(As a manga, not a comic, otaku, I will strive to reflect on connections to the comic canon in this animated or live action adaptation. I owe the fans at least that much, since I read my comics backwards mostly)
The Avengers are not a Marvel group I know much about, though they’re becoming well known and widespread recently, especially with the rumors of an Avengers film coming out in 2011. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, there’s lots of famous names in the group (Captain America being sadly lacking in a movie I want to watch with just him). And there are two other Avengers films I’ll review. This one’s a bit different, since the Avengers are notably absent in their original form. But I’ll get to that with synopsis.
We begin with an unknown person telling a group of four children a story of the Avengers and how they eventually took to creating lives outside of crimefighting. Captain American and Black Widow fell in love, as did Giant Man and Wasp, and Black Panther and Storm (implied and also canon, I believe). Also, Thor left the group to go to Asgard. And oddly enough Hulk was never mentioned in the group, which will be explained later on. The four children who are being told the story are suggested to be the four children of the Avengers. But a new threat appears, Ultron, and the Avengers are sorely defeated without Thor’s help, but the children are hidden away in a place where Ultron cannot find them, so that they are at least safe from his wrath and that there would be hope for the future. We shift to 12 years later and the children are enjoying themselves, albeit Thor’s daughter is depressed, but takes out her anger on Pym (son of Giant man and Wasp) and Azari (son of Black Panther and Storm) playing tag. James (son of Captain America and Black Widow) is awoken, generating a conflict between them since James feels nothing impressive will happen and his friends are less than realistic about the way things are. They’re stopped by one Tony Stark, one of the few surviving Avengers. Tony tries to comfort James in his frustration, but James rejects him. An alarm goes off and the children hide in their quarters, but meet Vision (another surviving Avenger) as he tries to sneak in, revealing that Ultron’s power is expanding, damaged from his wanderings in his city. Tony goes to repair Vision, telling the children to stay where they are. They ignore him of course and get into Tony’s secret lab. They find the Iron Avengers, android imitations of the original Avengers, and Vision reveals that Hawkeye’s son is alive. James unknowingly activates the Iron Avengers and they launch off to attack Ultron. This lets Ultron onto their location and he summarily defeats and takes control of the Iron Avengers. Ultron attacks the base, Tony keeping him distracted in his Iron Man suit as the kids are ordered to leave the base. Vision forcefully hacks the ship and they jet away, Tony being captured. Vision runs out of energy and the kids take the ship to Ultron’s city, though they are forced to leave it before it is destroyed. In the process of attacking the city, they meet up with the son of Hawkeye (the archer in the opening story), Francis Barton, who rescues them. He reluctantly guides them to Ultron’s citadel so they can rescue Tony. The kids find Ultron’s collection of the fallen superheroes’ costumes and items and are discovered, but manage to escape with Tony after Hawkeye Jr. decides to help them. The group escapes to find Bruce Banner, the Hulk, who was an unmentioned and unofficial member of the Avengers. Bruce rejects their invitation, but the kids decide to draw Ultron to Hulk’s hideout. Torunn (daughter of Thor and Sif) begs her father for aid and her sword that she lost in the city before returns to her magically. The group fights against the Iron Avengers, defeating them. Pym then manages to bring out the Hulk and he fights against Ultron with decent success. But after he is knocked out by Ultron’s power, Pym yet again provokes the Hulk to mercilessly pummel Ultron and tear him in half. Afterwards, Torunn takes on the responsibility to throw Ultron into space. She is saved by her father who returns her to earth in Asgardian armor and the group mobilizes to destroy the rest of Ultron’s empire after he is gone as the movie concludes.
There are eight important characters, five of them being the titular Next Avengers themselves. James, son of Captain America and Black Widow, has a classic older teen personality, laid back and cautious, an interesting blend of his mother and father’s traits. Torunn has something of a father complex in that she desires to meet his expectations, even speaking in an Old English form on and off with regular teen idiom, influenced by her being raised primarily on Earth. Azari, commonly the voice of reason and a stand out minority character, has the interesting dual traits of Black Panther’s enhanced agility and Storm’s electricity (not her full control over the weather, if only to lower his power to a comparable level). Pym is the youngest and the shortest, serving mostly as comic relief along with being a tech expert in the group. Easily scared and easily amused as well, he reflects his youth very well through the film. Francis Barton is the last of the Next Avengers to be revealed and possibly the oldest, though we don’t get any real age references to determine the kids’ ages beyond being in their early to late teens. Sarcastic, self serving and very self reliant, he’s one of the members without any apparent enhanced resistance and like his DC counterpart in Green Arrow, has issues with authority, but begrudgingly helps those in need. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are the last surviving Avengers and maintain their general behavior from their glory days: Tony pushing himself hard to improve himself and Bruce being excessively withdrawn in order to serve the greater good in preventing the Hulk from being released. Betty Ross makes an appearance, a balance and control to Hulk’s anger and Bruce’s isolation. Ultron is the last character with significant importance, the antagonist with enough power to intimidate, but not the sheer potency that comes with other larger Avengers foes like Loki and Skrull invaders.
Two themes run through the film, one of them more character centered, the other emphasizing the overall importance of the Next Avengers. Torunn presents a large subtheme with her Asgardian heritage as well as the recognition of the plot that her father is still alive, unlike her other siblings’ parents. Her belief that she is immortal and invulnerable leads to her losing her sword in their first fight against Ultron’s robots, not to mention it gives her a strong reality check that she is less than invulnerable. She eventually realizes that her humanity, even if she is Asgardian, is something she has to accept. In embracing this, she even takes on the task of flying into space to throw Ultron into the depths and is praised by her father for her courage. The cycle is complete as Torunn is praised as an Asgardian and invited to live in Asgard with her parents. But she admits that her place is with the human/mutant family she has on Earth. The other theme is the Next Avengers accepting and taking on the responsibility they have as the next generation of surviving superheroes. This is truly a large responsibility, since we get the indication that Ultron wiped out almost all the superheroes in the world, not just the Avengers. James is the impetus to this change in their motivation, taking after his father who started the original Avengers. And the others follow suit, fully realizing their powers; Azari projecting a panther of electricity, Pym managing to increase his size along with his original power to decrease it, Torunn fighting with an Asgardian’s strength, and Hawkeye Jr. taking on his father with just his bow skills. The previous Avengers either leave in peace or follow behind as old experts who can guide the new Avengers into the future.
All in all the film is good, even if there is an awkward mix of a child friendly approach to Marvel comics with the younger characters along with the realization by adult viewers that the children are for all intents and purposes orphaned, as well as the dystopian feel the film also gives to a viewer. The kids’ less than intelligent actions and phrases (except Francis’ less than intimidating threat to James of “If you talk about my dad again, I will punch you in the face,”) can be excused, and their ambition can be admired, fighting against villains stronger than them and taking on very adult responsibilities to save the world from a global threat. But the moments of comedy kind of make this an awkward view, albeit this is a decent attempt to introduce the Avengers to a younger audience, in contrast to what the Ultimate Avengers movies will no doubt present to us in the future. A 4 out of 5, with a 90% recommendation, the star lost because of the sheer paradox of kid humor with what is a decidedly angst filled setting of the end of the world along with a few confusing plot holes (they never say who Francis’ mother is, though it’s implied from canon it’s Mockingbird, along with why Pym Jr. didn’t use his size increasing powers from the start as opposed to at the end). But I still recommend this if only for the “What If” potential it inspires. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.
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