Well, here we are.  Jimmy and Tom finished off The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.  Sure, they have a replacement show already lined up, but the guys finished this one off with a finale at least one of them didn’t see coming.  The other did because he’s seen this show before.

Regardless, see below for their chat over the episodes “Live Kree or Die” and “Avengers Assemble!”

“Live Kree or Die”

The Avengers, split into two groups, take the fight to the Kree home world.

jimmy:  If you spell Kree backwards and replace the first e with a j, what do you get?

tomk:  I suspect you are looking for clever ways to call villains jerks.

jimmy:  I was!  And they are!

tomk:  You want a medal for that?

jimmy:  No. But who would turn down a medal?

tomk:  There’s a whole debate on that in the movie 1917.

jimmy:  You’ve got a hell of a memory. I saw that but don’t recall the debate.

tomk:  My parents were visiting recently, and I put it on for my dad. The guys debate whether or not a medal was something to be proud of as they first enter No Man’s Land.

Huh. Should have brought Wonder Woman…

jimmy:  She would certainly help.

tomk:  Where?  Thor took out their whole military by himself.

jimmy:  I meant in 1917. But yeah, Thor did all the heavy lifting here. Carol didn’t do much.

tomk:  She got mad and shouted at Mar-Vell.

jimmy:  Did that help?

tomk:  I would do anything to get Carol to stop shouting at me.

jimmy:  Even incapacitate the living computer responsible for running your entire race?

tomk:  If I had to. Besides, for a “Supreme Intelligence,” it doesn’t seem very bright. They apparently completely forgot what happened the last time they experimented on humans and broke Michael Korvac.

jimmy:  It also rattled off how great the Avengers were in the face of adversity…and then figured it could easily capture and dissect them.

tomk:  Yeah. Maybe that’s why the Kree stopped evolving: they gave leadership duties to a Space Ernest.

jimmy:  All our readers will certainly get an Ernest reference.

tomk:  Yes. All of them.

jimmy:  That’s good. I wouldn’t want us to look dated.

tomk:  Unless you dated Cousin Minka.

jimmy:  Yes, that’s fine.

tomk:  But the Avengers aren’t that lucky. Unless you’re the Black Panther since he apparently is that lucky.

jimmy:  Did I call the transporter escape or what?!?

tomk:  Was there another way out?  You want a medal or something?

jimmy:  Well, not now.

tomk:  That’s good. All I have in this box of loose items is the Ernest P Worrell Award for Timely References.

jimmy:  You keep that one. You earned it.

tomk:  I’ll save it for later when you drop a Buckaroo Banzai reference.

jimmy:  Challenge accepted!

tomk:  Regardless, the Avengers overthrew one dictator and just installed another one.

jimmy:  Mar-Vell is a dictator?

tomk:  Was he elected by the Kree people?

jimmy:  No. But maybe he’ll make some changes.

tomk:  If he has absolute power, he’s a dictator.  He can be a benevolent dictator, but he’d still be a dictator.

jimmy:  All right, Tom. Call the Avengers and send them back to Kree to over throw him.

tomk:  Nah, they might have other problems back home.

If Mar-Vell sets up elections or something, I am sure that all the chaos that resulted from rebooting the Supreme Intelligence will work out just fine.

jimmy:  There you go. Everything wrapped up nicely.

tomk:  Well, the Kree plotline did.

jimmy:  That’s all we can ask for at this point.

tomk:  Why?  You have any outstanding plot points you still want addressed besides the Surtur stuff?

jimmy:  No. I’m just saying it wouldn’t matter if we did.

tomk:  Well, good.  Those Kree moles probably ate those scripts anyway.

jimmy:  Jerks.

tomk:  In all honesty, I think the creators got a heads up from the network on the show’s imminent cancellation and rushed a plot line or two. Though at least Kang was wrong.

jimmy:  Time is fluid.

tomk:  Kang didn’t think so.

