This is a post about The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes ...

[eruthros]

... because we started watching it on Netflix while chagrined was here, and have kept watching it because it is lolz. It's right in that space of fluctuating nostalgia-sincerity-lolz-irony that some shows manage to hit - we laugh at it and we sing along and we predict the plot twists (thingswithwings likes to do Thor's dialogue a beat before he does, because he is very predictable) and we say "oh, that's not a bad idea at all" and we nostalgically go "awww, look, Ultron!" and we mock Tony Stark (not a hard task) and we hash out Ant Man's backstory ("no, seriously, Pym particles and biochemical wings. He does science!") and we pause the show and complain whenever Hawkeye appears to fly and we agree that Black Panther could totally take on the rest of the Avengers no problem (except maybe the Hulk) and we cheer on Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, and we roll around in the canon and basically have a good time.

So really, the credits sequence kind of encapsulates my whole Avengers: EMH nostalgia/lolz experience so far, so I thought I would embed it here. As you watch, imagine that you're sitting in a room with total dorks (us!) who are singing along in srs bzns rock music voices. Possibly one or more of us is headbanging, because why not.

Fight As One lyrics:

Our world's about to break
Tormented and attacked
Lost from when we wake
With no way to go back
I'm standing on my own
But now I'm not alone

Avengers! Assemble!

Always we will fight as one
Till the battle's won
With evil on the run
We never come undone

Assemble, we are strong
Forever fight as one
Assembled we are strong
Forever fight as one

Fight As One video description + lyrics

The video starts with a shot of lower Manhattan from above, with three plumes of smoke coming from buildings. It transitions to a city street, looking all serene and whatever, when suddenly two giant mechanical robot tentacles crash into the street! They are so giant that they shake the imaginary camera! Crossfade to a view of the tops of some skyscrapers, with a HYDRA robot walking down the street shooting at shit; the HYDRA robots are, per HYDRA, giant skulls on giant robotic tentacles, obv. Pull back to viewing multiple robots from inside a giant skyscraper aaaand start rocking out.

"Our world's about to break"
Camera pans along the windows of the skyscraper to look at a whole bunch of giant tentacle robots, plus a silhouette of one dude inside looking saaaaad. Based on his profile and his penthouse, it's probably Tony Stark being concerned about the world.
Then cut to the new lolarious Avengers Logo all animated! It is an A, with the horizontal bar turned into an arrow facing right and echoed by a bunch of arrowheads in a line all to the right.

"Tormented and attacked"
Close up on someone's eyes going green gamma-radiation-transformation-y (per Marvel standard transformation rules).
Just to make the point, cut to Bruce Banner shouting as he turns into the Hulk. (Also per Marvel standard transformation rules, he keeps his pants as cut-offs, but loses his hat, shirt, backpack, and the bits of his pants over his knees.)

"Lost from when we wake"
That shot of the Hulk turns into a digital frame that Tony Stark's hand whisks offscreen. Then omg Captain America's Shield comes whirling into frame! Could this line be about him? MAYBE. Especially since then it's a black-and-white shot of him from WWII that transitions into a color version of him doing Hero Pose With Shield in modern New York.

"There's no way to go back"
Lightning! Lots of lightning! Oh it's you, Thor. Well, actually, it's Mjolnir, his hammer, which is only fair since it does most of the work.
Then there's Thor in his lolz superhero outfit with giant cape shoulderpads, hovering over the water, flinging lightning at NYC and then flying over Asgard. Then Thor, too, turns into a digital panel that Tony Stark's hand flings offscreen...

"I'm standing on my own"
... finally bringing Tony Stark's face into focus from the side. He's standing in one of those scifi circular display things surrounded by little digital video panes showing the rest of the Avengers, which he is doing things to. TECHNICAL things. With his tech.

"But now I'm not alone"
The camera rotates around to show us Tony Stark's face, surrounded by all that digital video of his Avenger buddies. He's not alone anymore! Get it?
Zoom in on him as his suit goes on over his body and, eventually, closes over his face.

