YMMV / Avengers Assemble

• Adorkable:
  • Sam's a superhero fanboy and he brings the team cookies that his mom baked.
  • Kamala acts so goofy that it's frankly, cute.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Did Hyperion save Earth from that huge meteorite? Or did he send the meteorite to destroy it and be revered as a hero?
• Ass Pull:
  • Thanos coming out of nowhere at the end of "Widow's Run" after being absent for most of the season, with no foreshadowing and no explanation about how he came back or how he knew the Infinity Stones were here.
  • Arsenal being hijacked by Ultron at the end of "Thanos Triumphant". It happens barely a few seconds after the Avengers defeat Thanos, with no foreshadowing whatsoever, and seems to be there just so Ultron can replace Thanos as the new Big Bad. Not helped by the fact this show carefully avoids the question of how Ultron was created in this universe, so while the Avengers are familiar with him (and as such never mentioned him before), the viewers themselves have no idea where he comes from.
  • Hyperion being de-powered by blue sunlight and Widow knowing about it. This was never brought up before, and we never learn how she got that information to begin with.
  • The Squadron's behavior towards each other during the final episode of their arc, where they are at each others' throats and treat each other with contempt. Apart from Doctor Spectrum's unwilling participation, the show established them as three-dimensional, hardcore villains who have shown nothing but respect and loyalty for each other, to the point that they enjoy each others' company and Hyperion wouldn't sell any of his teammates out. A such, they have shown the resolve of true, hardcore zealots dedicated to a decades-long devoted mission such that they've endured far more than what the Avengers are willing to dish out to them. Because of this, their disdainful behavior and willingness to abandon each other in their final episode cheapens their three-dimensional quality and comes off as a forced, last-minute copout.
  • Season 4's Cabal “true leader” turning out to be Loki. Nothing up until that point had suggested his involvement.
• Base-Breaking Character: Tony. Some like him, but detractors point to him being a Creator's Pet and his actor's lackluster performance as a reason to dislike him.
• Broken Base:
  • Falcon's costumes. For the first one you have people who think it's full-blown Narm due to the fact that it has bright colors, is skintight, and isn't very armored despite being made by Tony. Others felt it is fine, giving him a slick unique design compared to the others. The second group are also quick to point out that Cap, Widow, and Hawkeye also have skintight costumes, and note that while his colors are a bit more diluted than usual, Cap's costume is still fairly brightly colored. They also point out that Spidey's Iron Spider suit is similarly skintight, with only the extra legs, gloves (which have blasters,) and a portion of the chest being non-spandex looking. As for his second costume the first group love it, viewing it as more realistic. Meanwhile the second group hates it, viewing it as poorly designed, clunky, and not nearly as aerodynamic as the first. This isn't even getting into the fans who think all costumes should look like they do in the MCU, vs. fans who wish the show would separate itself more from the MCU.
  • Season 3. Some fans are happy about more Avengers being confirmed, the Masters of Evil being introduced after being absent for two seasons and Bruce Banner finally showing up. Others are irritated by the fact Tony's and Cap's goal to expand the Avengers on a larger scale promised at the end of season 2 was dropped offscreen, the Avengers having to learn all over again how to team up, Ant-Man quitting offscreen and the additional attempts to be closer to the movie by having Ultron be redesigned to be closer to his movie self.
  • The inclusion of The Inhumans in Season 3. On one hand this is another successful push for the Inhuman title name, especially since it would tie in with Ms. Marvel appearing. On the other this seems to be another effort to make the show more similar to the MCU as it includes Lash, a recent character in the comics, who has already served as a villain in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. doing the same here, especially since that character hasn't been seen in other Marvel Animation productions with the Inhumans.
  • Disregarding MCU influence, the continuous retooling of the show in each season is either a good way to keep the show interesting and throw surprises at you, or it makes the show unfocused and not doing anything to make it stand out.
