Cartoon Reviews: The Avengers - Earth's Mightiest Heroes

I don't normally watch that many American cartoons. Not because I'm a Japanophile, but because I've been so burned by the past decade of American animation that I can't get the energy up to even bother most of the time. But thanks to Rob Bricken over at Topless Robot, whose columns I read in Animea when that magazine was still a thing, kept gushing about the series with every new episode, I decided it was worth a shot to check the series out.

Of course, like the moron that I am, I started watching it towards the end of a semester, when everything was due. Fortunately I had a day off from both classes and work, and was able to watch almost the entire available series in two days. First impressions are good. I haven't given two craps about Marvel for a few years. Besides the movies they just didn't have anything to offer, while DC had Batman. I was also lost in what was currently going on in the Marvel universe, I read the first five volumes of Essential X-Men, but haven't picked up a Marvel book religiously since then.

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is perfect for someone like me. I know the basic characters, and while I don't know their entire history, I know enough to appreciate the interaction between the characters. The show is a perfect mix between stand alone stories, and the episodic format. While I do appreciate the amount of investment needed to watch most anime series, I still appreciate the Western episodic format that lets you pick up any random episode in the middle of a show and still get what's going on.

There's so much I love about this show that it's hard to decide where to even start talking about it. So I will divide this review into convenient subtopics!

Movie Reviews: The Amazing Spider-Man

The Story
After their house is broken into, Peter's parents take him to live with his aunt and uncle, before disappearing. Years later, Peter is bitten while investigating his father's partner, Dr Connors. He gains spider powers, and starts working on his father's formula with Dr Connors. The compound leads to Connors turning into a lizard monster, and it's up to Peter to stop him.

Editorials: Marvel Now!

I'm sure most of you have heard about the "reboot" of three of Marvel's franchises. Well, more like a reboot of two franchises, with a third series mixing the two together.

And they aren't really reboots, rather they're just renumbering the issues starting in October. Personally I'm looking forward to this. It's been a few years since I last followed any Marvel series, and this makes a good jumping on point for me. I've been wanting to get back into the X-Men and Avengers, but haven't had a chance to break into the currently running series.

With this new move by Marvel, they'll be providing a starting point for new readers, a cunning move considering the success of their movies this blockbuster season. Interest in their franchises is rising, or I assume that it is, and they need to find ways to capitalize on this for their comic series.

Movie Reviews: Thor

I'd actually given up writing reviews for movies, since I really don't go to see that many in the theater.  But I made that decision back during the fall of last year, when nothing came out, so I figure I could try my hand at doing some more reviews now that the Summer blockbuster season is starting, which is when I go to see movies the most.  It also doesn't help that I have my reviews scheduled several weeks in advance, and I don't like posting more than one review per day.  And since I can't really plan exactly when I'll be going to the movies (more like I don't plan, I suppose I totally could plan when to go) I don't like writing these because they break my schedule.  But since I already have a double Toriko anime review planned for next week, I might as well reschedule my Blue Exorcist review to make it a double review on Monday, when I would normally review Beelzebub.