While fans might be more familiar with the big-budget live-action Avengers that have appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Avengers have been appearing on TV in animation since 1966, and have continued to appear in various forms and series over the decades.
Thanks to the launch of the Disney+ streaming service, fans can watch quite a few animated series starring the Avengers, but some are definitely more deserving of our time than others. So today we are going to explore the animated history of Earth's Mightiest Heroes to see which series did the team justice. Animated Avengers Assemble!
10 THE AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND (1999-2000)
The 90s saw quite a few successful comic book cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series, but there were just as many failures which included The Avengers: United They Stand, which ran for one thirteen-episode season before being canceled.
The series featured a team led by Hank Pym/Ant-Man/Giant-Man and included members Wasp, Tigra, Wonder Man, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Vision, and Falcon, with half the team wearing toy-friendly battle armor that they didn't really need. As it turns out, this was the series that fans didn't really need.
9 IRON MAN: ARMORED ADVENTURES (2009-2012)
Inspired by the success of the 2008 live-action Iron Man film, Iron Man: Armored Adventures debuted with a different focus as it featured a teenage Tony Stark/Iron Man and friends Rhodey and Pepper as they dealt with growing up and supervillains.
While the earlier Iron Man animated series from the 90s featured characters from the Avengers, the team itself didn't appear until Armored Adventures gathered characters like Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, War Machine and Rescue alongside the teenage Iron Man for the finale.
8 MARVEL DISK WARS: THE AVENGERS (2014-2015)
Marvel has released a few anime series over the years as well, though they don't often fit into the same mold as the other Avengers series on the list. Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers is the best example of this, as it featured the Avengers with a Pokémon twist. The premise may seem odd at first, but the series is actually fairly enjoyable.
Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, Wasp and other Avengers were trapped in Digital Identity Securement Kit/DISKs that were made to imprison criminals, and they can only be released for a few minutes at a time by a group of children as they take on the villains of the Marvel Universe.
7 AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL: BLACK WIDOW & PUNISHER (2014)
Marvel has released a few different anime series and films over the years that featured Avengers characters like Iron Man, though the only official Avengers anime film was Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, which focused on the two titular heroes as their paths crossed on a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission.
As the pair entered into a final battle against a team of super-soldiers, they were assisted by an Avengers team that included Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye, Thor, Captain Marvel, and War Machine, though their involvement in the finale of the film was minimal.
6 NEXT AVENGERS: HEROES OF TOMORROW (2008)
A series of stand-alone feature-length animated films were released by Marvel Animation which included a look into a dark future of the Marvel Universe with Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow. The film introduced a team made up of the children of the fallen Avengers that had been raised in isolation by Tony Stark.
James Rogers (Captain America/Black Widow), Torunn (Thor/Sif), Azari (Black Panther/Storm), Henry Pym Jr. (Giant-Man/Wasp), and Francis Barton (Hawkeye/Mockingbird) worked together with Hulk, Iron Man, and the head of Vision to take down Ultron. The team would later briefly appear in the comics as well, though their origin was slightly different.
5 MARVEL FUTURE AVENGERS (2020)
Marvel Future Avengers is the most recent anime featuring the team, and the first season of the series recently dropped on Disney+ for those fans looking for something new to watch. The series follows the adventures of three young friends who were raised by Hydra and given powers through experimentation.
The trio joined with the Avengers and began training alongside Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, and Wasp to become Future Avengers while they investigated the mysterious project that gave them their abilities. While the series focus is on the new characters, the Avengers still play a huge role and feel very authentic compared to some other anime versions of Marvel characters.
4 THE MARVEL SUPER HEROES (1966)
1966 saw the premiere of The Marvel Super Heroes TV series, which featured short segments of various characters like Captain America, Thor, Namor, Hulk and Iron Man that were basically lightly-animated reproductions of the comics themselves, which we would now call a type of motion comics.
As the stories told came straight from the comics, the Avengers appeared in a few of the Captain America and The Incredible Hulk segments. As the series didn't really have an animation style of its own, the art was from the original creators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.
3 AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (2013-TBD)
The longest-running animated series to feature the team began in 2013 with the first season of Avengers Assemble, which was geared towards younger audiences like Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man series. Avengers Assemble was also based on the MCU version of the team, though it was loosely connected to The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series that preceded it.
After two seasons of Avengers Assemble, the series would return each season with a new team and series title to reflect the season's storyline. Avengers: Ultron Revolution, Avengers: Secret Wars, and Avengers: Panther's Quest introduced many different Avengers, though the kid-friendly focus of the series turned off some fans of the previous series.
2 ULTIMATE AVENGERS (2006)
Marvel Animation hasn't released as many animated feature-length films as DC's ongoing yearly offerings, but they did attempt to create their own animated universe of films with Doctor Strange, The Invincible Iron Man, and the aforementioned Next Avengers.
Ultimate Avengers was based on the successful The Ultimates line of comics, though the feature length-film combined elements from the Ultimate and mainstream Marvel comic universes. The film also received an animated sequel, Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther.
1 THE AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES (2010-2013)
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes featured amazing animation and writing that updated the classic origins of the Avengers while faithfully introducing members like Captain America, Ant-Man, Wasp, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Vision.
The series was unfortunately cut short after two seasons to make way for the more MCU-friendly Avengers Assemble. Thankfully, two seasons of EMH still gave fans the best take on Marvel's premiere superhero team that was both comic-accurate and entertaining, complete with an incredibly catchy theme song.
