Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008)

Movie Info

Lame Avengers Assemble!!!

Raised by Tony Stark, James Rogers, Henry Pym Jr., Azari, and Torunn are the future of the Avengers.  The children of the Avengers most powerful members accidentally reactivate Ultron:  the enemy that destroyed their parents.  Now, Ultron must be stopped again, and Stark’s training will come into play along with the arrival of Francis Barton and the return of one of the strongest Avengers of them all.

Directed by Jay Oliva and Gary Hartle, Next Avengers:  Heroes of Tomorrow is an animated Marvel Comics feature.  The characters were original characters for the story (somewhat based off of the concept of Young Avengers), but later reconned into continuity in various comics.  The movie followed Marvel’s Doctor Strange:  The Sorcerer Supreme in 2007.

You’re it? Seriously, I took on the Avengers!!!

I have to say that while Marvel live-action features are quite good and get it right, Marvel animated features just miss the boat.  DC does a great job bringing conflict and action to the story while Marvel just churns out rather bland entries…Next Avengers is a great example of this.

The first problem is Marvel doesn’t recognize their assets when it comes to the animated features.  DC frequently adapts classic or contemporary storylines into their animated movies, but Marvel often tries to be original…I would rather have something more thought out than this entry.

The Young Avengers or Runaways would have been perfect material for this movie.  The problem is that the movie is more kid-friendly (a gateway comic book movie) and Runaways or Young Avengers are too dark.  The movie just ends up pretty fluffy and in the end the Next Avengers didn’t really end up doing much…Hulk really ended the conflict.

Hey, I look like the Maestro…couldn’t we get a Hulk: Future Imperfecta?

I am also not a big fan of the art designs for this movie.  The characters are a bit too cartoonish.  This is also a problem with Marvel’s line of animated films.  There is little style consistency between the products.  If this movie matched some of Marvel’s other features (and those features were to cross over), it would be exciting and I think I’d have more of a drive to seek out Marvel’s animated movies…instead I’d rather stick with the better stories of DC.

I realize on this movie that I am not necessarily target audience and that they want younger views (it kind of a Marvel version of Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans).  That being said, the movie feels small scale.  If it was part of a series that would be something, but here it feels underdeveloped and under cooked.  The characters were eventually introduced into the Marvel Universe, but it feels like a missed opportunity.  Marvel followed-up Next Avengers:  Heroes of Tomorrow with Hulk Vs. in 2009.