The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Winter Soldier" Review

Warning: full episode spoilers follow.

Picking up from the fallout of last week's "Code Red," this week's installment of Earth's Mightiest Heroes continued the focus on Captain America, Winter Soldier, and Red Skull. With the addition of the long-absent Nick Fury into the mix, "Winter Soldier" explored the darker, more espionage-influenced portion of the Marvel Universe. At least until Red Skull's giant super-mech shows up to stomp all over the US Capitol.

The writers offered no further explanation than the previous episode did as far as why Bucky was suddenly able to shake off his decades of brain-washing. Instead, this episode dived right into his current mission, which we eventually learned was trying to dispose of Red Skull's Hydra drones before his fail-safe activated. This was another area where the plot felt a little flimsy. If Red Skull had these gigantic, nearly indestructible drones lying in storage, why did he waste years infiltrating the US government when he could have caused more immediate and significant damage with these?

In any case, the episode delivered some brief but interesting flashbacks to Winter Soldier's early missions. Seeing a younger Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in action was a nice bonus. We even learned that Bucky was responsible for Fury losing his eye. It's a shame this material wasn't expanded upon more, particularly with Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine making a silent cameo appearance. Marvel's live-action S.H.I.E.L.D. series can't happen soon enough.

"Winter Soldier" generally handled the title character well. His origin was pretty similar to the one established by Ed Brubaker in the Captain America comics, with the only major difference being that Skull was responsible for his "resurrection" from the beginning rather than stealing the assassin from his Russian handlers. He showed he had the skills to both defeat Fury in open combat and take down Red Skull's giant robot with sheer force of will (again, that fierce willpower should have been reflected more last week). By the end of this episode, Bucky's emotional arc was properly completed and the door was left open for more from the character. The problem there being that the series is ending soon, and it's still not confirmed whether Avengers Assemble will be a reboot or a continuation of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

The final battle sequence wasn't quite the spectacle it could have been, but at least we got to see Cap and Bucky team up once again to punch Red Skull in the face. It offered a nice counterpoint to the tragic flashback sequence of Bucky's death we've seen multiple times during the course of the show. Unfortunately, Hulk and Yellowjacket were both conspicuous in their absence during the fight. It's been disappointing to see so many weeks pass without a return appearance by Hank Pym. His size-changing abilities might have lent an extra bit of flourish to the battle with Mecha Red Skull. Perhaps "Yellowjacket" was intended to take place after this one chronologically, but then why air it out of order?

On the bright side, at least next week's episode will finally bring Hulk back into the fold. The character was written out of the series just as his stock skyrocketed in the wake of the Avengers movie. Let's hope EMH can still run with that momentum as we inch closer to the big finale.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following Jesse on Twitter, or on IGN.

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ShootMania: Competition for Everyone!

ShootMania is the most recent addition to the IGN Pro League lineup, and its focus on eSports is evident far before the game even launches! In the video above, you'll see that two game modes will be completely free to play for everyone at launch. Royal mode is a free for all format with elements of deathmatch and survival, and Elite mode is the game's first official competitive mode, focusing on both attacking and defending a single point on the map.

Having two completely free modes to play on supports the idea of "Competition for Everyone." Anyone with a free account can just hop on and begin playing either Royal or Elite with their friends.

Royal is a more casual format that awards points in three different ways:

• Activating the OffZone, an electrified wall that begins moving after being activated and closes in around the Goal, a single point on the map. Activating the OffZone awards points based on how many other players are in the game. These points can be split between multiple players if they are all standing on the Goal when the OffZone is activated.
• Shooting other players. The more shots a player lands, the higher the points will be. Each round starts at 1 point per hit, but if a player hits enough others in a round, individual hits become worth more and more.
• Surviving. Being the first person eliminated in Royal gets you 1 point, being second awards 2, and so on until only two players are remaining. The last two players standing receive additional bonus points for surviving, and the last man standing receives the most.