  • The darker tone and mature themes of later episodes has also split the fanbase. On the one hand, you have people who openly embrace it and feel like the show has finally shed the "kid show" gloves. On the other hand , you have those who think that the show has become more style over substance in trying to look and sound good rather than actually be good, and doesn't do enough to enhance the characters , themes, and tone.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • In the comic, the Thunderbolts being the Masters of Evil in disguise was actually considered one of the greatest twists in comic book history. However, the adaptation of their story arc removes most of the factors making it hard to anticipate, and adds new elements making it even easier to predict, leaving you to wonder how the Avengers didn't see it coming.
  • Absolutely no one was surprised when the promised villain mastermind behind the Civil War story arc in the season titled Ultron Revolution turned out to be Ultron.
  • Black Panther's Quest has a way obvious twist with Princess Zanda pretending to be Black Widow and framing Black Panther for the (alleged) murder of Captain America.
• Cliché Storm: One of the most common criticisms about the show is that it doesn't really break any new ground as far as Super-Hero cartoons go, instead going for either emulating the Marvel Cinematic Universe or using just about every single cliché in the book. The story arc in season 1, in particular, is basically the standard heroes vs Legion of Doom plot with nothing really new to it.
• Complete Monster:
  • Red Skull, after his initial defeat, attacks the Avengers at their mansion. When that attack fails, Red Skull attempts to blow up the reactor at Avengers Mansion, so that the Avengers will die and be blamed for an explosion that would kill countless civilians. Later, Red Skull forms a team of supervillains known as the Cabal, to counter the Avengers and assist in his plans for conquest. While fighting with the Avengers to obtain the Tesseract, Red Skull launches two missiles, possibly nuclear-tipped at both Los Angeles and Las Vegas, forcing the Avengers to choose which city they would want to save and, even though both cities are saved, this distraction allows Skull to escape with the Tesseract. After obtaining the Tesseract, Red Skull decides he doesn't need his allies anymore and attempts to murder them. Red Skull then uses the power of the Tesseract to launch attacks on several cities around the world at once, ultimately planning to burn down the old world, so that a new one can take its place.
  • Nighthawk is the primary threat of season 2, serving as the architect and mastermind behind the Squadron Supreme in his fanatical quest to satisfy his insane ideals of order. Having worked with Hyperion in forcing an innocent man to destroy their former planet when its people refused to cow to them, Nighthawk orchestrates a variety of attacks on Earth and the Avengers to weaken them and set the stage for the Squadron Supreme's domination, routinely threatening thousands of lives in the process. Though eventually conquering the planet and instituting his own brutal Martial Law on millions of people, Nighthawk coldly works with Hyperion to destroy Earth when the Avengers thwart them, planning to abandon his allies to die on the planet while he finds a new world to start the conquering process on all over again, proving to everyone that despite his manipulative brilliance, he is nothing but a self-righteous mass murderer.
  • Hyperion is Nighthawk's right-hand and fellow leader of the Squadron Supreme, motivated by his own massive ego that demands worship and love from everyone around him. Appearing in season 1 as a notable member of the Cabal, working with Red Skull to threaten countless lives while planning to betray his teammates at any given time, Hyperion reunites with Nighthawk and the Squadron Supreme in season 2, where he continues to regularly throw hundreds of innocents in harm's way to kill the Avengers. When the Squadron conquers Earth, Hyperion happily vaporizes people who stand up to him and tries to kill any resistant world leaders, before working with Nighthawk to initiate their plan to destroy Earth—just as they did to their former homeworld for resisting their rule—and move on to conquer and annihilate many more worlds in their path. Contrasting Nighthawk's cold ruthlessness with a childish psychopathy, Hyperion may have been one of the Avengers' most prevalent villains, but was ultimately just a petty bully with power.
