The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Introduction

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is an American animated television series by Marvel Animation in cooperation with Film Roman based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers. The show debuted on Disney XD in Fall 2010 starting with a 20 part micro-series.

Marvel Entertainment, LLC and Disney XD announced that a "new Marvel Universe" programming block named Marvel Universe which includes Season 2 of Avengers and the animated Ultimate Spider-Man series that began broadcasting in April 2012.

The series initially features a team based on the roster for the original Avengers, composed of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor, and the Wasp. The team is later joined by Captain America, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and Vision, while Spider-Man is named to reserve status. In terms of tone and style, the series is based primarily on the original stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. However, it also tends to utilize material from all eras of the comic's run and other sources such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Episode list

Season		Episodes	Originally aired
			Season premiere	Season finale
	Micro-series	20	September 22, 2010	October 11, 2010 (online) October 15, 2010 (United States)
	1	26	October 20, 2010	April 12, 2011 (Australia) June 26, 2011 (United States)
	2	26	April 1, 2012	June 28, 2012 (Australia)

Plot

Season One

As the world's most dangerous super-villains break out of the Vault, the Cube, the Big House, and the Raft, five of Earth's mightiest heroes assemble a crime fighting alliance called theAvengers. The Avengers' team includes Iron Man as team leader, Ant-Man, Thor, The Hulk, and The Wasp. Captain America, Black Panther, and Hawkeye later join the roster. In the Season Finale, it is revealed that Thor's brother Loki was responsible for the breakouts and had Enchantress form the Masters of Evil.

Season Two

Season Two depicts the Avengers as they track down the remaining members of the Masters of Evil and end up facing the invasions of the Skrulls in the first half of season and the Kree in the second half of the season. The Avengers are unaware that Captain America has been replaced by a Skrull as part of the infiltration of Earth. Season 2 also suggests a developing storyline that Surtur is gathering strength to oppose the Avengers. Ms. Marvel and The Vision join the Avengers. Many other characters from the Marvel Universe such as Spider-Man,Wolverine, Scott Lang, Heroes for Hire, Doctor Doom, Surtur, Crossfire, Thunderbolt Ross, his Red Hulk form, Guardians of the Galaxy, Falcon and Beta Ray Bill appear. Series producers Joshua Fine and Christopher Yost have revealed that certain returning characters will adapt their Ultimate Universe counterpart costumes, such as Nick Fury who returns in Season 2 appearing more like the Ultimate Universe Fury with a shaved head and goatee, and the Skrull who replaced Captain America wears the costume directly adapted from Ultimate Captain America and uses an energy shield. The second season premiere, entitled the "The Private War of Dr. Doom" (featuring Dr. Doom and The Fantastic Four) was shown to audiences at both the 2011 San Diego and New York Comic Cons; as well as the 2012 WonderCon in Anaheim. It premiered on April 1, 2012.

Cast

Main cast

Brian Bloom – Captain America

Chris Cox – Hawkeye, Crimson Dynamo, Rattler, Fandral, Peter Corbeau

Jennifer Hale - Ms. Marvel, Corrina Korvac

Peter Jessop - Vision

Phil LaMarr  – JARVIS, Wonder Man

Eric Loomis – Iron Man

James C. Mathis III  – Bulldozer, Black Panther, King Cobra

Colleen O'Shaughnessey  – Wasp, Vapor, Valkyrie, Cassandra Lang

Fred Tatasciore  – Hulk, Fenris Wolf, Griffin, Graviton, Mandrill, Yon-Rogg, The Thing, Hoarfen, Kalum Lo, Volstagg, Red Hulk

Rick D. Wasserman  – Thor, Ymir, Absorbing Man, Surtur

Wally Wingert – Yellowjacket, Ultron, MODOC

Additional cast

Troy Baker - Clay Quartermain, Whirlwind, Grey Gargoyle, Blizzard, Faradei, Michael Korvac, Groot, Ulik, Sydren, Glenn Talbot, Robbie Robertson, Constrictor

Alex Désert - Nick Fury, Jack Fury

Vanessa Marshall - Black Widow, Viper, Anaconda

Nolan North - Jimmy Woo, Piledriver, Balder, Scientist Supreme, Living Laser, Chemistro

