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 both on Disney XD and online in the fall of 2010, starting with a 20-part micro-series.

Marvel Entertainment, LLC and Disney XD announced a "new Marvel Universe" programming block, named Marvel Universe, which began broadcasting in April 2012 and included the second season of Earth's Mightiest Heroes! and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man.

The series initially features a team based on the roster for the original Avengers, composed of Iron Man, Giant-Man, Hulk, Thor, and Wasp. The team is later joined by Captain America, Black Panther, and Hawkeye in the first season, and Ms. Marvel and Vision in the second season. In terms of overall tone and style, the series is based principally 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 as well as other sources, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The series was replaced by Avengers Assemble, which premiered on July 7, 2013.

Season One
As 75 of the world's most dangerous super-villains are mysteriously freed en masse from the Vault, the Cube, the Big House, and the Raft, five of Earth's mightiest heroes assemble a crime-fighting alliance called the Avengers. The Avengers' team is compiled of Iron Man as de facto team leader, Ant-Man/Giant-Man, the Hulk, Thor, and the Wasp. Captain America joins the team. Although other characters feature in the Avengers, these are the original and main avengers. In the season finale, it is revealed that Thor's adopted brother Loki was responsible for the breakouts and that he had the Enchantress and her servant Executioner form the Masters of Evil.

Season Two
Season Two uses cold openings, and remixes opening theme song "Fight As One", replacing the lyrics with an announcer introducing the show's concept and main characters. 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 the season and the Kree in the second half. The Avengers are unaware that Captain America had been replaced at the end of the first-season finale by a Skrull operative as part of their systematic infiltration of Earth. This season also alludes to a developing storyline that Surtur, now free of his imprisonment in Muspelheim, is slowly gathering his strength to oppose the Avengers as a prelude to Ragnarök. Ms. Marvel joins the team this season, followed by the Vision. Many other characters from the Marvel Comics universe, such as Spider-Man, Wolverine, Scott Lang (the second Ant-Man) and his daughter Cassandra, Heroes for Hire, Doctor Doom, Crossfire, Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross (in both his human form and his "Red Hulk" form), the Guardians of the Galaxy (composed of Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Quasar and Adam Warlock), Quake, Beta Ray Bill, the Falcon, the Winter Soldier, and Galactus and his heralds, make appearances. Series producers Joshua Fine and Christopher Yost have revealed that certain returning characters will adapt their Ultimate Universe counterpart costumes for the second season, such as Nick Fury appearing more like Ultimate Nick Fury with a shaven head and goatee, and the Skrull operative posing as Captain America wearing the costume directly adapted from Ultimate Captain America and wielding an energy shield. The second-season premiere, titled 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 with the two-part Ultimate Spider-Man pilot on April 1, 2012.

Cast

 * Eric Loomis – Iron Man
 * Brian Bloom – Captain America
 * Colleen O'Shaughnessey – Wasp
 * Rick D. Wasserman – Thor
 * Chris Cox – Hawkeye
 * Wally Wingert – Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Yellowjacket
 * Fred Tatasciore – Hulk
 * Jennifer Hale – Ms. Marvel
 * James C. Mathis III – Black Panther
 * Peter Jessop – Vision
 * Phil LaMarr – J.A.R.V.I.S.

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)." This date would later get clarified to April 1, 2012.

Future of series
A new Avengers show will premiere in 2013 called Marvel's Avengers Assemble. On Saturday, July 14, 2012 at the 2012 Marvel Television Presents panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Jeph Loeb, Head of Marvel Television, said of the relationship between the two shows:

""We're not in any way saying Earth's Mightiest Heroes never happened. You will see an epic conclusion. And then you'll say, 'Oh, what's next?'""

The specific meaning of this has not been revealed at this time; ComicBookMovie.com initially chose to report it as meaning that Assemble would be a continuation of Earth's Mightiest Heroes!, but later, while interviewing Joe Kelly and Steven T. Seagle, asked for clarification over the confusion the statement had caused, and received only a non-committal response.

Only Fred Tatasciore in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, reprised the role for Avengers Assemble, while the other members of the team share their voices with their counterparts in the separate Ultimate Spider-Man series.

Critical reception
The series's premiere earned mostly positive reviews from critics and fans alike. It also currently holds a 8.8 making "Great" rating (based on 380 votes) on TV.com, and 8.4/10 rating (based on 5,883 votes and 26 reviews) on IMDb.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, Christopher Jones (comics) 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 debuted in April 2012, alongside the Ultimate Spider-Man Adventures series. Christopher Yost returned as the main writer, with Adam Dekraker serving as the comic's creative team, while Nuno Plati provided artwork.