuring Spider-Man? It also interestingly deals with the fallout of Skrull Captain America using his face to spread a fuckton of ill will towards the Captain. Spider-Man, being a superhero whose part of the mythos is being hated by the public due to the actions of the media (or one Jonah J. Jameson, anyway) spreading word that he's a menace, it actually gives Captain America and Spider-Man something to bond about. And we actually have JJJ arguing against Tony Stark about how superheroes and vigilantes aren't real heroes like firemen and policemen. A ridiculous argument considering the world they live in, but JJJ is sort of a ridiculous character. 

This leads to Captain America and Spider-Man being trapped with a group of civilians underground when the Serpent Society returns to attack and attempt to free two of their member that were arrested after the whole Skrull debacle, Madame Viper and King Cobra. Apparently Viper held dual memberships in Hydra and the Serpent Society, who knew? Just what qualifies you to be a member of the Serpent Society, anyway? Viper certainly doesn't actually have snake-themed superpowers like the others. Do you get an invite if you have a snake-themed supervillain code-name.

But the actual fight against them as Spider-Man and Captain America have to make do in cramped space (Cap uses his WWII era shield) is pretty damn great, with the powerset of the Serpent Society, especially the literal snake-cyborg-man Bushmaster, make for some really fun sequences. The entire episode is just that -- Spider-Man and Captain America trying to keep the civilians safe in cramped quarters, and earning each other's respect. In particular, Captain America ends up teaching Spider-Man that it's not really important to prove himself to people like JJJ, but rather simply prove who they are to the little people they save. It's a simple episode with a simple moral, and the episode ends with the civilians saved and Captain America exonerated by the media... but not Spider-Man, who JJJ characterizes as one of the attackers. Whoops!

Still, a pretty charming little episode, and honestly really sells just why the insecure, timid and fanboyish Spider-Man is so popular. We don't want to admit it, but compared to the larger-than-life characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, most of us relate way, way more to good ol' Peter Parker. And while all the great grandstanding is entertaining to watch for sure, sometimes after an alien invasion you just want to chill out with Peter's very relatable conflict of whether he should care about what people say about him. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E12 Review: Skrull Invasion

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 12: Secret Invasion

This is it! The final conclusion of the Skrull storyline. And it's actually done pretty well, from an action-series standpoint. I just really kind of wish that the Skull stuff had more buildup that tied into the Skrull invasion, considering a huge chunk of this season's run had been actually pretty disconnected from the Skrull invasion other than the past two or three episodes. Still, it's a pretty fun storyline regardless. The montage of the Skrull sleeper agents slowly going around and revealing their true nature is pretty damn chilling. Skrull!Supreme Scientist takes over satellites all over the world to unleash a frequency that will kill all humans on the planet. When questioned by his AIM subodinates, this fake Lyle Getz just shoots them all dead and reveals his true nature as, well, not a human. Skrull Agent Quartermain and two others (whatever happened to the real version of these two agents?) walk up to the bridge of the Helicarrier and tries to kill everyone on board, and attacks Maria Hill. Skrull Gyrich also attempts to blow up Damocles, Skrull Invisible Woman sucks the Baxter Building into another dimension, and Skrull Cap blows up Avengers mansion. 

That's Earth's darkest hour... almost. 

Maria Hill has been sufficiently warned by Nick Fury to be paranoid, and survives because she's using an LMD in place of her real body. This allows the real Maria Hill to show up in Fury's base and attack Queen Veranke, who has Iron Man, Nick Fury and his officers at her mercy, driving Veranke away and performing some impromptu heart surgery on Iron Man's chest reactor. 

And, of course, the Avengers beat their impostors in Wakanda last episode. They arrive in Washington DC, only to be faced with a literal army of Super-Skrulls... with some of them sneaking in powers of other Marvel characters, like a Super-X-Men-Skrull and one with Dr. Strange and Black Bolt clothes! It's pretty fun, and the tensions are ratcheted when Skrull Captain America talks to the world and tells them to submit to their Skrull overlords, telling them that the Skrulls will be just rulers... although it does feel a bit silly to expect the literal rest of the world to even consider bending the knee just because Captain America says so. 

