Ultimate Avengers / Ultimate Avengers 2 / Next Avengers - [DVD]

Compiled in time to coincide with the theatrical release of the live-action Avengers movie, the Ultimate Avengers Movie Collection gathers three previously released animated adventures featuring some of Marvel Comics' most iconic heroes. All three of the features included in the two-disc set--Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Avengers 2, and Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow--take their cues from the Ultimates and Heroic Age series, which ensures continuity with the characters' origins and story arcs; the alien invaders known as the Chitauri are the main foes in Ultimate 1 and 2, which also revives Captain America from his cryogenic sleep to lead a team that includes Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, the Wasp, and scientist Hank Pym in his Ant-Man guise. Black Panther and one of Pym's other heroic identities, Giant-Man, are added to the second adventure, while Next Avengers flashes forward to a future in which the children of the core Avengers are recruited by Iron Man to defeat the robot menace known as Ultron. Action and animation are fast and colorful, and in the case of the first two features, somewhat bloody; Next Avengers hews towards an anime look that may have its detractors, and it's an awkward (if obvious) fit with its more mature-minded predecessors. Extras, which include making-of and historical featurettes, a grimace-inducing amateur voice talent reel with fans offering their own vocal takes on the heroes, and previews of the Doctor Strange and Hulk Vs films, which have both seen releases, are all ported from previous Blu-ray releases. --Paul Gaita