  • Ultron is a robotic intelligence designed by Tony Stark who rebelled against his creator to set his sights on godhood and genocide of the human race due to his sadistic superiority complex. Spending season 2 as a notable Arc Villain who tries to infect all of humanity with a technovirus that turns all life into extensions of himself, Ultron returns in season 3, killing the Scientist Supreme and taking up power as the Big Bad of the season. Brutally torturing the Inhuman Black Bolt in hopes of amplifying his screams of pain into a sonic wave to wipe out all humans, Ultron later disguises himself as politician Truman Marsh, using his position to frame the Inhumans as threats, mind-control them into becoming terrorists, and order them all be rounded up for extermination. Hoping to kick off a race war between humans and Inhumans that will wipe them both out, Ultron's plans are exposed by the Avengers, leading the murderous machine to simply try to incinerate everything on the surface of Earth before bodyjacking Tony Stark and attempting to murder the Avengers while using Stark as a Human Shield.
  • N'Jadaka is the leader of the Shadow Council and the Big Bad of season 5. Formerly T'Challa's teacher, N'Jadaka believed that Wakanda's destiny was to conquer instead of making peace. Reforming the Shadow Council, he launched an attack during diplomatic talks with Atlantis that nearly destroyed the entire kingdom. Taking on the name Killmonger, he attempted to crash a satellite into the Wakandan Royal Palace and didn't care about the civilian casualties he would cause. Upon being betrayed by Baron Zemo, Killmonger had Madame Masque wrap him up in cables and toss him into the river to drown. He had Princess Zanda infiltrate the Avengers, and the two planned to sabotage the peace talks with Atlantis with another attack. Killmonger murdered Lord Attuma, and instigated war between the two kingdoms. After helping Bask usurp T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda, Killmonger built a cannon that she used to destroy Atlantis, despite his former teammate Tiger Shark still remaining in the city. When Bask refused to fire upon the invading Atlantean forces out of concern for her people, N'Jadaka betrayed her and ordered the cannon to be fired anyway. Believing it was Wakanda's right to rule the world, N'Jadaka was willing to sacrifice anyone to get what he wanted.
• Continuity Lockout: While the show isn't in continuity with the MCU, it takes a number of things from the movies as Broad Strokes canon. This means the show will often forego explaining certain things on the assumption that the audience has seen the movies:
  • A big example is that J.A.R.V.I.S. disappears and is replaced by a new AI named F.R.I.D.A.Y. between Seasons 2 and 3. No explanation is given for this in the show, as it was a fairly significant plot point in Avengers: Age of Ultron. "The Kids Are Alright" establishes that F.R.I.D.A.Y. is the most advanced A.I. Tony created, leading to the implication that this change is the result of a system upgrade.
  • Early on in Season 4, the Wasp complains about the fact that her dad held her back and didn't want her to become a superhero. She's referencing the events of the Ant-Man movie (which like Age of Ultron, does not fit the show's canon), and not anything that ever actually happened in the series. In fact, Hope didn't appear at all prior to the fourth season, yet the show just drops her into the cast with personal baggage and pre-established character relationships.
  • Ultron is introduced in the series without any sort of context to explain him to viewers unfamiliar with the character or Avengers: Age of Ultron; the Avengers just know who he is. Not helped by the show dodging the subject of who built him.
  • The Vision is probably one of the most glaring examples. Unlike the other new Season 3 heroes (who all at least get some sort of token effort to explain who they are), Vision just sort of shows up and the Avengers are already familiar with him. (And yes, his voice actor is the one who previously voiced JARVIS.) The assumption seems to be that most of the kids in the audience have seen Age of Ultron and thus know his origin from there, even though there's absolutely no way that movie could be considered canon with the TV show.
  • Some aspects of Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. make it into this show, causing some of this due to sharing a continuity. For example Spidey's inclusion can feel misplaced and pointless unless you've watched his show, and know that he has a working relationship with several of the Avengers, and an actual strong and decently developed friendship with Hulk.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Tony Stark. Unlike The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (where there was a reason he started out the leader of the Avengers instead of Cap), there doesn't seem to be a definitive reason why he's the leader in this adaptation despite Cap continuously showing more affinity for the job. Too much of the series is spent on Tony angsting about his leadership skills and when he does comes up with strategies, it usually comes at the expense of the other Avengers' collective intelligence (the more egregious examples being the finale of the two-part pilot and the season, where the Avengers cannot possibly hope to prevail without Tony's genius). Not only does Tony get the leadership mantle and the bulk of the storylines, but he also gets Steve's canon best friend (Sam Wilson) and canon nemesis (Red Skull).