"Avengers! Assemble!"
Cut away from Iron Man's face to an incredibly phallic view of Stark towers - we know they're Stark towers because of how they say STARK down the side in giant letters, which is Tony Stark all over - with the Rainbow Bridge that Thor uses to get to Asgard making a beautiful horseshoe behind it. (Or, I mean, it could just be a random beautiful rainbow included for aesthetic reasons.)

"Always we will fight as one"
Iron man takes off from behind the tower. Then he goes to fight a giant tentacled HYDRA robot, which we see from inside his head's up display.
The camera zooms out of the display to look at the Hulk bashing the side of a robot's skull in. Then the skull-tentacle-robot explodes! (Probably Tony is also doing some fighting things, but you couldn't prove it by these credits.)

"Till the battle's won"
This starts with the explosion still filling the whole frame, then cuts to Iron Man flying off down the street at some other large-but-not-as-giant non-tentacled HYDRA robots shaped more or less like giant people except for the spikes and machine gun arms. There are many HYDRA robots on this show. The robots are firing out of their machine gun arms! Oh noes!

"With evil on the run"
But fortunately Captain America's vibranium shield zooms across, cutting through their machine gun arms, and then staying the focus of the camera in front of a blurred background.
Cut back to a distant shot of the ongoing fight, with Iron Man blasting towards the camera and Thor swinging Mjolnir around.

"We never come undone"
More big fight, now from a different angle! Thor takes off flying, the camera zooms around the Hulk's torso and legs as Wasp zooms by firing at shit, and then the camera backs up so we can see the Hulk holding one of the smaller robots above his head, and basically the frame is now very busy, perhaps to distract everyone from laughing at the lyrics. It has never worked for me.

"Assemble, we are strong" - that's right, it's in the imperative
The Hulk throws the giant robot! Ant Man runs past the UN building! Wasp's energy bolts go everywhere! Still in front of the UN building, Giant Man's foot (= Ant Man in giant form, see) comes from the top of the frame to stomp on one of the robots, because he is now VERY giant and the cube-square laws have never applied to the Marvel universe.

"Forever fight as one"
Pan up Ant Man's giant body! With what is probably supposed to be a skyscraper behind him (it looks like solar panels to me) and one of the really giant skull-tentacle robots standing above that. Lightning takes down that giant robot, woohoo!

"Assembled we are strong" - now it's a declarative sentence, so presumably they assembled during that last lyric
Thor and Iron Man swoop through the skies! Zoom in on Iron Man's chest! (Why not, the animators say.) Pull back to see them all standing there in Standard Superhero Lineup Pose: Hawkeye, the Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp (regular size), Thor, and Black Panther. Two of those people basically don't show up elsewhere in the credits.

"Forever fight as one"
The Avengers turn into a black silhouette on a white background! The camera pulls back further - no, further - to show us the title screen with the Avengers standing on the crossbar of the A. Just to remind us that they work better when they fight as ONE, there's also a little logo in the corner that says Avengers Assemble.

So that is kind of the Avengers right there! Lolz/nostalgia/sincerity/irony/more lolz. But I do have more to say than that, so here are some more spoilery things about the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes from about halfway through season one:

1) So far every time Tony/Iron Man has gotten angry, it's been because someone is using his tech. He says it just like that, his tech. So he sees bad guys and goes "hey! those guys are using my tech!" and doesn't mention how they're also, you know, killing people. So far this has extended to his anger at Black Panther for knowing how to use his computer system ("hey! how do you know how to use my tech?") and bonus "SHIELD is using my tech!" and other important intellectual property and patent infringement concerns.

Somehow, this man is in charge of the Avengers. Or at least he thinks he is. *facepalm*

2) Blank Panther seems to actually be in charge, in the sense that he manipulates people hilariously into doing what he wants. Including using the entire Avengers team as a distraction when he's fighting Man-Ape, and flat-out telling them so ... after they've crash-landed in a jungle and can't do anything about it.

3) Ant Man and Iron Man fight with each other about the proper use of science. All the viewers watching laugh and laugh. Also, Tony does a hostile takeover of another company, cause that company's owner to turn into a giant supervillain to get back at him. Obv. Hank Pym does not approve.