jimmy:  Sure he did. He went back in time to change it.

tomk:  He went back in time to prevent the change.

jimmy:  Potato. Potato.

tomk:  But he kept insisting Cap had to die to stop it.

jimmy:  But if Kang doesn’t go back and plant those seeds, maybe Cap doesn’t change his choices and things end up the same way.

tomk:  Or maybe Kang caused all that by going back in the first place.

jimmy:  Also possible.

tomk:  But the sun wasn’t destroyed. Kang was wrong.

jimmy:  Because Cap did things differently.

tomk:  Cap believes in freedom. So, he doesn’t believe his future is already written.

jimmy:  Good thing for humanity.

tomk:  Probably not good for America’s ego. You just know there’s some guy out there going all “I don’t see Captain Canada doin’ that!”

jimmy:  That’s not Captain Canada. But he sure does look familiar.

tomk:  It’s a variant.

jimmy:  Makes sense.

tomk:  Like the Watson who was nice to you and took you out to a basketball game, he was a variant.

jimmy:  The multiverse is a scary place.

tomk:  As scary as Jenny when she realizes how often Carol got knocked out on this show?

jimmy:  Someone had to take Giant-Man’s place.

tomk:  But Hank is still on the team.

jimmy:  But Yellowjacket tends not to get knocked out.

tomk:  Unless Abigail Brand smacked him around after that shrinking bomb stunt.

jimmy:  If she did, he deserved it.

tomk:  He is the worst Avenger.

jimmy:  Worse than Stingray?

tomk:  The guy you called the greatest tactician on the team?

jimmy:  It’s a complicated relationship.

tomk:  For whom?  You?

jimmy:  …yes.

tomk:  Then I don’t know what to tell you.

jimmy:  That’s ok.  You can’t have all the answers.

tomk:  Neither did the Supreme Intelligence.

jimmy:  Not very supreme was he?

tomk:  No. He was the Supremes after Diana Ross left.

jimmy:  Haha, good one.

tomk:  Regardless, he lost. The Avengers won. Everyone gets to go home.

jimmy:  Good way to end the series.

tomk:  Except they didn’t. There’s one episode left.

jimmy:  Those Avengers just don’t quit!

tomk:  Well, there’s one thing they may need to take care of. Something that might require a lot of help.

jimmy:  The Beyonder!  Finally!

tomk:  Well, no. Wanna find out?

jimmy:  Even though it’s not the Beyonder, I do!

tomk:  And it is a threat that got mentioned before.

jimmy:  Watson finally getting his comeuppance?

tomk:  No. Ready to see who?

jimmy:  Ready.

tomk:  One last time then.

“Avengers Assemble!”

The Avengers bring in help to defeat their biggest threat yet. 

jimmy:  I was wrong. That’s how you finish a series.

tomk:  Oh, you’re happy, are you?

jimmy:  Sure. Galactus. Spidey. What’s not to like?

tomk:  Spidey didn’t beat Galactus by himself?

jimmy:  No. He’s not Kang.

tomk:  But the Avengers called everybody.

And everyone did something to help even if most of the guests didn’t talk.

jimmy:  I noticed that.

tomk:  Not everyone is a motormouth like Peter Parker.

jimmy:  That’s true.

tomk:  But it sounds like you got more or less what you wanted without realizing it.

jimmy:  Yeah. They certainly seemed to know there wouldn’t be a third season. Pulling out all the stops here.

tomk:  And unless it’s the Beyonder, they couldn’t get much bigger than Galactus.

jimmy:  And maybe now he’ll eat Annihilus, so win-win.

tomk:  Galactus fought back a bit hard for a being getting what he wanted.

jimmy:  All his stuff is in this universe.

tomk:  His ship got sucked through too, along with loose stuff on the street that wasn’t a superhero.

jimmy:  Maybe he didn’t realize where he was being sent to. And like Reed said, he’s basically a force of nature, probably acting more on instinct than anything.

tomk:  Terrax was more of a conversationalist.

jimmy:  Firelord was not.

tomk:  Neither was Airwalker or Stardust.

