Make a New Avengers Cartoon!

[DawnWarrior]

We don’t really have an Avengers cartoon, do we? All we have is those really old episodes from the 60’s where they just animate the comic panels, or the FOX cartoon from the late 90’s that was basically a smashing together of the most annoying aspects of Power Rangers and the Wildcats cartoon and threw out all our favorite characters. There's no really definitive example of the premiere superhero team of the Marvel Universe on television (I know the X-Men have better sales, but still).

I don’t know what brought this on, but I started working on ideas for an Avengers cartoon. I’ve come up with about 6 pages of stuff so far, and almost have a rough, 13-episode first season mapped out. I would start at the beginning, with the original group (Thor, Iron Man, Giant-Man, Wasp) coming together to fight Loki and then finding Cap shortly after. Before I go into more detail, I want to hear YOUR ideas.

Where would you begin the series? With the team’s formation? Somewhere in the middle?
What characters would you include in the roster? Would you do the classic team or the New Avengers?
What villains would you include?
What stories would you want to focus on?
What stories would you not want to focus on?
What existing series would you use as a model?

 

[3dman27]

classic team from the origin onward,the originals hawkeye, mockingbird ,wonder man and tigra
NO BENDIS DEVICES WHATSOEVER

 

[November Rain]

screw that i'd have a proper depiction of the ultimates, not this ultimate avengers crap.

page by page translation of all the comics the ultimates have featured in with dtv videos of ultimate war against the x-men and ultimate six with spidey.

heck, throw in ultimate extinction in for the fun of it.

 

[A.J.Rimmer(BSC)]

Not for me. With an ongoing, I'd go with classic teams. Start with the original, classic team and universe and work your way forwards. There's plenty of scope for a real heroic animation here.

 

[Jordacar]

NO BENDIS DEVICES WHATSOEVER

I've liked some of his stuff, but there's nothing in New Avengers that I would want to do on a cartoon if I can do the classic team.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'd want the classic Avengers in a cartoon. None of that ******ed armored crap from the '90s cartoon. The team would, of course, start out with the founders--Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Giant-Man, and the Wasp--all coming together to fight Loki. The second episode would feature Captain America's introduction. The rest of the season would see the Hulk betray the team out of misplaced anger and frustration, a battle with Namor where he and Cap meet as enemies after closing out the '40s as friends, the introductions of Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch, and the season finale would be a 2-parter featuring Hank Pym's invention of Ultron and Ultron's rise as a villain. The second season would feature Ultron as the big bad and have a season-long storyline where the Vision is introduced to infiltrate the Avengers but eventually turns on Ultron and joins the Avengers. It would also intro Hercules, Wonder Man, and the Black Panther.

I could go on like this forever, since there's no other outlet for my classic Avengers love now that Bendis' crapfests have taken over the line, but I'll stop now.

 

[DawnWarrior]

I could go on like this forever, since there's no other outlet for my classic Avengers love now that Bendis' crapfests have taken over the line, but I'll stop now.

Word. I know exactly how you feel.

I would go classic. I want to see the classic team on a cartoon so bad. And I would also start with the original gang coming together to foil a scheme from Loki involving the Hulk (if I could use him), with Cap arriving in the second episode. I would use some elements like the Team Charter and A-1 Priority Clearance from Earth's Mightiest Hereos. I would also use JLU as a model. I'm also drawing inspiration from other shows like Gargoyles.

