Episode Episode #8 - Shooting Stars
Original Airdate January 22nd, 2000

When dangerous satellites begin to threaten the Earth, The Avengers race to space where they meet The Invincible Iron Man!

Directed By: Ron Myrick
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Sae Rom
Guest Starring: Martin Roach as The Falcon, Ron Rubin as The Vision, Rod Wilson as Ant-Man, Linda Ballantyne as The Wasp, Stavroula Logothettis as Scarlet Witch, Lenore Zann as Tigra Francis Diakowsky as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

Review: Before I begin my usual tirade about how much this episode blows, I’d like to say something about what this show could’ve been. Looking back, this had the potential to be Marvel’s best ever animated series. I know that could be said about all of them, but there was a hell of a lot more potential here than most other cartoons.

I usually abhor reviews where the reviewers goes on and on about what should’ve happened, but after a few reviews of saying something along the lines of “This Sucks” I figured you’d actually want to read something different, assuming you haven’t already left by now.

My idea is very simple. The better part of this decade of Marvel animation had a loose continuity between the shows. There are one or two slip-ups in the timeline, sure, but nothing that a little creativity and good writing couldn’t fix. First up, the roster. As you’ll be aware by now, I think this show’s roster sucks. Badly. Ignoring the fact that all the characters are terribly written to begin with, there’s a hell of a lot more interesting characters that were available to them. Instead, we got animal men and women, because they sell toys. Battle armour sells toys too, so we get armoured animal men and women. Tigra instead of Thor. Falcon instead of Ms. Marvel. Ant Man instead of a real leader. You get the point. I never actually saw the toy line, but I imagine it died on it’s ass. Instead of this shockingly bad team, I would’ve had the following, from each of the shows.

Take Iron Man from the second season of his own show. Despite already having his own team, I’d throw him in here as someone who’s constantly unsure as to whether or not he wants to be on the team, because of his ‘lone wolf’ attitude, and because he was a terrible leader in Forceworks, who would now of course have parted ways. He could probably help finance the group too.

I’d probably throw Hawkeye in from Iron Man too. I’d pretty much use him in the same role he did in Iron Man season two, someone who was sick of Tony’s constant selfishness. I’d play on the fact that Hawkeye would no doubt blame Tony for Forcework’s disbandment and have some heat between these two. I love it when there are harsh feelings towards each other in teams; I think it adds such an interesting dynamic.

I’d then throw in Captain America as the teams leader, possibly the version from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and I’d include Hulk from season one of his show as a recurring character, possibly even feature Bruce Banner as a member of the team (he and Iron Man have worked together before). Thor from FF/Hulk and a few new characters – perhaps an over ambitious Giant Man/Ant Man, rookie Ms. Marvel and for the sake of having another female in there, She Hulk (from Hulk season one, of course.)

I think there’s enough interesting characters in there, and coupled with better writers and the teams who previously worked on Iron Man/Hulk, I’ve no doubt the series would be a lot better.

And oh yeah, this episode blows.