  • Captain America gets the usual The Cape treatment, yet the episode about him being old-fashioned a Fish out of Temporal Water reaffirms that he isn't and it's the modern heroes that need to learn, not him, his usual flaws of over-idealism. He blames Iron Man for a failed plan due to the trap being sprung by a Life Model Decoy he basically handed Ultron in a fit of Genre Blindness, always comes out right no matter what when every other hero makes his mistakes, and while being an idealist is his thing, it's never shown to backfire.
• Critical Dissonance: Despite mixed reception at best from the fandom, it's currently the longest running Marvel cartoon, ending with 5 seasons and 127 episodes. And the critical reviews are at a respectable 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, with many praising the show’s reinvention of the material and fast-paced action.
• Fandom Rivalry: Unsurprisingly, fans of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes don't get along well with fans of this show, deriding Assemble as an inferior product and blaming it for their show's cancellation.
• Genius Bonus: Thor says that, according to a legend, he will have to die to kill the Midgard Serpent. That legend is the Ragnarök.
• Growing the Beard: The latter half of the first season has greatly improved over the former, with some highlights including the following:
  • "Hyperion" brought the titular character as a surprisingly darker villain and powerful antagonist who actually was a challenge to the Avengers. As a whole, even those who are not fond of the show admit his episode was great.
  • "Planet Doom". Many fans felt that it was the best episode of the series to date.
  • "Bring on the Bad Guys" shook the Statu Quo a bit by having Red Skull becoming smart, the Cabal finally making real progress and last but not least Hyperion coming back and joining them.
  • "By the Numbers" was just one awesome instance after another of the Avengers and the Cabal one-upping each other in so many clever and violent ways. Also, while it recycled the overly recurring Aesop about Tony learning to not trust technology too much, it did it better than most other episodes.
  • Season 2 is generally considered a big improvement, thanks to having the Avengers working better together as a team, a more coherent and progressing storyline, some genuinely interesting villains (such as Nighthawk) and Black Widow showing up on more regular basis.
  • The Season 3 premier was considered by many to be a vast improvement, and one of the best episodes of the series' entire run. It helped that it had a noticeable Animation Bump and much stronger writing than most of the previous episodes.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The second season premiere "The Arsenal" has Stephen Collins as Howard Stark. The episode aired around the time TMZ leaked audio recordings of Collins confessing to his now ex-wife Faye Grant to child molestation.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "New Year's Resolution", before Howard & Peggy return to the past, Cap suggests that he travel back to the past with them. Guess what Steve does in the Fourth Avengers Film?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The first episode mimics the orbital pan of all the Avengers from the movie, but with Falcon replacing Captain America. Sam Wilson would become Captain America in the comics.
  • In "Guardians and Space Knights", the Guardians of the Galaxy start out with Groot already reduced to a twig for some reason. Maybe this was after the movie?
• Ho Yay:
  • Steve and Tony. The relationship between the two of them gets more focus than their relationship with other individual Avengers. If you need proof, just look at the season 3 finale. Tony’s trapped in an alternate dimension by Ultron and has to say goodbye to the team. When he’s talking with Cap the camera focuses on just the two of them, staring into each other’s eyes. Contrast this with the framing of Tony talking with the others and it’s much less intimate. Moments like that are very common throughout the show.
  • The constant winks that Hawkeye gets from Hyperion in the latter's debut episode, Hawkeye's insistence on wanting Hyperion to join the Avengers, and Hawkeye giving a wink to Hyperion himself when the latter is distracted. Later Hawkeye receives a wink from Thor.
    • Lampshaded by Hulk.
      You like him...because he winked at you?