4) Oh, Thor, your shoulderpads are amazing, and so is your inconsistent ye olde englishe. But mostly, your cape shoulderpad things. Wow.

5) Wasp! Why must Ant Man almost always go giant in fights while you always go small? Why are you the only woman in the Avengers in the first season? Why have you had no episodes of your own yet and we're already on episode twenty? Why were you introduced solely in the same plots as Ant Man? Why must the camera keep filming you from behind at ass-level? Even when you're kicking ass and being awesome?

These are my important questions.

6) Speaking of, omg too many lady villains. Who are filmed from behind. At ass level. The dead certainty that Black Widow is actually on a deep cover mission or whatever and will turn out to be a good guy later on does not make up for the fact that so far all the women with superpowers are evil except for Janet. Argh.

7) And while we're at it, I love Black Panther because he is great and snarky and kicks ass, and I love Nick Fury in that ambiguous but-the-ends-don't-justify-the-means way (and regardless I love to watch him be cranky, which is his default setting) but, um, wow is this set of Avengers really white dudely. I mean, I understand that they're trying to ~call back~ to the early Avengers and all, but srsly.

8) Every time I get into a Marvel universe thing, I am once again astonished by how legal-panopticon their universe is. Like, forget the Patriot Act, SHIELD has tapped and is monitoring all communication in the U.S. or the world, I forget which. Whhhaaat.

9) Tony Stark provides the Avengers with a fancy mansion with training rooms and giant fireplace and flat-screen tv and inlaid-tile Avengers logo.

T'wings: How long do you think Tony Stark spent designing their logo? Chagrined: I think he had some intern do it. T'wings: Who is like, I have a masters in graphic design and I'm putting an A in a circle? Me: And Tony Stark is hovering over the graphic designer the whole time going, "no, no, put the A in the circle more, like, dynamically."

Also, we are fairly convinced that he had to subcontract to get tiles made to spec for that job.

Also, making fun of Tony Stark is practically my favorite part of this show.

10) The Hulk! I love his sense of humor in this version of the Avengers, and his dry amusement at watching Tony Stark lose fights with Captain America, and his dry amusement in other places too, and his friendship with Wasp and Black Panther. I am vaguely creeped out, though, by how much Bruce Banner isn't around at all - except for his origin story and one episode dealing with gamma radiation, iirc Bruce Banner hasn't showed up at all. It's a little weird/uncomfortable, especially because this show is doing the two-totally-separate-personalities thing, so it's like, okay, what's happened to Bruce then?

11) This just in: The Avengers will never come undone.

The thing is, I'm actually not very interested in the movieverse canon, or in Tony/Steve, which is the big pairing, so mostly I just plan to watch the show and do lolz and nostalgia at the moment.

Comments

[some_stars]

...aww, is there really that little Wasp? I downloaded this and was meaning to watch it pretty much entirely because OMG JAN, JAN IN CARTOON FORM, I have been dreaming of that since 2008 when I discovered the Avengers and fell in forever love with her--and obviously I knew she wasn't going to be one of the most top tier characters since she doesn't have a merchandisable movie property and is The Girl, but if they really don't do her justice I might not bother. Well, I did watch the introductory Ant-Man and Wasp episode already but it didn't leave a strong impression either way. (Aside from "wow, this show is not up to Dini/Timm standards," but what is?)

The Hulk and Black Panther sound pretty great, though. Hmmm. Maybe I'll watch and skip all scenes that don't involve at least one of those three. Okay, or Ant-Man, I have an inexplicable weakness for Hank Pym I don't know why.