Of course, backup arrives when the real Captain America and his allies show up, followed by Iron Man, who can use his device to revert all Skrulls back to their true forms, and we get an even more awesome action scene, with a very cathartic bit of Captain America laying down the beatdown on his Skrull Impostor. We get a cheesy monologue out of it, but a pretty appropriate one. The badassery really adds up considering the fact that SkrullCap uses Tony Stark's fancy hard-light shield, but the real Cap fights without even any weapon but his fists. 

Most awesome, of course, is the fact that the skies are steadily darkening through all this, thunder fills the air, and the goddamn God of Thunder arrives to save the day. It does feel a little cheap, having Thor showing up causing the end of the Skrulls' air forces, but you can't deny that Thor's entrance is absolutely epic as he decries these silly invaders to even dare fight a god.

The rest of the episode is just an extended fight scene, but it really feels good as the Skrulls are taken down one by one by our heroes, after all the hurt and deception they've done throughout the season. The heroes win, the Skrulls are imprisoned... apologies are made... but some scars heal slower than others, and I do appreciate them recognizing this. Overall, it's  a more action-oriented climax, really, than a character-oriented one, but it's still a pretty damn badass action-oriented climax regardless. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E11 Review: Detente

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 11: Infiltration

We continue with the Skrull plot in an honestly pretty detached episode that feels more like filler. It's also technically an episode that should, theoretically, focus on two of the Avengers' most under-developed members, Ms. Marvel and Black Panther, but genuinely fails to do anything particularly interesting with them. Ms. Marvel in particular has always felt to be under-developed to me, because other than her sort-of replacing Thor as the heavy god-like being of the group, her personality is... serious? That's about it, I guess. And Black Panther's devotion to his country first and foremost and everywhere else second is neat, but the show never really allows that to sink in or really develop. That makes the Skrull Avengers storyline that eats up the bulk of this episode's screentime feel particularly bland and boring.

The Skrull Avengers make up this whole line about how they were the Avengers who were trapped on a Skrull ship after the whole Asgard bit and replaced, causing Carol to briefly question if the entire team was made up of impostors or not, but again, other than giving some conflict to delay the beatdown of the Skrulls to the final act of this episode, this whole bit isn't done well at all. At least T'Challa gets to show off his badass royal cape. Hawkeye and Wasp show up here and we get the brief and honestly anti-climactic resolution to the conflict between Hawkeye and Marvel. 

It's particularly frustrating because all the other storylines in this episode are so much more interesting. Tony is a shut-in and a hermit (and the show really missed an opportunity to make Hank relevant in some way here) and is super obsessed at his complete failure to try and detect the Skrulls anywhere in the world. Dr. Doom shows up, and as awesome as Doom is, all he basically does is hand over a plot device and then step away from the plot, with some genuinely flimsy justifications of "Doom does not do the dirty work" and "only Doom can conquer this world". Do love the little detail of Tony blowing up Doom's device in the season premiere being the reason why it took Doom so long to finish this, though.

Meanwhile, equally interesting is Nick Fury trying to figure out what's going on  as he looks at a huge picture of the Marvel universe's heroes and villains (including some X-MEN! Who other than Wolverine sadly never show up), frustrated that the Hulk is now MIA... and figures out from a recording of the Skrullcap and the Hulkbusters that it's Captain America that's the impostor. We really could've used more scenes here exploring Fury a little -- either make him more competent instead of being blindsided, or acknowledge his friendship with Cap as his blind spot, or give him anything to really make him less of a commentator and an acknowledgement that the cast is allowed to know that SkrullCap is a Skrull. And this episode shouldn't really have an excuse to not really explore Tony and Fury's mentality and paranoia -- or any other members of the cast, really, I'm not picky -- but instead we get the prolonged and honestly quite uninteresting squabble with the fake Avengers.

Of course, the episode ends with Queen Veranke, previously disguised as the Mockingbird, hacking Iron Man's armour with the virus (which is implied to be stolen during the whole AIM bit) and shoots Fury and his two sidekicks, before announcing that the invasion is in full force. Overall it's honestly a bit of a rocky buildup, and the one that is easily the weakest part of these Skrull episodes.