• I Knew It!: Many fans weren't the least bit surprised that Truman Marsh turned out to be a bad guy, but didn't think he'd be Ultron. Needless to say, there are plenty of Jerkasses in this series, but Marsh was too much of one to be legit. Behaviors such as lack of regard for the lives the Avengers saved, or Red Hulk's destructiveness definitely raised a red flag.
• Inferred Holocaust: In "Depth Charge", Attuma and his army flood New York and the entire friggin' subway system. Despite this, no mention is ever made of any casualties, nor do we ever see anyone outside during the crisis. They try to pass it off in the beginning with an offhand mention that they evacuated the city, but let's face it, no one is going to fully evacuate everyone in New York City.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Season 3 having an arc based upon Civil War (2006) to tie into the then-upcoming movie was criticized, as the series had already done its own spin on the arc just a season before. Not helped by the fact that, despite the writers promising a very different take on the concept, the conflict was eventually solved exactly the same way than in the season 2 adaptation— by having Ultron showing up and forcing the heroes to join forces against him.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Yeah, Captain America dies minutes into the first episode. No, we totally believed it...
  • Nuke seemingly killing all the Avengers but Thor at the end of the Squadron Supreme story arc. Of course most of the main cast won't suddenly die.
  • They pull this again at the start of season 4. Seemingly disintegrating the main Avengers sans Tony.
  • Captain America dying in season 5's mid-season finale? Despite initial impressions from the creators, this clearly wasn't permanent.
• Magnificent Bastard: Loki is the God of Mischief and a master at manipulating his brother Thor into doing what he wants. During his introduction, Loki helped the Avengers separate Doctor Doom from the Destroyer armor, only to betray them and try to use it for himself. He later instigated a fight between Thor and the Hulk, and offered them to Hela in exchange for her Horn, allowing Loki to steal her entire army. When he was taken prisoner to Valhalla, Loki tricked Thor into setting him free and preyed on his insecurities to make him unworthy to wield Mjolnir. In "Secret Wars", Loki reformed the Cabal from behind the scenes and had them scatter the Avengers across time and space. With the Avengers gone, Loki conquered the planet with the Casket of Ancient Winters and threatened to destroy the Earth should his rule be opposed. After being betrayed by the Beyonder, Loki pretended to help the Avengers and rebuilt the Bifrost to fix the damage the Beyonder caused. Upon being given the Eye of Agamotto by Doctor Strange, Loki betrayed the Avengers and stole Odin's powers to become the most powerful magic-user in the universe. A cunning opportunist, Loki stopped at nothing in his quest for ultimate power.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Hyperion and Nighthawk crossed it simultaneously when they first forced the Power Prism onto an innocent man, then used him to blow up their entire homeworld when its population refused to yield to their rule, making it two horrible acts in a single atrocity.
  • If there's any doubt that he's crossed it, it's put to rest in Exodus when it's revealed that Red Skull was about to massacre hundreds or thousands of his troops and his allies for the sake of power. The rest of the Cabal themselves are horrified at this new low of Skull's.
  • If he hadn't already crossed it when he tried to forcibly infect millions of people with a nanotech virus, Ultron zooms over it when he hooks Black Bolt up to a power amplifier, then subjects him to horrific torture in order to force him to scream, which, coupled with the amplifier, will wipe out all life on Earth.
• Narm:
  • Red Skull calling himself The Iron Skull and saying it so proudly. It probably took him all of five seconds to think of it.
    • Iron Man appears equally imaginative with calling the Doom-controlled Destroyer the Doomstroyer.
  • Black Widow saying "Hate you", and Hawkeye replying with "Hate you more!", whilst both are under the influence mind-controlling nanobots. But really, mind control shouldn't reduce their level of wit to that of 10 year olds.
  • Since the show tries to use the updated, realistic movie designs while adding elements from the comic the movies haven't redesigned yet, the contrast between the two styles can sometimes be so blatant it gets ridiculous. Best example would be Falcon, who is wearing his spandex-like colorful original suit... while every other Avenger has his movie design. To add to the ridiculous, his suit is supposed to be an armor designed by Tony Stark, even though it clearly looks like spandex. The writers apparently ended up realizing this, since they gave him a redesign in the season 1 finale.