And yes, I had to look the last one up.

jimmy:  Are they original characters?

tomk:  Nope. All heralds. Airwalker came in somewhere around the same time as Firelord. Stardust is newer.

jimmy:  Huh. Never heard of either of them. I was a little surprised the Silver Surfer never showed up.

tomk:  He maybe didn’t fit into the four elements theme very well. Plus, he’s pretty much a good guy. Even nicer ones from the comics like Airwalker and Firelord don’t have his heroic record.

jimmy:  Yeah, I thought he might have shown up to, you know, help.

tomk:  They didn’t need his help as long as someone didn’t do something foolish like shrink Galactus.

jimmy:  Well, we were saying this could have been the solution to all problems and wondered why Hank didn’t just do it every episode. But in this case, it didn’t work.

tomk:  The one time he decided to try that first…

Man, Hank sucks. They should just replace him with Scott and call it a day.

jimmy:  Or turn off his crazy juice he started drinking.

tomk:  Turns out the crazy juice is just the contents of Tony’s wet bar.

jimmy:  Not surprising.

tomk:  Though this episode does remind me of a comic I read once.

jimmy:  How’d that work out?

tomk:  The idea is the FF died when their rocket crashed, so when Galactus showed up, the Watcher warned the Avengers instead. The problem was the Avengers treated Galactus like a supervillain, calling in every former Avenger (plus Thor’s new buddy Hercules) to take on Galactus. But this wasn’t a fight the Avengers were able to win because they didn’t treat the problem like one involving a scientific solution like the FF would have. And though the Surfer did side with Earth, his rebellion was milder and Galactus let him go without issue.  The Watcher, after seeing every piece of advice he gave not work out, just took on Galactus himself, ending with Galactus feeding off the Watcher and deciding to leave Earth alone since a Watcher died defending the place, and that didn’t make much sense to anyone…including the Watcher narrating the story from another universe.

jimmy:  Oh those wacky Watchers!

tomk:  Yes, wacky is certainly the right word for that.

jimmy:  Then it’s a good thing these Avengers had Reed…though it was Tony that figured things out.

tomk:  Reed helped.

The heralds all got taken down by an Avenger.

jimmy:  Reed helped, but Tony figured out the Negative Zone trick.

tomk:  Hank supposedly helped too.

jimmy:  He is smart, even if crazy.

tomk:  Plus, Carol staggered Galactus. Thor was pretty much the only other character to do that solo.

jimmy:  They are the two most powerful Avengers. Though the Hulk might argue.

tomk:  He snuffed out Firelord.

jimmy:  That is powerful.

tomk:  He’s the strongest hero there is. The lame season two opening credits say so.

jimmy:  Indeed. It also says there are only 4 Avengers.

tomk:  Or only four worth mentioning. The whole team appears at the end.

jimmy:  Yeah, but it seems odd. But those whole credits suck anyway. And they didn’t even show the whole “team” at the end this time.

tomk:  That’s because you wanted to see Spider-Man and the FF there.

jimmy:  Well, yeah. But based on past precedence, I expected the screen to be choc full of Avengers.

tomk:  Well, they wanted to surprise you.

jimmy:  I can appreciate that. All is forgiven!

tomk:  Especially since it sounds like it worked.

jimmy:  Especially back then when you likely didn’t know what was coming.

tomk:  Yeah, I mean, Galactus usually messes with the FF.

jimmy:  At least they helped.

tomk:  Everybody helped. I think I even saw you taking the fire truck out to battle Firelord, but you probably got stuck in traffic or the Beaver can’t read a map.

jimmy:  He still prints them from Mapquest so he can eat them later.

tomk:  Then he probably holds it upside down.

jimmy:  Right?  You’d think a beaver never used a map to get a fire truck to a fight against a super villain before.