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E10 Review: What Measure Is A Skrull

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 10: Prisoner of War

Ah, ten episodes with Skrull-Cap (although not really, with how many episodes are more guest-star-centric) and we finally address where the real Captain America is! This episode sort of ends up playing as one of those guest-star-centric episodes, ditching most of the Avengers cast to focus fully on Captain America as he breaks out of the Skrull prison. We get a pretty neat cold open, too, with how AIM Scientist Supreme, Dr. Lyle Getz, is replaced by a Skrull -- neatly demonstrating to us just how these alien shapeshifters apparently are able to copy nearly every memory. We then cut away to Captain America in a cell, and the Skrulls note that Steve Rogers is the one man they cannot break, with a neat montage of how he had refused to give the Skrulls anything, being defiant and even mocking the aliens at times.

And, interestingly, instead of just killing Steve outright, the Skrulls decided to keep Steve around in order to learn how to break humanity, because if they can break Steve Rogers, they can break the rest of the humans. You... you aliens know what "killing" is, yeah? That seems needlessly complex. But we do get a badass moment as Skrull shapeshifters masquerading as the Avengers show up to try and rescue the Captain, only for Steve to just whack all of these bogus Avengers on their ass.

Steve, of course, ends up escaping when the Interrogator (no name given, unless I'm missing something) drops his guard, taking the Interrogator hostage and ends up freeing the real Madame Viper, who apparently is still alive. And Viper recognizes that only the real Captain America would be honourable and foolish enough to put down his weapon in front of someone who wants to kill him. They form an uneasy alliance as they're both humans,  and it's kinda neat. Cap and Viper quickly free the rest of the prisoners -- Invisible Woman, Mockingbird, Lyle Getz, and also a bunch of other characters like King Cobra of the Serpent Society, Henry Gyrich of the government and Agent Quartermain of SHIELD. And... and I really kind of wish that these characters were ones we know more about. Mockingbird is pretty well-developed and Lyle is a generic villain. Invisible Woman is out cold for nearly the entirety of the episode, Quartermain is interchangeable with most other SHIELD agents, and Gyrich's sole appearance in this season has been pretty forgettable.


The tensions quickly mount, though, with King Cobra and Lyle being generic evil villains to contrast Viper's more reasonable mentality, Gyrich is a pompous "thou must protect me" douchebag and Quartermain is... helpful? We get some pretty fun scenes from the unlikely group, though, with Gyrich trying to throw his weight around and only getting derisive snarks from the people who are completely unimpressed with his job of protecting Earth from aliens. Cobra also ends up surprisingly fun, with a lot of mileage out of his cowardice and his snakey powers.

We also finally get a sneaky little cameo from Galactus, and what amounts to a mission statement from the Skrulls about just what happened. Apparently Galactus ate their planet, and now they have to invade Earth due to some prophecy that states that they'll obtain victory on Earth.

Throw in the Super-Skrull Kl'rt, a modified Skrull that has the superpowers of the Fantastic Four, and our heroes (who are mostly just normal people with the exception of Cap and Cobra) end up in a fun cat-and-mouse game with Super Skrull as they try their best to survive. We get a fun bit where Lyle tries to abandon the rest of the group by flying out on a Skrull ship, or Invisible Woman waking off and unleashing some superpowers, or the dramatic moment of Viper deigning to save Cap from being blown up with the Super-Skrull. It's a basic story, of course -- Captain America's so heroic that he'll save the villain all the time, and this impresses even a member of Hydra. And the humans escape into deep space, meaning that it'll take some time for them to finally reach Earth...

While the Skrull Queen realizes just what she needs to truly "inspire" the people of Earth to surrender. After all, the Captain America on Earth is a Skrull. Overall, while it's an episode that could've benefited more from having a lot of these characters be actual people we care about other than Cap, it still does a remarkable job of introducing and juggling the half-dozen humans while keeping the focus on Viper and Captain America. Not a bad episode at all!