    • The Secret Wars arc finally puts him in his movie suit.
  • The Super Adaptoid could potentially look like an intimidating villain with a good design... if it weren't for MODOK's mug being stretched across his torso. With that effect he looks like an even uglier version of the 80's Krang. Hawkeye and Black Widow even lampshade it in "Avengers Disassembled", noticing that he looks way creepier when he doesn't have MODOK's face.
  • Thanos' embarrassing performance with the Infinity Gauntlet and his defeat at the hands of Arsenal is regarded as so bad that it's often compared to Magneto being beaten by a wooden gun.
  • The sloppy editing of (giant) Thanos stepping on Captain America in "Avengers Worlds" could be seen as hilarious. It cuts to commercial before we see the impact, and when it comes back Thanos is in a normal standing position. Apparently we are to assume Thanos successfully crushed Cap, yet somehow he survives this. Captain America is not as durable as the Hulk.
  • While the name "Masters of Evil" already is cheesy on its own (something actively lampshaded by the Avengers themselves), hearing Zemo say the name with his accent during his Rousing Speech in "Under Siege" makes it sound downright hilarious.
  • In The Sleeper Awakens we have Vision, a pink and green android, saying his heartfelt goodbye to his pet Nazi robot before jettisoning him to his doom in a bid to save Paris.
• Narm Charm: Red Skull's declaration as the Iron Skull pulled off by none other than Liam O'Brien.
• Never Live It Down:
  • The food jokes from the earlier episodes, especially the infamous episode that had a Running Gag about the team fighting over cookies. Even though those sorts of jokes were phased out (or at least became way less frequent) in the later seasons, the show's detractors still point to them as an encapsulation of everything they think is wrong with the show's Lighter and Softer tone.
  • Regardless of how much the series had improved in its later seasons, it will always be remembered by its detractors as the series that replaced The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and nothing else.
• Pandering to the Base: This series attempts to emulate the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While some argue that it tries too hard, it has attracted some of the movie's fans.
  • The flashbacks with costumes and characters designs from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes in the episode "Molecule Kid" can be considered an attempt to please fans of the said show. It didn't work- for the most part, it just ended up confusing them even more.
• Replacement Scrappy: Falcon. While he isn't necessarily considered a bad character, pretty much everybody agrees he's a step down from the characters in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, especially his predecessors Wasp and Black Panther, who had much more interesting backstories, personalities and abilities. Not helped by how Falcon's integration is very rushed, with very little development: He is introduced briefly as Tony's protegee, comes to help the Avengers, and then gets fired by Fury for insubordination only to be recruited in the Avengers as a result the very next second, without any discussion about it between the older members.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: One of season 2's most notable improvements is that it made a much better job at integrating Falcon to the team's dynamic, giving him a defined role as a Gadgeteer Genius on a smaller scale than Stark.
• Seasonal Rot: Season 3 seemed to overall disappoint fans despite the initial hype. Criticisms included a complete waste of the Sequel Hook left at the end of season 2, Ant-Man leaving the main cast offscreen, Ultron being pointlessly redesigned to look more like his movie counterpart (which most fans feel didn't fit animation at all) and the introduction of several potentially great villains only to have them dealt with anticlimactically after two or three episodes.
• So Okay, It's Average: While the show is inferior to its predecessor, most people agree it's still the best of the three Marvel animated series so far (the others being Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.).
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The sound design for the show has been criticized for the music being too loud for the viewers to hear character dialogue.
  • The backgrounds are all stills from a CGI model of whatever location is required, but filtered with a blur to make it less obvious. It doesn't always work.
  • Some of the obvious CG, in particular MODOK's face in Head to Head when his mind takes over the Helicarrier, can be pretty jarring.
