The Avengers: United They Stand | |
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Format | Animated |
Created by | Stan Lee |
Developed by | Fox Studios |
Starring | Linda Ballantyne Tony Daniels Ray Landry Caroly Larson Stavroula Logothettis Martin Roach Ron Rubin Rod Wilson Lenore Zann Hamish McEwan John Stocker |
Narrated by | George Johnson |
Opening theme | The Avengers: United They Stand (by Sky Flyers) |
Ending theme | The Avengers: United They Stand (by Sky Flyers) |
Country of origin | United States |
No. of episodes | 13 (List of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Avi Arad |
Camera setup | Caption Setup |
Running time | approx. 1hr 22min |
Production company(s) | Marvel Productions in association with Saban Entertainment |
Distributor | Saban Entertainment |
Broadcast | |
Original channel | FOX (Fox Kids) |
Picture format | Caption Setup |
Audio format | Dolby Digital |
First shown in | 32. minutes |
Original run | October 30, 1999 – February 26, 2000 |
Chronology | |
Followed by | Iron Man: Armored Adventures |
External links | |
Official website |
The Avengers: United They Stand (also known simply as The Avengers) was an animated series based on the Marvel Comics superhero team The Avengers. It consisted of 13 episodes, which originally premiered on October 30, 1999, and was produced by Avi Arad and distributed by 20th Century Fox Television. It was later canceled on February 26, 2000.
The series featured a team based on the roster for the 1984 The West Coast Avengers, composed of the Wasp, Wonder Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch
Contents |
Roster
The series featured a team broadly based on the roster for the 1984 Avengers spin-off series The West Coast Avengers, composed of the Wasp, Wonder Man, Tigra, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch (Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch were also both in the Iron Man animated series as members of Force Works), led by Ant-Man (a.k.a. Giant-Man), with the Falcon and the Vision joining in the opening two-parter. For undetermined reasons (perhaps due to their rights being tied up in planned movie projects), the Avengers' "Big Three" were not regular fixtures in the series - Captain America and Iron Man made only guest appearances in one episode each, while Thor did not appear outside of the opening titles.
The series featured many of the Avengers' major comic book foes, including Ultron, Kang the Conqueror, Egghead, the Masters of Evil, the Grim Reaper and the Zodiac, as well as associated characters such as the Swordsman, the Circus of Crime, Namor, Attuma, Agatha Harkness and the Salem's Seven. The show made several fan-friendly references to aspects of the characters' comic book history that were otherwise not expanded upon for the uninitiated, such as the Falcon and Captain America's partnership, Hawkeye's partial deafness or Namor's half-breed nature.
Beyond this, however, the series bore little in the way of similarity to the comics, mainly due to its wholesale redesign of the cast, characterized by asymmetrical costume design and the most (in)famous element of the series - Ant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye and Falcon all wore suits of battle armor, which they donned in sentai-inspired "power-up" sequences.
The entire cast from X-Men: The Animated Series were going to appear in a planned, but unmade two part episode during Season 2. The series was, however, cancelled before Season 2 was made. The X-Men were to have been voiced by their respective voice actors/actresses. Some of the voice cast for Avengers started from X-Men. Lenore Zann and Tony Daniels, voices of Rogue and Gambit, for instance voiced Tigra and Hawkeye.
Episode guide
Proposed second season
Scripts were written for a second season that would have included guest appearances Thor and his foster-brother Loki, and the X-Men, based cast from the 1990s series reuniting.[citation needed]
Comic
The Avengers: United They Stand Comics | |
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cover of The Avengers: United They Stand #4 |
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Publication information | |
Publisher | Marvel Comics |
Format | Ongoing series |
Publication date | November 1999 - June 2000 |
Number of issues | 7 |
Main character(s) | Avengers |
Creative team | |
Writer(s) | Ty Templeton Derec Aucoin |
The Avengers: United They Stand comic book series by Ty Templeton and Derec Aucoin was published to accompany the series and is considered vastly superior to the animated series by fans.[original research?] Due to low sales it lasted only seven issues.
