This new series has several virtues. It starts out with the small roster of heroes that Lee and Kirby put together in the 1960's. They're drawn in a clean, uncomplicated style that owes a lot to anime. The voice actors work well, with Eric Loomis trying to sound as much like Morton Downey Jr. as he can.
The main problem is that Film Roman, Marvel Animation and ultimately Disney decided to fling as many villains as they could onto the screen as fast as possible. This is a flood of characters, whom only a dedicated Marvel comics nerd could recognize and appreciate. I'm guessing it was done to establish copyright or something, but it makes dramatic hash out of the show's story line.
Over the first thirteen episodes, the story line jumps between characters and time lines. There's little sense of growth or dramatic coherence as the team is formed in the first episodes. Jumping around in the time line also makes continuity a mess.
And in a stupid, politically correct move that Steven Spielberg might have inspired, they took out the Nazis. In the story line it's the terrorist organization Hydra that fought World War II against the Allies. This obviously helps the series to run in Germany (which still bans the use of Nazi iconography) but it betrays the connection of comics to real-world evil.
Comics were largely created by Jews, one of their great contributions to American culture, and they put their anger at the Holocaust and the prejudice they faced in America into their stories. To get rid of the Nazis and their real evil is a betrayal of their source material.
If Disney was hoping this would get kids interested in their upcoming live-action Avengers movie, they will be disappointed.
The main problem is that Film Roman, Marvel Animation and ultimately Disney decided to fling as many villains as they could onto the screen as fast as possible. This is a flood of characters, whom only a dedicated Marvel comics nerd could recognize and appreciate. I'm guessing it was done to establish copyright or something, but it makes dramatic hash out of the show's story line.
Over the first thirteen episodes, the story line jumps between characters and time lines. There's little sense of growth or dramatic coherence as the team is formed in the first episodes. Jumping around in the time line also makes continuity a mess.
And in a stupid, politically correct move that Steven Spielberg might have inspired, they took out the Nazis. In the story line it's the terrorist organization Hydra that fought World War II against the Allies. This obviously helps the series to run in Germany (which still bans the use of Nazi iconography) but it betrays the connection of comics to real-world evil.
Comics were largely created by Jews, one of their great contributions to American culture, and they put their anger at the Holocaust and the prejudice they faced in America into their stories. To get rid of the Nazis and their real evil is a betrayal of their source material.
If Disney was hoping this would get kids interested in their upcoming live-action Avengers movie, they will be disappointed.