Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Review Episode 1-15

Reviews

Full disclosure, I am a huge Mar-Vell fan, so this episode felt like complete fan service to me.   So if I rank it higher than normal, don’t be surprised. This is a review of the episode “459” which aired on Sunday, December 12th.

SPOILERS

Wasp and Ant-Man are asked by Carol Danvers (a SHIELD agent and friend of Pym’s at a remote monitoring station) to investigate a particular object heading toward the Earth. The object crashes nearby. When they go to investigate, they are attacked by an invisible enemy. Pym covers the enemy with ants, revealing a powerful alien robot.

The robot easily overpowers them, but they are helped by a surprise ally, Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree empire has been spying on Earth as Carol’s partner at the observatory. He manages to throw his body on Carol to protect her, but she’s still hurt badly. Mar tells them about the Kree’s war with the Skrulls, and how this Sentry robot was built to find and subjugate planets that might serve the empire. With Earth’s resistance, the Kree seem inclined to destroy the planet with a Nega-Bomb in the Sentry robot.

Marv seems to have developed a great affinity for Earth (especially Danvers) and tries to convince the Kree to not destroy Earth, but that doesn’t go all that well. The Avengers arrive to help, but Pym is quickly taken down. Before he is knocked unconscious, he tries to tell Wasp he loves her.

Wasp is driven by this, and flies into the Sentry’s armor and starts destroying the robot from the inside. Mar-Vell, Thor, and Iron Man take the Nega Bomb into space where it explodes safely.

At the hospital, Jan teases Hank to try and get him to admit he loves her. Before he can respond, Carol Danvers is awake and floating over her bed.

END SPOILERS

Unless I missed it, they never explained the significance of the title “459.” In the comics, that was the designation number of a Kree Sentry who fought Captain Marvel.

Mar-Vell was perfect. They got the right balance of a loyal Kree soldier who has developed great affection for the very people he’s supposed to be spying on. I also liked the parallels between him and Ant-Man both being men of science who were being pushed in directions they were not quite comfortable with.

I was also really happy with Carol Danvers. Jennifer Hale was the perfect choice for voice actress, and I loved how we saw the origin of “Ms Marvel.” Now I feel a little guilty for that drunk Carol picture I posted last week…okay, not that guilty. They had a perfect balance of strong female and military badass in her.

The Avengers are quickly building up a nice roster of characters who can form a potentially large reserve list (including Samson and Wonder Man). I hope we get to see a big arc involving a lot of these characters. This episode definitely hinted at the Avengers involvement in the Kree-Skrull War, so maybe that would be the perfect time.

I loved when things looked hopeless and Hulk commented, “Bet I survive it.” This version of the Hulk is definitely my favorite. Same goes for Thor and Black Panther. And the relationship between Pym and Wasp was really well done, too. A little cliche at times, but I still liked how it played out.

Next week, Hawkeye, Black Panther, and Captain America take on HYDRA. When I watched the teaser a second time, I noticed MOCKINGBIRD is featured heavy in this one. Cool!!

Final Score: 9/10 – I really loved this episode. Marvel cosmic stories have always been something I love, and bringing the Kree to life was a great fanboy moment for me.

Mike Maillaro is a lifelong Jersey Boy and geek. Mike has been a comic fan for about 30 years from when his mom used to buy him Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Adventures at our local newsstand. Thanks, Mom!! Mike's goal is to bring more positivity to the discussion of comics and pop culture.