Quick head’s up. Marvel has finally got around to posting the third episode: “Some Assembly Required”, featuring the team in action against Enchantress and Executioner. Hopefully this means the episodes will finally start trickling their way online for people without Disney XD.
Since I am almost two weeks behind on this one, I’m gonna keep it short and sweet.
SPOILERS
Captain America is trying to figure out who the mysterious “cat man” who helped him during his fight with Zemo was. The team is alerted to an intruder, and rush outside to be attacked by the Black Panther.
After a brief skirmish, Black Panther surrenders. He reveals himself to be T’Challa, the dethroned prince of Wakanda. He tells them the country has been taken over by Man-Ape, and he needs the Avengers help. There is some hesitation over whether the team should be getting involved in local politics, but the dangers of supervillains controlling a country full of vibranium decides the issue.
Once there, Black Panther rushes off on his own, and Iron Man sends Cap to help him. The rest of the Avengers end up confronting locals with vibranium weapons, Hydra, and later an amped up Ulysses Klaw.
T’Challa insists on fighting Man-Ape alone, so Captain America is left fighting his three female bodyguards. T’Challa wins, and decides that the best way they can prevent this from happening again is if Wakanda stops hiding away from the rest of the world. He ends up joining the Avengers.
Epilogue: Several SHIELD agents go to liberate the Cube from villain control, and they are taken down by Abomination. Seconds later, a glowing green dome of energy emerges from the Cube and starts to spread out.
END SPOILERS
I was sort of disappointed in this episode. Not that the episode was particularly bad, just that it could have easily been so much longer. It’s pretty annoying that the first season of Justice League got an hour for stories that didn’t have an hour of content, and Avengers gets a half hour for easily an hour of content.
And it didn’t feel like their was enough for all the characters to do. Threats like HYDRA and Klaw seemed out of place.
As always, I love the character interaction. Stark and T’Challa definitely are going to have a tough time co-existing. Captain America also had some great interactions with Pym on the Quinjet:
Cap: “Where I come from, we don’t call things that fly this high in the air planes.”
Pym: “What do you call them?”
Cap: “Science fiction!”
I also loved the look on Cap’s face when Tony gave him an order he didn’t agree with. Cap respects the chain of command, so followed it, but I think we’re going to quickly see Cap resume his rightful role as leader of the team. Iron Man is quickly showing his lack of qualifications, especially the way he kept underestimating the Wakandans.
Seeing Black Panther kick the team’s ass was fun (especially the nerve strikes he used to take down Giant Man), but we’ve already seen Captain America do the same thing. It seems like the Avengers really suck as fighting human level threats.
I did love the Panther’s use of technology and vibranium. It definitely added some unique angles to the character which make him different from Captain America. His fight with Man-Ape was definitely the highlight of the episode.
And what was with Monster Klaw? It almost felt like “We have no idea what to do with the rest of the team in this episode…I got it! Giant Klaw monster!” It was a bit ridiculous and out of place.
The teaser at the end for Gamma World was great. More on that tomorrow.
Overall: 7.5/10 – I really was hesitant to rate it this low, as I thought the story was very good, but it felt rushed, and the Klaw monster at the end was a bit ridiculous. The episode would have been much stronger without that.
