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The official title is “Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow,” but I shortened it in the link for my own convenience.
The Main Characters
--The Next Avengers are the sons and daughters of the original Avengers. There’s James (son of Cap and Black Widow), Torunn (daughter of Thor), Azari (son of Black Panther) and Pym (obviously). They are soon joined by Hawkeye, son of Hawkeye. They are mentored by Tony Stark, formerly known as Iron Man.
The Setting
This is sometime in the future, taking place at Stark’s hidden base and then Ultra city, which is probably NYC. Where else do things take place in the MU?
The Film (1:17:58)
We begin with a brief history of the Avengers (in Kirby-esque art) and how the Avengers got older and had kids. Evil would return (Ultron) and he battled the Avengers, and defeated them (much like the Last Avengers story, an awesome comic from the early 90’s that is woefully underappreciated) but not before they hid their children in hopes of saving the future. Of course, kids will be kids and they accidentally set off a team of Iron Avengers that brings the appearance of Ultron. Iron Man sacrifices himself so the kids can escape to the Savage Land, but they change their course and head to Ultra City to, “smite Ultron.” There they find Hawkeye’s son, save Tony, find Betty and learn Bruce Banner, aka, The Hulk, is still alive. So the Next Avengers battle together with the Hulk to defeat Ultron.
Movie Review
I wasn’t expecting much from this, but it was actually quite a strong, enjoyable film. Enough time was spent to build up these characters and was done in a way to catch us up on the plot and understand where these young kids were coming from. It was different from the other Marvel animated films in that it was completely new content and even though it could be seen as a variation of Young Avengers, it has a continuity all its own. This works well as a movie to show your kids, or as a movie to watch as an older fan since it picks up where Last Avengers Story left off. The animation was clean and well-done, with great poppin’ art and the voice talent suited the characters very well. Overall, a well-done animated feature from the Marvel studios, one that is on par with the better DVD releases DC has issued. Enjoyable for any comics fan of all ages.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Legacy: The Making of Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (10:49)
This is a very basic making-of, talking about the idea of the story but ignoring the Last Avengers Story which this was culled from. They talk about the young Avengers and their powers. This was an average making of, not really giving us any more information that we couldn’t understand by watching the main program.
2) Kid Power: Next-Gen Marvel (9:42)
One of the producer’s tried to make this a way to bring in young kids to the comics and the films, but keep it adult enough. Yost compares it to early Spider-Man and a young X-Men team from back in the beginning. So we have our writers talking about the younger titles, like New X-Men, Franklin Richards Presents, the Power Pack books, and Mini-Marvels. I like this look at the younger titles which I really enjoy, as they are usually free of the over-written books that you may see on the market.
3) First Look: Hulk vs. Wolverine (3:53)
I guess the next line of Marvel DVD’s coming out in 2009 will be a series of Hulk vs. films, which I can see going either way. I don’t know how they can do 85 minutes of Hulk vs. Wolverine or Thor, but will probably be the Stan Lee standard where hero meets hero, they have a misunderstanding, they fight, then unite against a common foe. The animation looks good, though, and from the looks of things this may tie into the Weapon X program of Wolvie. This looks cool, especially with Deadpool in it.
4) First Look: Hulk vs. Thor (3:16)
It’s Hulk vs. Thor, sign me up, man.
5) Trailers (10:54)
There are a whole bunch of trailers here; Spectacular Spider-Man, Speed Racer The Next Generation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 6, Doctor Strange, Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Avengers II and Invincible Iron Man.
B) Audio/Video
The audio is in 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio while the video is 1.78:1 widescreen. The audio sounds really good through the surround and the boys who put this together really wanted it to sound good.
C) Packaging / Liner Notes
This comes in a nice holo-foil slip-case, with. The only liner notes have the cover reprinted on it, as well as ads for the Iron Man and Hulk video games, and another for the other Marvel Animated Features out there.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
The movie was surprisingly good, restoring Marvel’s animated features to the place it belongs, after disappointments like Iron Man and Doctor Strange. This is what we need, a new, fresh look at heroes with new, interesting tales with crisp animation and script. There was no cheesy CGI that hurt Iron Man, and interesting characters unlike Doctor Strange. The whole thing doesn’t have much in the way of content (less than 2 hours of stuff on here) so more could be added, like a commentary (hint Marvel!) or a more in-depth making of, but as it stands this is just purely the movie and not much else. So the movie is enough for a recommendation, but only if you can get this for cheap, as less than 2 hours of a DVD shouldn’t run more than $15, max. Recommended on the basis of the film, but the extras really need work.
Overall Rating
8.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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