tomk:  It’s why the Moose would do a better job of giving directions if he could just fit inside the cab.

jimmy:  We’re not the best team.

tomk:  That’s why you’re on Alpha Flight while Korean Firefighter Woman (and the Jimmy Clone she’s dating) joined the Avengers.

jimmy:  That’s why our team slogan is: “Well, we tried.”

tomk:  That’s true. You at least deserve this box of Snickers bars.

jimmy:  Do I have to share them?

tomk:  Not if you don’t want to.

jimmy:  I will. I’m a good guy.

tomk:  That’s probably how you get to join the Avengers.

jimmy:  If crazy Hank Pym can be an Avenger, anyone can!

tomk:  I can’t wait for the season three opening credits: “And there came a day unlike any other when Earth’s mightiest heroes came together to face a common threat. On that day, they became Avengers. The invincible armored Iron Man! Thor, Prince of Thunder! Hulk, strongest hero there is! Captain America, the first Avenger! And Jimmy Impossible, who drives a fire truck with the Moose and a foul-mouthed Beaver.”

jimmy:  And you wonder why it was cancelled?

tomk:  Disney thought they had a better show.

jimmy:  Wouldn’t you after that intro?

tomk:  I dunno. Now it has a friend with a fire truck.

jimmy:  Definitely could be helpful against fire-based villains.

tomk:  And anyone who needs a good hosing.

jimmy:  So they threw us a headfake with the recap talking about and having footage from the Purple Man episode. But then they brought in the ultimate purple man.

tomk:  The episode did have Tony wondering about the Avengers’ legacy.  That connects to the Purple Man episode.

jimmy:  Sure. But the recap seemed to make you think it would be purple related. Which it was. 😉

tomk:  You just wanted to comment on the purple thing and ignore Galactus’s time as the lifebringer.

jimmy:  That was like a galactic midlife crisis.

tomk:  Or it was a moment when an Ultimates team that included Carol, T’Challa, and America Chavez did something to him.

jimmy:  I read that series surprisingly. But don’t ask me anything else about it.

tomk:  Galactus made up a team of godlike beings to fight Lord Order and Master Chaos which involved, among other things, giving Ego the Living Planet a body.

jimmy:  This body?

tomk:  …sure.

jimmy:  The Avengers also could have allocated their resources better and just sent Spidey after Firelord.

tomk:  Spidey didn’t have the black costume.

jimmy:  It’s just a costume.

tomk:  Not a living one?

jimmy:  Nope. By that point he was back to wearing the black suit, but it was a replica Black Cat made for him. He wears the symbiote suit for a surprisingly short amount of time.

tomk:  Was that before or after Venom freaked out MJ?

jimmy:  Long before.

tomk:  And Felicia knew Spidey’s measurements how?

jimmy:  She was measuring a lot of Spidey in those days.

tomk:  Uh huh.

And did the Avengers stop Peter from beating up Firelord?

jimmy:

 

Narrator: he did.

tomk:  How does Black Cat fool anybody with that mask?

jimmy:  I dunno. How does Superman fool anyone with a pair of glasses.

Also, Spidey beat Firelord, and then the Avengers came and took Firelord away.

tomk:  Superman changes his voice and body language while wearing baggier clothes as Clark.

Felicia is assuming half the population isn’t looking at her face.

jimmy:  She’s probably right.

tomk:  And you explained everything with grace and patience. You deserve something for that.

jimmy:  Is it ice cream?

tomk:  Sure. Why not?