The first season would play something like this:
EP1: Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, and Wasp are summoned by Rick Jones to stop a scheme from Loki. They decide to form a team.
EP2: The frozen body of WWII superhero Captain America is found and thawed. He is invited to join the Avengers.
EP3: The Avengers have their first battle with Cap as their team leader (still haven't decided who they would fight). Clearly, they have a lot of work to do.
EP4: The team battles Kang the Conqueror.
EP5: Guest-starring Namor the Submariner, Cap's old comrade from the war. He was young back then; now he's in his prime and ruling Atlantis.
EP6 & 7: 2-part Masters of Evil extravaganza, with Baron Zemo forming the Masters of Evil, and recruiting Wonder Man to infiltrate the team. In the big battle, local heroes Hawkeye and Falcon arrive to lend a hand. Wonder Man sacrifices himself, setting up for his return later on.
EP8: Cap and the gang decide to expand the team's ranks. Hawkeye and Falcon are recruited, with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver showing up, looking to earn some hero-cred after splitting with their mutant terrorist father. Tigra also shows up ('cause I like Tigra).
EP9: Count Nefaria sends in his new creation the Super-Adaptoid to destroy the new expanded team. Tony and Hank figure out how to shut it down. Hank becomes interested in androids and starts work on his own.
EP10: A case takes the team to Africa where they meet the Black Panther. (At the end, Hank is found unconscious in his lab, with no memory of what happened.)
EP11, 12 & 13: Three-part season finale where Ultron surfaces, creates the Vision, and attacks the team. Since Vision was based on Wonder Man's brain patterns, he does what Simon did; betrays his boss for the team.

I would focus on the legacy Cap brings with him; if the greatest superhero of WWII was found alive today, it would be HUGE news. Also, I would make mention of the Invaders, and establish that the WWII super-heroes ONLY fought in the war, so a domestic crime-busting squad is a fairly novel thing.

Like I said, I have plenty more where this came from.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Nice. I purposefully avoided Kang in the first season, myself, since he's such a huge stalwart of Avengers villainy that he should have a whole season devoted to him as the big bad.

Some other cool ideas would be a time travel story where the Avengers team up with the Invaders, a big, splashy cosmic/mystical adventure guest-starring the Defenders, and an entire season devoted to adapting Avengers Forever (the greatest Avengers story ever, for my money). The latter would probably be the last season and would probably leave off characters like Songbird and one of the Pyms in favor of more recognizable characters like Thor and Iron Man, but the core of the story would still be there.

 

[Havok83]

The best Avengers cartoon was Iron Man season 2. Thats the closest thing we've gotten to a good Avengers series

 

[Kenny Eugene McCall]

Hypesters, this is my area of expertise, as I did an Avengers fanfic with the original team a few years back....

Avengers: The Animated Series
By Kenny Eugene McCall​

Team Roster and Voice Actors:

Steve Rogers/Captain America: Justin Gross
Tony Stark/Iron Man: Marc Worden
Thor/Dr. Donald Blake: Dave Boat
Dr. Henry Pym/Giant Man: Nolan North
Janet Van Dyne/Wasp: Grey DeLisle
Clinton Barton/Hawkeye: Mark Hildreth
Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk: Susan Eisenberg
Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch: Kelly Sheridan
Vision: David Kaye

Episode One: Seven Little Superheroes, One New Beginning!

What happens when seven of the Marvel Universe's mightiest superheroes come together to face a dangerous new threat? That's what happens when SHIELD brings together Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, Hawkeye, She-Hulk and the Scarlet Witch together to stop the menace of the Norse trickster god Loki, and to free a potential new ally, the Mighty Thor, in this premiere episode!

Episode Two: Out of the Past

The Red Skull has come back from the dead to seek revenge against Captain America and his new Avengers, who must stop him from creating a dangerous new army of Neo-Nazi supersoldiers hell bent on destroying America from within our own military, and creating a New World Order within the United States Government in the process! But, that's only part of his evil plan!

Episode Three: The Masters of Evil

The Avengers may have thwarted his first attempt at world dominance last episode, but it's only the beginning, as the Red Skull joins forces with another one of Cap's old foes, Baron Zemo, to create a dangerous new supervillain team whose mission is to eliminate the Avengers! And, when the Masters of Evil target the team's butler, Edwin Jarvis, Cap and company must mount a rescue attempt inside the mansion to save him before it's too late!

Episode Four: Taking A.I.M.

When a series of biological and technological terrorist acts are committed against key government interests and other nations, the President and SHIELD call on the Avengers to put an end to the situation, which takes them to a secret island off the coast of Latin America where they come face to face with the Advanced Idea Mechanics, and their leader, MODOK: Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing!

