Two years before Iron Man would swagger onto screens and change everything, this standalone direct-to-video venture had the audacity to attempt proper grown-up superheroics. Today, Ultimate Avengers strikes one as tremendously earnest yet delightfully awkward.
The animation swaggers about with the confidence of a gentleman’s club member, though it possesses roughly the same artistic flair as the club’s wallpaper- perfectly functional, mind you, but hardly one to set the Thames ablaze.
The plot gallops along at such breakneck speed that poor character development gets trampled underfoot like a fox hunt gone frightfully wrong. One suspects the writers were operating under the delusion that brevity equals sophistication; rather like assuming a monocle makes one intellectual.
Yet there’s something absolutely charming about this pre-MCU relic, like discovering a vintage motorcar that still purrs despite its eccentric quirks.
Operating in complete isolation from any cinematic universe shenanigans, it’s frightfully serious about being grown-up, bless its cotton socks, and manages to deliver some genuinely rousing superheroics between bouts of taking itself rather too seriously. One rather admires its plucky determination to forge ahead without the safety net of sequels or connected storylines that would later become de rigueur.
Verdict: Splendidly mediocre! (based on today’s expectations)
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