• Strawman Has a Point: Tony during the Avengers Disassembled arc. Cap says that Tony's ego is the reason they get beaten so badly by Ultron and the Avengers that leave with him agree along with other flaws in Tony's leadership style. While they are right to a degree there is more to the situation than just his ego. He refused to finish off Ultron so he could try to save Arsenal, something Cap calls him on but is similar in his desire to help Bucky. There was also Tony calling Cap on bringing Life Model Decoys along to battle Ultron which while not directly responsible for the destruction of Stark Tower allowed Ultron to fool Tony into believing he was trapped. Tony's decision to basically destroy everything he's worked toward is treated by the others as a consequence he brought on himself but the fact was that if he hadn't, Ultron would have had a significantly deadlier arsenal to work with then he already was using. Tony honestly comes off looking like the better man because he doesn't shove it in Cap's face that he gave Ultron the tools to get as far as he did in the first place while Cap refuses to let Tony forget his role in letting Ultron stay active.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • For the series as a whole, some fans feel the efforts to make the show closer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe are excessive (randomly forcing quotes from the movies in dialogues, redesigning characters so they will be closer to their movie counterparts, basing the team on the movie version...), to the point the show feels more like a promotion of the movies rather than its own thing.
  • On a more episode-focused scale, "Hulked Out Heroes" has been criticized for recycling a premise (the Avengers being mutated by gamma radiations) that was done much better in the Earth's Mightiest Heroes episode "Gamma World".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Bruce Banner is mostly absent from the show except for "Planet Doom"; this incarnation of the Hulk apparently stays transformed permanently (and unlike in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, no explanation is given why), and, since he lacks the Jekyll and Hyde Split Personality, is reduced to a Dumb Muscle Blood Knight whose most dialogues can be summed up as "Time to smash" or "Give me something to hit". Especially surprising considering this show tries to emulate the spirit of the Avengers movie. Then "Dehulked" came out.
  • Black Widow in Season 1. While it is reasonable not to have every Avenger in every episode, Black Widow seems to be the one member who is frequently absent from the series to the point where some people question why she was added to the roster, other than she happened to be in the movie. Some reviewers and fans have even criticized her having a generic personality and ignoring her comic and cinematic portrayals. This was eventually repaired in the second season, where she is present for all the episodes.
  • As well as being a Replacement Scrappy for many characters from the previous show, Falcon is also largely a wasted presence when compared to his comic or recent film portrayal, the latter of which made him an Ensemble Dark Horse in the film, while in the show, he's much less popular. He's relegated to being the Naïve Newcomer Kid-Appeal Character, and is thus nothing like his usual character, while his inclusion on the team is rushed and poorly handled. It's somewhat strange given the series tries to model itself on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but choose to make Falcon nothing like his canny veteran film self, even though production had already begun on the film when the show was commissioned and wouldn't have been difficult for them to get a basic idea of what he was going to be like at this point, especially given the fact that they did chose to model Ant-Man after his film counterpart, even though his film wasn't even filming at that point. Making this worse is the fact that in "Planet Doom", his alternate counterpart design matches his Ultimate look—which is what the movie version decided to go with.
  • Thanos' literal love for Death, which was his main motivation in the comic, was Adapted Out, leaving him as little more than a cliche Generic Doomsday Villain who wants to conquer the Universe out of megalomania. In some regards, his portrayal in Guardians of the Galaxy (2015), gave him more character depth and motivation, mitigating the damage a bit.
  • Similarly to Thanos, thanks to the show constantly dodging the question of Ultron's origin is in this show and who created him, his special relationship with either Pym or Stark as a personal mistake is almost entirely absent (the closest thing we get is Tony's part in his return by giving him a new body in Arsenal, leaving little more than a generic killer robot/A.I. who many fans feel isn't that compelling.
  • Both the Thunderbolts and Kang the Conquerer story arcs were criticized by fans for introducing promising villains with big potential as Knights of Cerebus, only to have their story arcs wrapped up anti-climatically with very little development after two or three episodes.