Kari Wahlgren - Jane Foster, Enchantress, Karnilla

Kari Wührer - Maria Hill

Guest cast

Jonathan Adams - Kang the Conqueror

Dee Bradley Baker - Mister Fantastic

J. B. Blanc - Wrecker, Heimdall

Steven Blum - Wolverine, Red Skull, Beta Ray Bill

Drake Bell - Spider-Man

Clancy Brown - Odin

Lacey Chabert - Quake

Cam Clarke - Doc Samson, Vector, Constrictor

Jeffrey Combs - Leader

Jon Curry - Winter Soldier

Elizabeth Daily - Mockingbird, Veranke

Grey DeLisle - Betty Brant

John DiMaggio - Eitri, Dum Dum Dugan

Robin Atkin Downes - Baron Zemo, Abomination

Steve Downes - Star-Lord

Christopher B. Duncan - Luke Cage

Greg Ellis - Rocket Raccoon

Keith Ferguson[20] - Thunderbolt Ross

Quinton Flynn[21] - Malekith

Crispin Freeman - Scott Lang

Nika Futterman - Sif, Hela

Kevin Grevioux - Terrax

Mark Hamill - Ulysses Klaw

Lance Henriksen - Grim Reaper

Kyle Hebert - Lyle Getz, Super-Skrull

Hakeem Kae-Kazim - T'Chaka

Tom Kane - Jasper Sitwell, Ultron, Professor Thorton

David Kaufman - Human Torch

David Kaye - Supreme Intelligence

Lex Lang - Doctor Doom

Loren Lester - Iron Fist

Danny Mann - Mad Thinker

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - Abigail Brand

Graham McTavish - Loki

Scott Menville - Bucky

Grant Moninger - Arnim Zola, Doughboy

Dawn Olivieri - Pepper Potts

Kirsten Potter - Lucia von Bardas

Moira Quirk - Phyla-Vell

Lance Reddick - Falcon

Kevin Michael Richardson - Man-Ape, N'Gassi

Bumper Robinson - War Machine

Cindy Robinson - Ravonna

Neil Ross - William Cross

Dwight Schultz - Technovore

J. K. Simmons - J. Jonah Jameson

Roger Craig Smith - Captain Marvel

Brent Spiner - Purple Man

Keith Szarabajka - Ronan the Accuser

Kirk Thornton - Adam Warlock

Erin Torpey - Invisible Woman

Jim Ward - Baron Strucker, Henry Peter Gyrich

Gary Anthony Williams - Thunderball

Crew

Joshua Fine – Supervising Producer

Vinton Heuck – Director

Sebastian Montes – Director

Jamie Simone – Casting and Voice Director

Christopher Yost – Story Editor

Production

Marvel announced in October 2008 that its Marvel Animation division and the outside studio Film Roman would produce an Avengers animated TV series, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, for planned broadcast in 2010. 52 episodes have been confirmed as being in production. The show's executive producers include Simon Philips and Eric S. Rollman. Joshua Fine serves as supervising producer and Christopher Yost serves as story editor on the show. A 20 part micro-series debuted on September 22, 2010 on Disney XD, focusing on each hero's backstory and the events that lead to the main series. The series started airing on Marvel's sister network, Disney XD in the United States on October 20, 2010 and on Teletoon in Canada on October 22, 2010 in English-language and March 2011 in French-language. According to Jeph Loeb, Season 2 will presumably begin around October 2011, same as season 1 and Producer Josh Fine tweeted in April 2011 that 13 episodes have been completed. At the 2011 New York Comic-Con, Marvel TV director, Jeph Loeb contradicted his earlier statement of Season 2 launch in late 2011. Loeb announced at the panel at New York Comic-con that "Avengers Season 2 will be coming in early 2012 (to coincide with Ultimate Spider-Man)."[7] This date would later get clarified to April 1, 2012.

A new Avengers show will premiere in 2013 called Avengers Assemble, but no official announcement has been made regarding the status of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Release

Critical reception

The series's premiere earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans alike. It also currently holds a 8.5 making "Great" rating (based on 206 votes) on TV.com, and 8.6/10 rating (based on 1,055 votes and 11 reviews) onIMDb.com. Review aggregation website Metacritic reports that 9.2 of users have given the series a "Universal acclaim" review based on 5 reviews.

Comic book

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes comic book series, written by Christopher Yost, and artwork by Scott Wegener, and Patrick Scherberger was published to accompany the series. It was a four-issue limited series. An ongoing comic book series titled The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes Adventures will debut in April 2012, alongside the Ultimate Spider-Man Adventures series. Christopher Yost will return as the main writer, with Adam Dekraker to serve as the comic's creative team, while Nuno Plati will provide artwork.

Genre     Action

Adventure

Science fiction

Format   Animated series

Created by             Stan Lee

Jack Kirby

Developed by        Ciro Nieli

Joshua Fine

Christopher Yost

Written by              Christopher Yost

Voices of                Brian Bloom

Chris Cox

Jennifer Hale

Peter Jessop

Phil LaMarr

Eric Loomis

James C. Mathis III

Colleen O'Shaughnessey

Fred Tatasciore

Rick D. Wasserman

Wally Wingert

Theme music composer      Guy Erez and

David Ari Leon

Opening theme     "Fight As One"

by Bad City

Ending theme       "Fight As One" (instrumental)

Composer(s)         Guy Michelmore

Country of origin  United States

Language(s)          English

No. of seasons      2

No. of episodes    52[1] (List of episodes)

Production

Executive producer(s)         Simon Philips

Eric S. Rollman

Producer(s)           Joshua Fine

Running time        22 minutes (TV episodes)

5 minutes (micro episodes)

Production company(s)      Marvel Animation

Film Roman

Ingenious Media/Ingenious Broadcasting EIS PLCs

Distributor             Disney-ABC Domestic Television (United States)

Vivendi Entertainment Canada (Canada)

Broadcast

Original channel   Disney XD (United States)

Teletoon (Canada)

Original run           October 20, 2010 – present

Chronology

Related shows      Wolverine and the X-Men

DVD releases

Region 1

United States

DVD title	Volume	Season	Aspect ratio	Episodes	Time length	Release date
Heroes Assemble!	1	1	16:9	7	154 minutes	April 26, 2011
Captain America Reborn'	2		16:9	6	132 minutes	April 26, 2011
Iron Man Unleashed'	3	1	16:9	6	132 minutes	October 25, 2011
Thor's Last Stand'	4	1	16:9	7	148 minutes	October 25, 2011

Canada

DVD title	Volume	Season	Aspect ratio	Episodes	Time length	Release date
Limited Edition: Season 1, Part 1	1	1	16:9	13	286 minutes	April 26, 2011
Limited Edition: Season 1, Part 2	2	1	16:9	13	280 minutes	October 25, 2011
The Complete First Seasonb (Blu-ray Disc)	N/A	1	16:9	26	572 minutes	April 17, 2012a

^a Original release date was November 8, 2011.
^b This is the first home media release in Canada to be released by eOne Entertainment. The other Canadian home releases of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes were released by Vivendi Entertainment.