[eruthros]

Well, I mean, she is in the show a fair amount, and she kicks ass and comes up with smart solutions to things, and (as in the comics) she's much more devoted to superherodom than Hank is, and she makes fun of Tony Stark and things. It's not that she's not on the show! It's just that everybody else, basically, has had an episode that called for their special skills, or involved their childhood friends or business contacts or old enemies, or whatever, and Janet hasn't. And she also hasn't had any backstory that isn't also Hank's backstory - which is a common problem in the comics, too - basically all we got from the backstory is a) she's a socialite and b) Hank's science gave her powers. So she can be fun to watch on the show, like, when she goes off and gets quinjets and is a fighter pilot, or when she enjoys being in space, or when she's flying around kicking ass and enjoying it, but it just makes me cranky that the show has not bothered to do any of her story outside of the Avengers. Except, of course, for the part where she loves Hank, and he doesn't notice. *eyeroll*

The Hulk and Black Panther are totally great! They are so snarky. Oh man, there is this great moment where T'Challa deadpans so brilliantly at Hawkeye and then does just a tiny little corner smile while Hawkeye totally buys his story. I love him.

I end up watching all the bits of the show - I find Hawkeye insufferable and Tony made of lolz and Steve and Thor just kind of boring, but I also often find them hilarious to watch, too, so I'm not skipping any bits atm.

[some_stars]

...wait, she loves Hank, and he doesn't notice? I was almost 100% signed on to "Jan enjoying herself in space" antics but that might be a dealkiller for me, jeez. Well, I'll see how I feel after I finish this sudden, out-of-nowhere and will probably burn out just as fast Legend of the Seeker marathon. (I have lots of TV on my computer, sometimes I slip and fall and find myself watching it for no particular reason, long after everyone else has moved on.) It does sound like I would really hate to miss Black Panther. And JAN THE FIGHTER PILOT.

[eruthros]

wait, she loves Hank, and he doesn't notice?

To be fair to the show, that was so far part of just one episode - it was just so memorable that it still makes me cranky. The ep is "459," which is pretty Hank-centric, and which involves Janet flirting with some other scientist dude to try to make Hank jealous or something? And then it's all, he doesn't notice that she loves him? And he loves science more than people or something? *plot summary triggers auto-eyeroll*

[some_stars]

....bleh. BLEH I SAY. The reason I shipped them in the comics (despite...everything) was in great part because he was so into her. Well, if I do watch, I will gird myself appropriately.

[eruthros]

Nodnod! If you want other spoilers let me know - the episode guides I've seen haven't been very detailed, so it's hard to avoid particular villains/heroes/plot elements.

[thefourthvine]

Okay, I just want to thank you for writing out what's happening that video. I watched it once, read your description, and went back up and watched it again, and I still didn't get everything out of it that you described. YOUR EYES ARE BETTER THAN MINE. Or, okay, no, the part of your brain that processes that kind of visual input is better than mine, but wow, SO MUCH BETTER. Thank you for letting me borrow it!

[eruthros]

Ha, well, I think it's mostly just because I've seen the credits 15 times now! I always have to pause video to write video descriptions - otherwise it's just a giant mish-mash of movement sometimes.

[thefourthvine]

I could seriously watch this 50 times and not get everything you described out of it. Which, you know, fine under many circumstances, but not with something as awesome and carefully designed as this. With the Avengers credits, I want ALL THE DETAILS. Because of the awesome. (I mean, the Avengers will never come undone! That is a LOT OF AWESOME, right there. Even though it mostly makes me think that their costumes are never going to have any kind of wardrobe malfunction, which the Hulk seems to disprove on a fairly regular basis.)

[eruthros]

That is exactly what I think! I'm like, their shoelaces always stay tied? What?

[thefourthvine]

They're the AVENGERS. They don't have shoelaces! They have special shoes designed by Tony Stark. When they're off, they're just soles, and when you want to put them on, you step on the soles and say, "SHOES! ASSEMBLE!" And then they build themselves up around your foot and ankle, providing optimal arch and ankle support, cushioning your steps (adjusting to appropriate levels depending on speed, stress, and surface), and compensating automatically for injuries. And if the gravity goes out, they turn sticky so you don't fly away. Plus, you can set them to any of 256 colors AND you can upload any pattern or symbol you want. Next version, Tony's going to add limited flight capabilities.

The downside is that if the electricity goes out, you have to hope your shoes are fully charged or fight barefoot. And there's a teeeeeny chance that enemies could get control of them and walk you off a cliff or turn them into the world's highest-tech cement boots. But these are the risks you take for shoes that never come undone.