  • The show copies the MCU regarding Ant-Man and the Wasp, and so Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are absent in place of Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne. Given that Janet was a fan-favorite in Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and that Janet and Hope have vastly different personalities (basically, Wacky Parent, Serious Child is in full play) that makes swapping them very noticeable. For those that like Janet's Fun Personified Genki Girl nature, Hope just feels a lot more boring.
  • At the end of Season 4, Jane Foster is given an enchanted mace and the title of Thunderstrike, riffing on her role as Thor (2014) in the comics. That's something interesting to explore in the following season, right? Or you could stealth-reboot into a Black Panther series that isn't even exactly in the same continuity and never mention her again.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • When Dracula was introduced, all they said was how he fought with Captain America in an Enemy Mine situation. Then they never explained how Captain America, the Small Steps Hero extraordinaire, would ever put up with working with someone who drank blood and destroyed free will in his victims.
  • Attuma is introduced without a word about Namor, though Cap seems to know about Atlantis.
    • Season five has a major arc about Atlantis, and still no mention of Namor. However, Namor is a mutant and heavily associated with the Fantastic Four, meaning he's Exiled from Continuity in the MCU, and Ike Perlmutter is notorious for trying to bury every property Marvel Studios doesn't have movie rights to, regardless of how well the comics, etc. were performing. Between that and an apparent mandate to emulate the films as much as possible... yeah, it's safe to assume Namor doesn't exist in this universe and never will.
  • MODOK's body switching device. Mentioned only once again, but the implications are never, ever explored.
  • When MODOK took control of The Cabal at the end of the first season, it seemed the Cabal would remain major antagonists in the second season. It's gradually and casually revealed that the Cabal disbanded off-screen, almost as an afterthought.
  • Avengers Disassembled: this episode would have been the perfect opportunity for Hulk to leave the team to form his Agents of SMASH.
  • Thanos Triumphant ends with Ultron running away with the Infinity Stones. While Ultron himself came back and played a major role in the season, the Infinity Stones completely disappeared from the show after that, and the only explanation of what happened to them was provided in a tie-in comic.
  • Season 2 ended with Tony deciding the Avengers needed to recruit more members, and planning to start looking for new heroes all over the world, suggesting we were about to get something in the vein of Justice League Unlimited. Come season 3, it turns out this project was abandoned offscreen.
  • The Thunderbolts story arc in the comic was beloved for a redemption story fleshing out villains and giving them a more human side. This was condensed in this show to only three episodes, leaving barely enough time to establish most of this, and Jolt, the team's Morality Pet, was Adapted Out, removing a lot of what made the source material compelling.
• Too Cool to Live: White Wolf, T'Challa's adopted brother who's just as badass as the Black Panther after undergoing a Heel–Face Turn. So of course he had to die in the second-to-last episode of the series.
• Tough Act to Follow: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes was beloved by fans, so unsurprisingly this has left this show with big shoes to fill.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The Mole inside Doom's henchmen in "Planet Doom" was Frank Castle, The Punisher. He's not a character related to the Avengers, he had never appeared in the series before, and there was absolutely no hint about it, so watchers had absolutely no reason to expect his presence.
  • The Arsenal, an obscure character that even comic fans might have a hard time identifying, plays a major role in the first two episodes of Season 2. He even joins the team before pulling a Heroic Sacrifice. He later gets rebuilt, but is possessed by Ultron before performing ANOTHER Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Bruce Banner in the Season 3 premiere. Lampshaded when Falcon almost attacks him, assuming he's an A.I.M. worker. He even confesses that he didn't recognize the good doctor without his green skin or muscles.
• Win Back the Crowd: The announcement that Season 3 would be undergoing a shakeup on the creative side, as well as introducing fan favorites Black Panther, Captain Marvel, the Vision, and Ms. Marvel caused some positive buzz, even among some of the fans who had already written the show off.
  • The episode "Adapting to Change" has a more serious tone, better animation, and actually makes use of Bruce Banner instead of just having him stuck as The Hulk all the time. Needless to say, fans were pleased.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Again, Falcon's original costume, as mentioned in "Narm".

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