Episode Five: Doom!

Earth's Mightiest Heroes are faced with the daunting task of stopping a powerful armored sorcerer and scientific genius by the name of Doctor Doom. And, when the Scarlet Witch is rendered powerless and kidnapped by an army of Doombots, the team must travel to Latveria to rescue her. But first, they got to deal with Doom's new enforcers: The Salem's Seven, in this episode!

Episode Six: The Circus of Crime is Coming to Town!

Hawkeye's past comes back to haunt him, as Clint gets a strange letter from one of his old mentors, the Swordsman, which puts the A-team into a situation where they come face to face with the Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime, who want Hawkeye to steal a dangerous new isotope for them to sell to a ruthless North Korean dictator during a performance at Madison Square Garden! Can Cap, Iron Man and the others try to get to him in time before it's too late?

Episode Seven: The Von Strucker Gambit

When Colonel Nick Fury is poisoned by agents of a mysterious old enemy of his, he finds out that certain members of SHIELD have betrayed him. So, he has no choice but to turn to the Avengers for help! Digging deeper, they find themselves battling the forces of HYDRA, who have joined forces with the real-life Al-Qaeda terrorist organization to cause trouble during the upcoming Mideast peace summit in Washington D.C.!

Those are some of my ideas. I'll have more episodes later.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The best Avengers cartoon was Iron Man season 2. Thats the closest thing we've gotten to a good Avengers series

Yeah, that was good stuff. Force Works wasn't exactly a huge component of the second season, though.

 

[DawnWarrior]

Nice. I purposefully avoided Kang in the first season, myself, since he's such a huge stalwart of Avengers villainy that he should have a whole season devoted to him as the big bad.

Some other cool ideas would be a time travel story where the Avengers team up with the Invaders, a big, splashy cosmic/mystical adventure guest-starring the Defenders, and an entire season devoted to adapting Avengers Forever (the greatest Avengers story ever, for my money).

Dang, I need to read Avengers Forever. I only read, like, the first two issues when they came out, and didn't manage to collect the rest of the series or buy the trade. But yeah, I'm having trouble picturing exactly how Kang would fit in the show, I just know that he should be there, along with Immortus at some point. Maybe after I've read Forever, I'll change it so Kang arrives later on. The big question I'm still pondering is: why does Kang decide to go back to that specific date to attack the newly formed Avengers in the first place?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Busiek's take on Kang seemed to be that he fought the Avengers so often because he admired them in a roundabout way. He hated that they always beat him, but he kept going back for more because he loved that they always beat him. He's a complicated man, Kang is.

 

[The Question]

The way I see it, The Avengers really aren't a long term threat to Kang. He has technology that can bend time and space to his will, and had almost infinite informational resources. He can't really be beaten for good, and every time it's looked like he had been, he's just cheated death by mucking up his own personal reality so much that at least 20 different versions of him co-exist. He doesn't need to beat The Avengers, and if he really tried he could do it easily. But he likes them. He enjoys fighting them, even though he often frustraits himself in the process. It's a challenge and a diversion from the drudgery of ruling over a massive, intergalactic, multi-dimensional empire. On some level, I think he even considers them friends, albeit it a twised kind of way. I think if he found himself in a possition where he could easily kill The Avengers in a way where not even he could bring them back, he'd choose not to.

 

[bored]

Start with the comic origin (Thor, the Pyms, Iron Man, and Hulk find themselves fighting Loki together). The season involves them meeting Cap, battling several other Avengers villains (Count Nefaria, Baron Zemo, Kang), part ways with the Hulk (who will continue to appear sporadically throughout the season), and a few other team members will be recruited (Black Panther, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, et al...), and end with the appearance of Ultron.

 

[DawnWarrior]

I guess it would make sense that Kang would go to the time right after the Avengers formed, because that would be a cornerstone moment in his history records and he's itching for a fight.