But it might be rum raisin flavor.

jimmy:  Pass.

tomk:  Or you can say how you enjoyed the show overall.

jimmy:  I did. I tend to have a negative bias when it comes to Marvel cartoons and feel they are always trumped by anything DC, but I enjoyed this. Sprinkling it with Spidey didn’t hurt. 🙂

tomk:  Yeah.  I wouldn’t put this on par with the DCAU or anything, but it used source material effectively and in a way fans would appreciate.

jimmy:  And apparently it redeemed Hank Pym.

tomk:  I’ve seen that said.

jimmy:  You can definitely see the MCU influence for those that were around at the time.

tomk:  Especially Iron Man.

jimmy:  Well, mostly Iron Man.

tomk:  Cap is the first Avenger.

jimmy:  Yeah, they threw that tagline on there, but he wasn’t overly MCU Cap.  Not like Stark was straight up RDJ.

tomk:  They kinda had to. Pre-RDJ, Tony was kinda bland.

jimmy:  And now he’s dead.

tomk:  He looked pretty alive to me.

jimmy:  Not MCU Tony.

tomk:  Oh, that guy. Well, Disney didn’t want to pay RDJ anymore.

jimmy:  It’s working out well so far.

tomk:  At least as good as the resolution to the Surtur storyline here.

jimmy:  Heh.  Was anything else left up in the air, besides Hank’s sanity?

tomk:  Well, Ronan is presumably still on Earth.

Supposedly, season three would have included the resolution to Surtur and an adaptation of Avengers vs X-Men.

jimmy:  The original mini-series?

tomk:  Not sure. I only know what Wikipedia and various YouTube videos tell me. One producer said they wanted Dr Strange, Magneto, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch for the third season while another said he never discussed those heroes. I would imagine the Beyonder could have even appeared if the show had run longer.

jimmy:  The second Avengers vs X-Men came out in 2012, so I guess it could have been either. 2012, geez.

tomk:  It may not matter. Unless the series gets an animated X-Men style revival, we aren’t getting more.

jimmy:  Probably not likely.

tomk:  Not really. But I am glad you enjoyed the show.

jimmy:  And I guess we’re out of cartoons to watch. It’s been fun.

tomk:  You don’t have anything you want to work through now?

jimmy:  I can make suggestions, but you’re the ringmaster. What did you want to do?

tomk:  I can think of a few. But I won’t say no if there’s one you really want to cover.

jimmy:  Well, maybe someday Canada will allow Young Justice back across the border.

Until then, if I had to make suggestions how about X-Men or Clone Wars?  I’m certainly open to suggestions.

tomk:  Which X-Men?  The Animated Series?  The underrated Evolution?  The one season wonder Wolverine and the X-Men?

jimmy:  I was thinking Animated Series, but whatever you prefer.

tomk:  Honestly, there’s a part of me that would say Star Wars because we could go from Clone Wars to Rebels and maybe some others. I likewise would love to go through The Last Airbender again.

jimmy:  I got no anime dukes. You recommend it?

tomk:  Last Airbender?  It’s actually not anime. It’s an American animated series designed to look like an Asian cartoon.

jimmy:  See. I told you. 🙂

tomk:  And I discovered it in 2020. It’s fantastic.

jimmy:  I’m game if you are.

tomk:  Last Airbender is the series I used to sell Jenny on Young Justice. Good animation, good characters, and serialized storytelling.

jimmy:  And now you’re doing the reverse.

tomk:  Is it working?

jimmy:  It appears to be.

tomk:  Any final grade for the Avengers then?

jimmy:  Interesting question.

I’ll give it an A-.  Overall I wish it was a smidge better, but it was really good. Outside of the season 2 opening credits.

tomk:  I’d give it a B+ on my end. Like JLU, there was a feel for a real universe here. The creators were fans of the source material if I had to hazard a guess. Action scenes were done well and characterization was consistent. However, I wish it was a little deeper like JLU sometimes was, and the animation sometimes looked kinda bad.

jimmy:  I almost went B+ as well.

tomk:  There’s not much difference between grades. Anyway, are you ready to travel to a mystical land where gifted people can mold the elements to do their bidding through the use of martial arts?

jimmy:  Yes, sensei.

tomk:  Then it’s time to meet the Aang Gang.

NEXT:

Avatar: The Last Airbender