The last battle was merely the opening round, as Kang unleashes his armada upon the Earth. It seems that some of these storyboards, or at least this scene, was used as inspiration for the test animation that we saw nearly two years ago. Thankfully, none of that animation is repeated. The episode starts right off with Kang sending hundreds of his UFO-style ships to flood the earth with his robot minions. Naturally, a focal point for their attack is NYC, which is where SHIELD and the Avengers are based. The entire team assembles for the battle. I liked how there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the robots seem to go down quickly; the first wave is deliberately intended as sacrificial so Kang can learn the limits of this era's technology. The robots quickly regenerate and even Thor and Hulk found themselves overwhelmed without a clear long term strategy. Kang himself doesn't do much this episode beyond hear some reports from grunts, give a few orders (and talk to two Avengers) and pine in his own quiet way for Ravonna. This is fine; it's all about the build-up.
In many ways this is an episode that succeeds because it compiles a lot of cool little moments one after the other - as it exists to bridge the gap between episode 1 and 3 of the saga, that's about as much as you'd expect. You have Thor, Hulk, and even Hawkeye to a degree acting a bit like LORD OF THE RINGS warriors and having side bets on who can destroy the most robots. You have Wasp complaining about "needing bigger stingers" and then kicking ass in a Quinjet. You have a cool cameo with Black Knight defending Britain from the armada. You have Black Panther kicking ass and then mournfully watching Wakanda attempt to fend off the fleet assigned to them. The biggest thing is the fact that Captain America is rising to the fore as leader. Iron Man is still technically the leader, or at least he's still calling himself the leader, but one can see the momentum shift to Captain America shouting battlefield orders and encouragement. He's the one who catches on that T'Challa's heart is in his homeland (for obvious reasons). He's even giving the Hulk orders in battle (and at the very least, the Hulk listened after some "Whatchu talkin' about, Willis?" style hesitation). He comes up with the overall battle strategy in broader strokes than Stark does. He even encourages Stark when he's frustrated. He and Hawkeye are fighting side by side and there's even some banter between them now, and others. Even while this episode didn't beat one over the head with Cap, it was a very organic thing to see. Plus, against a horde of Kang robots, it made perfect sense for Cap to throw his shield endlessly. I liked the bit where he used it to slice a robot in two like a sword.
The most notable subplot to develop is that the Avengers, or rather Cap, Wasp, and Pym, decide to fight a robot army with another robot army via the horde of Ultron robots stationed at 42. Naturally, that shows that the visit with 42 last episode was hardly window dressing. Pym "teaches" Ultron about violence so that the fleet of them will back up the Avengers to defend NYC. This time, Tom Kane is voicing him, and it made sense to have a shift in tone for him. Pym claims that Stark designed the weaponry for Ultron, which implies that the core robot itself is still Pym's idea which is at least a better way to have the two of them having built it. Naturally, this is a decision that will lead to Ultron becoming a villain down the road - I am curious if it may cause the sort of destruction to the world that Kang showed the team in a decade's time. That would be ironic, as they only resorted to that to stop Kang himself. And while Capt. America had the idea to "fight an army with an army" and gave the last bit of convincing to Pym, Wasp was the one who initially came up with the idea. It is a creepy visual seeing Ultron's saving people. Of course, his energy shifted from blue to red, which is classic color code for good to evil.
The turning point comes when Pym and Wasp manage to sneak into one of Kang's large saucers and zap the time-doohicky that allows Kang's 41st century army to remain in the 21st century (especially after their time line was erased) - sort of like in the 90's X-MEN series when Bishop and Cable needed some device to remain back in time and would vanish "back to the future" without it. It's simple but effective, and likely answers the question of why Kang doesn't just go back in time further to defeat the Avengers outright or conquer the world before they assembled; he may be limited in his time jumps. After all, when he fled the Avengers in the last episode, they may have THOUGHT he fled back to the 41st century, but he simply fled back to his ship in space in the present, that just happened to be cloaked, Klingon style. I haven't decided yet whether Iron Man taking the entire episode to figure out that Kang wasn't on earth among one of his saucers was either perfect pacing or needing to take 20 minutes to figure it out so the arc would last three episodes. I suppose if Stark figured it out sooner, it would have eliminated a lot of battle stuff that I liked.
Thor manages to get in a big power moment when the heroes are defending the Brooklyn Bridge. Naturally, you have to love the concept of Kang's saucers being immune to most conventional weaponry, but the "special" weaponry of superheroes, whether enchanted hammer or gamma-fist, rips through them like paper. Amazingly, I happen to like this Hulk a lot more now that he isn't automatically winning every battle he is in with ease. In fact I liked the little moment where he calls Hawkeye's boastful bluff and is perfectly willing to let him fight the giant robot alone. Plus, it's good to have Hulk actually have lines of dialogue. Hearing Clint call him "Jade Jaws" was also a treat for fans of old school nicknames.
Next episode looks like it will feature those Silver Centurion armors, likely space and anti-Kang suits designed by Stark for everyone. The teasers for this saga claimed there may be a "sacrifice", and I hope none of the characters die. Of course, death is hardly the end for characters in Marvel.
This is shaping up to be the most ambitious arc yet for a show that seems to keep on piling them up. And to think, even as an epic battle with Kang is commencing, this saga has already laid in subplots for a Kree/Skrull War as well as Ultron unleashed. That's the way to do it. Build things up, take advantage of the serial storyline. This show's hitting all the right points and getting all the big strokes right. I could have done with some more cameos (such as, say, Mockingbird battling some of the robots), but given the time length of an episode I can understand keeping it to a minimum.