[eruthros]

falls over laughing

Shoes! Assemble!

falls over laughing some more

There's actually a whole ep of A:EMH about how Tony Stark is a FUTURIST who ... tries to predict the FUTURE! of TECHNOLOGY! I bet shoes are an integral part of that.

[fightingarrival]

Avengers: EMH really is made of lulz and unforgetting. Every time I think of Thor's reaction to to MODOK, I fall out laughing. Actually MODOK might just be my favorite villain in general, which I wasn't expecting.

Tony Stark... is a special man. In every marvel canon I have read I have spent roughly half my time being ideologically opposed to everything he stands for and hating him viciously for it and the other half LOLing and genuinely enjoying how well he suffers (sometimes malicously so). His grandstanding for IP rights and what privileges he thinks it grants him cum "I privatized world peace! :D!" BS is only a part of it.

Have you read the Red Zone storyline from Avengers v3? If you liked the Black Panther in EMH you will love him here. He spends the story being a badass, a wily manipulator for great justice, and - best of all - pwning Tony Stark. Constantly. It's also filled with other sorts of lulz that I dont want to spoil you for. But, seriously, lulz-filled greatness.

[chagrined]

(COMMENT-HOPPING!) I feel similarly about Tony, heh. Even though I spend a gr8 deal of time eyerolling at his positions on certain things, I keep adoring him despite all of that, haha. ANNNNNND I totally have a thing for like, him getting beat up, kidnapped, tortured, ETC. Hahaha. I must say, though, that when I first encountered him years ago (in the first Iron Man film and then in Civil War & Front Line when I read those), I quite h8d him! But then recently when I rewatched/reread those, as well as encountering him in new media, I am more affectionately irritated with him combined with finding him adorable and woobie-ish. lol, self.

That Red Zone thing sounds good. I really need to get on top of reading some Avengers comics, hum, hum.

[fightingarrival]

Civil War: Frontline is where joy goes to die. By the end of it I was literally tearing at my hair screaming "WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM!!!" to an empty room. I am not even exagerating.

Red Zone is a-freaking-mazing. It is incidently a must read in terms of Steve/Tony shipping. Like, you go into the story thinking 'I don't see slash. Where is the slash?' and then by the end you're like 'BEST CRACK COMIC EVER. Never leave me. The bad science just makes it better.'

[fightingarrival]

Also have you read the story where his armor gains sentience and becomes his abusive boyfriend? YOU NEED TO READ IT. I swear to god, any and every h/c scenario that could happen to Tony Stark has happened to Tony Stark.

[chagrined]

Hahaha, well, re: Red Zone, I THINK I read some of the plot summary of that re: the Steve/Tony that happens in it, and yes. Well, I already ship them immensely, so I don't think I really need any convincing. :D Of that part at least, haha.

When I read Front Line the first time I enjoyed it more than when I re-read it this time. Ugh, it was just so LONG and BORING and I ended up skipping many of the story lines that bored me too much. The actual Civil War was much more engaging. Though I did like parts of Front Line. lol I actually liked the very ending, with the reporters confronting Tony about his ~SEKRIT PLAN~, b/c oh gods it was just SO MUCH TONY ANGST and I was like "oh Tony you are so emo and it is fantastic and I both want to joyously lick the tears of angst off your face while laughing at you and also cuddle you and pet your hair and protect you." SO CONFLICTED AHAHA.

lol I heard about that story too on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has given me a lot of vague general spoilers for plot things. Also the Steve/Tony ship_manifesto and the big post of scans of their really gay bits. BUT I LOVE SPOILERS and they just make me want to read the comics even more, so they are gr8. BUT maybe I should prioritize the abusive boyfriend armor plotline based on this information about the h/c levels of it. :D :D :D

(Heh, basically, SO MANY OF THE COMICS sound gr8 to me, and I'm just terrible at making actual decisions about where to begin and that is why I haven't gotten to any of them yet, lolol. Except for the re-reading of Civil War and Front Line, but that was only b/c I already owned those.)

