What Could Have Been / The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes

• Josh Fine in an interview says if he continued to helm the series for a third season, said season would have been the "Magic Season" (Season 1 being the Assemble Season, Season 2 being the Cosmic Season). He didn't go into too much detail, but some have speculating that Doctor Strange, Dormammu, Scarlet Witch, and other characters would have shown up. He's also mentioned that Tony and Maria's conversation about registering super-heroes from episode 28 would have been followed up. Apparently, Fine even had some ideas for a FOURTH Season, but hasn't given any details.
• The show contains elements from what was originally going to be a Hulk series. This is probably why many of the Hulk's Rogues Gallery appear on the show since they don't normally menace the Avengers (aside from Absorbing Man).
  • Some of the first choices for the Avengers' foe in "Breakout, Part 2" included Doctor Doom and Magneto. However, it apparently seemed inappropriate for "Earth's mightiest heroes" to team up and defeat someone another superhero team had fought many times before.
• Ron Wasserman, the composer of the themes of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and X-Men: The Animated Series, had tried pitching a theme song for the show.
• This trailer boasts voices and animation that differ from the actual show.
  • The lyrics to an extended version of "Fight as One" would have included these.
• Mockingbird was due to join the Avengers, but it became too expensive to have EG Daily voice a major protagonist.
• In an interview with Josh Fine, he said that they would have liked to introduce Taskmaster in Season 3.
• According to Chris Yost, "Emperor Stark" started off as a faithful adaptation of the Emperor Doom graphic novel, but with Vision replacing Wonder Man as the Avenger who was unaffected by Doctor Doom's mind-control device. A script excerpt Yost later released on Twitter supports this claim, showing a Cold Open where Doctor Doom captures the Purple Man to exploit his powers, much like in the comic.
• The original writers wanted to put Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the same continuity as Wolverine and the X-Men. Chris Yost once wrote in one of Marvel's live blogs that they take place in the same universe, but later said that the swift cancellation of Wolverine and the X-Men ultimately put a damper on these hopes.
• Captain America was originally supposed to fight the Nazis in the World War 2 flashbacks, but Executive Meddling meant that the creators could have either realistic firearms or Nazis, but not both. They went with the firearms.
• The solicit synopsis for the twelfth issue of the Marvel Universe comic series suggests the existence of an unreleased comic placing the Avengers and Loki in an Enemy Mine situation.
• A blog belonging to one of the show's character designers showed some potential plots that the show could have gone into, including:
  • the Impossible Man giving Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain America, and the Hulk the powers of the Fantastic Four.
  • The appearances of Deathlok, Daimon Hellstrom, 3-D Man and Rom Spaceknight (though it's likely if they had attempted that, it wouldn't have been possible due to legal hangups with Hasbro, successor to Parker Brothers, who licensed Rom to Marvel).
  • The X-Men and the Avengers teaming up, with Rogue apparently having Ms. Marvel's powers and costume.
  • Hulk fighting alongside Crystar, Crystal Warrior (an obscure Merchandise-Driven comic from Marvel in the early 80s).
  • Giant-Man fighting alongside Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) and Machine Man (shades of Nextwave, perhaps?)
  • Mockingbird being saved by the Human Fly.
  • The Wasp becoming Captain Universe.
  • Bill Foster becoming the new Giant-Man (or possibly Goliath).
  • Thor and Adam Warlock fighting what appears to be Shuma-Gorath.
  • The Hulk fighting Omega the Unknown.
  • Captain America encountering Baron Blood and Morbius.
• Avengers Assemble was originally going to be a follow-up to Earth's Mightiest Heroes with an emphasis on introducing kids to the wider Marvel Universe. When The Avengers broke box office records, the EMH sequel was scrapped mid-production by Executive Meddling so that Disney could launch a cartoon with the heroes from the movie instead.
• Colleen O'Shaughnessey originally auditioned for Pepper before she was cast as Wasp.
• Christopher Yost shared a few plans for the back-half of season two before Man of Action Studios took over:
  • Galactus was going to be the villain of a three-part episode instead of the finale, where he attacked Hala instead of Earth.
  • The New Avengers would've been formed after the Galactus three-parter, as the regular Avengers would've been halfway across the universe at that point.
• The Sentry was originally going to be introduced in "Assault on 42," and eventually would've gotten his own spotlight episode before going on to join the New Avengers. An excerpt from an early draft of "New Avengers" also revealed that Yellowjacket would've been part of the team, as he and Spider-Man were the ones who actually went to recruit the Sentry at his home in the suburbs.
• Christopher Yost posted some additional details on what might have occurred in Season 3 through his Twitter, including the debuts of (in addition to the aforementioned Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Dormammu) the X-Men, The Defenders, The Eternals, Namor, Tigra, the West Coast Avengers and Nova, as well as villains like Magneto, Nightmare, Kulan Gath, the Juggernaut, the High Evolutionary and Rama-Tut. A multi-part storyline adapting elements of both Avengers vs. X-Men and House of M would've served as the finale.
  • Carol Danvers would've adopted the Captain Marvel identity in Season 3, and Wonder Man would've returned despite his apparent demise in Season 2.
  • Surtur would have been the main antagonist of the first half of Season 3, with Ragnarok being the Midseason Finale
  • In the third season finale, Wanda and Jean would work together to shunt the Phoenix Force into a pocket dimension a la Heroes Reborn, the X-Men sacrificing themselves to keep it there. Epilogue would be the opening scene from Wolverine and the X-Men.
  • If there was a season 4, the first half would be called Under Siege and the second half Infinity Quest.
  • The fifth season would have been an adaptation of the Secret Wars, (with the Beyonder and possibly all the heroes and villains of the series) which would have spanned the entire season.