While we're talking about villains, I would have Baron Zemo be the younger Helmut, and it would be his grandfather Heinrich (we're talking about 60 or 70 years here) who fought Cap during the war. The whole thing with the Baron's death with the gun and the rockslide would play out in flashback, just before Cap and Bucky's last mission with the plane (roughly as it was recounted in the recent Brubaker books).

Another thing: I don't believe for a second that Cap didn't kill anyone in the war. I've seen enough war movies, and I believe that Cap couldn't possibly do what he did in the war and not kill one single enemy soldier. So, as the network censors will allow, I would establish that Cap did kill during the war, but has to adopt the modern superhero Shalt Not Kill philosophy to be a domestic crime-fighter rather than a soldier. The big showdown at the end of my Episode 7 would have Cap and Zemo battle it out, until Cap puts a gun to Zemo's face (or otherwise gets in position to kill him). Zemo's all "Go ahead Captain. Like you did my grandfather. Do your duty for your country." Cap throws the gun aside. "War's over," he says. "You're under arrest."

 

[Jennifer Walters]

New Avengers while not the best Avengers team ever leaves options open for the most profitable method of an Avengers show for Marvel. Just Wolverine and SPidey being in the roster alone would sell the series.

 

[Jordacar]

New Avengers while not the best Avengers team ever leaves options open for the most profitable method of an Avengers show for Marvel. Just Wolverine and SPidey being in the roster alone would sell the series.

It would be pretty cheap if they made a New Avs 'toon instead of the classic team just to peddle more Wolverine and Spidey. Gives me a headache just thinking about it (or maybe that's from posting at 4am).

 

[Havok83]

It would be pretty cheap if they made a New Avs 'toon instead of the classic team just to peddle more Wolverine and Spidey. Gives me a headache just thinking about it (or maybe that's from posting at 4am).

it would sell though. New Avengers brought in alot of new readers, those who didnt really look at the Avengers before, myself included. The concept is marketable and has more appeal to a broader range of people than the classic team. Love it or hated it, Spidey and Wolverine are 2 of Marvel's biggest cash cows and their inclusion would bring the Avengers to teh mainstream

 

[Havok83]

Yeah, that was good stuff. Force Works wasn't exactly a huge component of the second season, though.

they were there in pretty much every episode. Iron Man season 1, was more of a solo series and season 2 was more of an ensemble with Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, War Machine and the Century

 

[Jordacar]

they were there in pretty much every episode. Iron Man season 1, was more of a solo series and season 2 was more of an ensemble with Scarlet Witch, Spider-Woman, Hawkeye, War Machine and the Century

I remember it the other way around. Season 1 was basically "Iron Man and Force Works," while season 2 was more about just Iron Man being a solo hero (with very occasional help from Hawkeye or War Machine)

 

[Havok83]

I remember it the other way around. Season 1 was basically "Iron Man and Force Works," while season 2 was more about just Iron Man being a solo hero (with very occasional help from Hawkeye or War Machine)

you're probably right, but either way that was my weekly fix of animated Avengers while it lasted. The one that came in the late 90s on Fox was just terrible. Avengers morphing as if they were Power Rangers? Who thought of that horrible idea?

 

[3dman27]

jordacar is correct
in this season one was bascicly iron man featuring the west coast avengers/force works in season2 they severed ties to iron man in protest of tony faking his death to prvent mandarin from stealing iron mans armor

 

[3dman27]

you're probably right, but either way that was my weekly fix of animated Avengers while it lasted. The one that came in the late 90s on Fox was just terrible. Avengers morphing as if they were Power Rangers? Who thought of that horrible idea?

bulk and skull?

 

[GL1]

screw that i'd have a proper depiction of the ultimates, not this ultimate avengers crap.

page by page translation of all the comics the ultimates have featured in with dtv videos of ultimate war against the x-men and ultimate six with spidey.

heck, throw in ultimate extinction in for the fun of it.

That would actually have me excited. Of course, I'd put in on Adult Swim and do everything possible to make everyone forget they were watching a cartoon, but that's the basic idea.