(I KEEP ETAing THIS ENTRY TOO MUCH: also when I re-read Front Line I was super struck at how TOTALLY CRINGE-WORTHY a lot of those "WE WILL MAKE A PARALLEL BTWN SOME RANDOM PLOT EVENTS FROM CIVIL WAR AND ACTUAL HISTORICAL EVENTS!" bits at the ends were. Wow. I, ahhh, had not really parsed that so much the first time. They are pretty awful!)

[fightingarrival]

Seriously, any Iron Man story where Tony Stark isn't self-hating and self-doubting and self-destructive and self-harming and depressed and handwaving it to himself by saying 'but I have to save the world, no one else can' and having ridic things happen to him like ultron taking over his cyborg enhancements and turning him into Janet Van Dyne and attempting to eliminate humanity from the face of the earth (again), then it really doesn't register as an Iron Man story to me. His suffering brings me joy.

[eruthros]

That is my problem with Tony Stark too! I mean, I am ideologically opposed to everything he stands for, and I hate his smugness about his money and his smugness about his tech and just generally everything about him and the way he almost never gets called on his shit. It's like my thing about Batman, where, like, there's that ridiculous scene in Batman Begins where they're making his mask, and Bruce says they'll have to order 20,000 to disguise the true purpose of their order, which is making a one-man costumed vigilante, and I'm just going, omg, open a factory to make them in Gotham, pay a living wage, give people benefits, you will reduce the mook factor by 90%, seriously, the Joker kills his mooks all the time and he doesn't offer dental! So my Tony Stark problem is that all the time I'm facepalming about the man who made a lot of his money designing weapons turning lone-billionaire-vigilante to solve the problems his weapons create. And to have fun. Like, what? Raise his taxes! Let's talk about working conditions! These are systemic problems! Etc.

But he's also just so lolarious - his smugness that is often a total turnoff is also sometimes so over the top, so poor-little-billionaire-Tony-Stark, that I just roll around laughing at him. They're using his tech to kill people! Steve just doesn't understand about the future! He doesn't need to learn how to fight! T'Challa is just using him as a distraction? He has people to do that! etc His outrage is so amazing! Oh Tony Stark.

I have not read the Red Zone storyline yet - I basically haven't read any Marvel things in ten years. But I will check it out!

PS my new favorite Black Panther line in the series is from The Casket of Ancient Winters, when Tony Stark can't figure out where the casket is, and he and Thor are fighting about the usefulness of science, when T'Challa just turns around all "it's in Norway." And Tony Stark is, of course, surprised and outraged that he didn't figure it out, so he asks how Black Panther knows. And T'Challa says, "You should try more chaos theory, and less failure." <3<3

[fightingarrival]

OMG, I have a whole rant stored up about Tony Stark during Civil War and his lulzy/maddening 'I must make myself the villain in order to be the ~true~ hero' schtick and the ending of Nolan's The Dark Knight and how I hate it so. It mostly boils down to "WHY DO YOU HATE FREEDOM!!!!!11" and "WE ARE THE 99%!!!"

I may have some very srs bzns Opinions about the nature of heroism and superheroes.

[eruthros]

YES. Agree! I mean, these we-are-the-one-percent banners are totally true, and yet Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are going "but we MUST! MANPAIN! SAVE THE WORLD!"

[chagrined]

ALAS I AM GOING TO FALL SO BEHIND THE TWO OF YOU NOW!! Must have a solo marathon one of these days to catch up.

[eruthros]

You are! We are on like 1x20 now. Speed it up! :)

[toft]

this post is pretty great.

[linbot]

Ah, this is so hilarious. ♥

You've totally convinced me that even with Steve's unattractively huge torso, I still want to watch all of this show. I live in fear of the catchy theme song though, because my housemate doesn't need any more songs to torture me with. :D

[eruthros]

Oh, my heavens, Steve has SO MUCH SHOULDER it's ridiculous. But it's a fun show! And it's easy to skip the credits :)

[loligo]

Synchronicity! I just wandered by your journal to see if the next phase of the Fandom Top 100 SF thing ever got posted and I somehow missed it, and my kids are in the next room singing the Avengers theme song at the top of their lungs RIGHT NOW. (And arguing about the lyrics, so thanks, this will clear things up!)