The first two issues are set before the series premiere, Avengers Assemble, Part 1 & 2. #1 has the Avengers injured by an early version of Ultron. This issue was used to explain the armor worn by Hawkeye, Wasp and the Falcon in the series, which uses Pym Particles to reduce the pain caused by injury. It is mentioned by Hawkeye that Hank built his own armor after his legs were broken by Dragon Man, and felt no pain in his legs until he removed the armor. #3 takes place after the premiere as the Vision is being interviewed about his membership. He is also briefed on how Wonder Man and Hawkeye joined the team.
The Black Panther would appear in #1 and 6-7 of the series. In #1 he is among the Avengers who are injured by Ultron. Because of that, he refuses to rejoin the team until Hank steps down from being leader. Captain America appears in #6-7 as well. Quicksilver is mentioned twice in the series. In issue 1, Wanda is shown writing a letter to him. Issue 3 shows him in the flashback alongside Captain America, Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch.
Additional characters
Other characters that appeared in the comic but not the show:
- Natalia Romanova/Black Widow #2 and 5 [1]
- Baron Strucker #2 [2]
- HYDRA #2 [2]
- Nathan Garrett/Black Knight #4 [3]
- Doctor Doom #4 [3]
- A.I.M. #5 [1]
- The Collector [4][5]
Toys
Toy Biz released a line of action figures for the cartoon series. The figures included Ant-Man, Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, Kang, Tigra, Vision, Ultron, Wasp and Wonder Man. Air Gilder and Sky Cycle vehicle toys were also produced. In the promotional images of the series, and the action figure photos, Hawkeye didn't wear a mask. However, in the series and the final version of the figure, he wore a mask similar to that he wore during the Avengers: The Crossing storyline.
DVD release
On May 21, 2007 Maximum Entertainment released the complete series on Region 2 DVD in the UK. The 2-disc boxset features all 13 episodes of the series. The series remains unreleased on Region 1 DVD. On April 2009, Brightvision entertainment released the first four episodes on an Avengers Collection DVD, which also obtained 4 episodes of Thor and Sub-Mariner from the 1960s Marvel Superheroes animated series. At the moment, only one volume of Avengers has been released but more are to come. Due to the pending sale of Marvel (owners of the characters) to Disney (holders of the series), the current status of the series' DVD release is uncertain.
Cast
Main cast
- Rod Wilson - Ant-Man/Dr. Henry 'Hank' Pym
- Linda Ballantyne - The Wasp/Janet Van Dyne
- Tony Daniels - Hawkeye/Clint Barton, Aquarius, Boomerang, Tiger Shark
- Hamish McEwan - Wonder Man/Simon Williams
- Martin Roach - The Falcon/Samuel Wilson
- Stavroula Logothettis - The Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff
- Lenore Zann - Tigra/Greer Grant Nelson
- Ron Ruben - The Vision
- John Stocker - Ultron (voice)
- Ray Landry - Raymond Sikorsky (voice)
- Carolyn Larson - The Computer (voice)
- Gerry Mendicino - Taurus/Cornelius Van Lunt
- Graham Harley - Edwin Jarvis
Supporting cast
- Dennis Akayama -
- Phil Akin -
- Oliver Becker -
- Wayne Best -
- Norman Bissonette -
- Dan Chameroy - Captain America/Steve Rogers
- Conrad Coates -
- Rob Cowan -
- Francis Diakowsky - Iron Man/Tony Stark
- Carlos Diaz -
- Paul Essiembre -
- Nigel Hamer -
- Ken Kramer -
- Robert Latimer -
- Julie Lemieux - Gemini: Female Head
- Stephen Ouimette -
- Susan Roman - Moonstone
- Tate Roswell - Andrew Wilson
- Allan Royal -
- Elizabeth Shepherd - Agatha Harkness
- Phillip Shepherd -
- Raoul Trujillo - Namor
- Peter Wildman -
- Peter Windrem -
References
External links
- The Avengers: United They Stand at the Internet Movie Database
- The Avengers: United They Stand at TV.com
- Avengers Forever: Animated Avengers Cartoon
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