Elite is the first official competitive mode and is played with teams of 3:

• Each round three players on the same team will defend a Goal. One player from the opposing team will attack.
• The defenders all fire rockets, projectiles with a travel time. The attacker fires a laser, which is an infinite range, instant kill shot with a long reload time.
• The defenders win if they eliminate the attacker or if time runs out in the round. The attacker wins if he eliminates all three defenders, or if he captures the goal during the 15 seconds that it is vulnerable.
• Teams take turns attacking and defending until one side reaches 6 points, but they must win by 2.

With both of these modes being available for free at launch, anyone with a computer and Internet connection can play to their hearts' content and become skilled at the game, opening up competition for everyone who wants to give it a try! Online qualifiers for North America and Europe begin in October, so definitely grab yourself a beta key at http://go.ign.com/iplshootmania and then head to our $100,000 IPL5 Tournament Registration page to get signed up!

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The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - "Yellowjacket" Review

Warning - full episode spoilers follow.

My biggest complaint about the previous episode of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, "Ultron Unlimited," was that it didn't focus enough on the bizarre Pym/Ultron family dynamic. A major part of the problem was that Hank Pym was still in superhero retirement at the time and thus not around to confront his creation. But while that was a bit of wasted potential, at least Hank made his long-awaited return for "Yellowjacket." This episode borrowed from some classic Bronze Age Avengers material as it chronicled Pym's descent into madness and his misguided attempt to reinvent himself as a more proactive hero.

This isn't easy material for a more family-oriented superhero show to tackle, but the writers seemed to handle the challenge well. Speaking of which, the Man of Action team were responsible for this week's installment. They seemed to bring an extra dose of sly humor to the characters, particularly when it came to Hawkeye and his quips. But despite that extra dose of humor, the episode was fairly dark in tone. The writers didn't shy away from Pym's deteriorating mental state. If anything, they pushed him a step further than he went in the comics. Though he didn't get to the point of physically abusing Jan as he did in the infamous Avengers #213 (good luck convincing Disney to air that), Yellowjacket's schizophrenic desire to kill off his Hank Pym personality was arguably more extreme than it was in the source material.

All of this made for a very interesting character study. The characterization in Earth's Mightiest Heroes has always been a bit wooden and straightforward compared to some of the more ambitious superhero cartoons out there, but Hank may be the lone exception on the team. The show is immediately better off for having him back in action. And kudos to Wally Wingert for providing a Yellowjacket voice that was convincingly different from his regular Pym voice. Even for viewers who haven't read an Avengers comic, I'm sure the identity reveal was about as surprising as Senator Palpatine turning out to be Darth Sidious, but the effort was appreciated anyway. That said, hopefully Wingert can find more of a happy vocal medium if Pym really is determined to keep up his Yellowjacket persona going forward.

The one down side to this episode is that it didn't offer the resolution regarding Pym's mental state I was hoping for. Iron Man's brief outburst aside, the Avengers seemed perfectly willing to accept Hank back in the fold despite his recent misdeeds. That's to say nothing of the bizarre public reaction to Yellowjacket's debut. For all anyone was aware, Yellowjacket was caught on video giving the Punisher treatment to the Serpent Society, yet he was being praised on the news as a welcome addition to New York's costumed community. Will there be opportunity to keep exploring Hank's tenuous grip on sanity in the remaining episodes, or is this it? And is it just me, or is anyone getting tired of the Serpent Society being the de facto characters whenever the writers need a group of bad guy punching bags? The Marvel Universe is a crowded place, and surely there are some other C-Listers out there deserving of being punched in the face.

But if not as conclusive as I would have liked, "Yellowjacket" was nonetheless a strong return for Hank Pym.  With more episodes slated for the remainder of September, we'll see if Earth's Mightiest Heroes can keep building on its recent momentum.

Jesse is a writer for IGN Comics and IGN Movies. He can't wait until he's old enough to feel ways about stuff. Follow Jesse on Twitter, or find him on IGN.

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