What was the original plan for the final 12 episodes of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes?

[ShadowStar]

I remember reading that the first draft of "Emperor Stark" was very faithful to the Emperor Doom story from the comics, with Wonder Man as the star rather than the Vision. I have to wonder what else would have happened had Yost and Fine retained complete control over the direction of the season.

Some things that might have happened (rampant speculation, of course):

• A two-parter combining the Ultron Unlimited and Yellowjacket stories to deliver a more epic arc for the characters of Ultron and Pym. This would result in Wasp leaving the team to concentrate on Hank.
• Scarlet Witch showing up as Doom's accomplice in Emperor Doom, with her powers being the reason for the world falling under his control (now, I haven't actually read the Emperor Doom story, so please go easy on me if my theory bears no resemblance to the source material). Once saved from Doom, Scarlet Witch could then assist Thor in finding and rescuing the Enchantress (in a sub-plot spanning a small portion of the season).
• Joint focus for Wonder Man and Vision in the Emperor Doom episode, explaining their connection. (And Wonder Man's return could be an unintentional consequence of events in the aforementioned Ultron/Vision/Yellowjacket two-parter.)
• Falcon joining the team after the Red Skull's defeat, and helping Cap find Winter Soldier (instead of Nick Fury filling this role).
• Reserve member status for Black Panther (otherwise the team would just be too crowded, and anyway Wakanda clearly mattered more to him than the team when push came to shove).
• Kang escaping at the end of Assault on 42, setting up a Kree/Skrull war three-parter in space.
• Galactus two-parter to end the season, with the assembling of the New Avengers team and various allies having already happened during the Kree/Skrull war three-parter.
• Since the Hulk was "off the grid" in Infiltration, maybe there was something more interesting planned for him than just having him be under lock and key in one of General Ross's bases? The showdown with Red Skull would've been the best time to tie this up, removing the need for a whole Red Hulk episode (but demoting Hulk to a reserve member was a good idea so I'd have wanted that to stick).

 

[Frontier]

I don't think we've ever gotten any real idea of what the plans for the second half of season 2 were supposed to be before MOA and Loeb became more involved in the show. I didn't even know about that Wonder Man thing .

Some of those ideas are definitely cool though, and while I would be sad to see Panther off the team, if it meant more screentime for Vision and Ms. Marvel it might have balanced out well .

Though I don't know if I could stand Wasp leaving, even if her doing so to help out Hank would be something I could see and agree with considering how the show handled Yellowjacket .

 

[TheVileOne]

Vision was a much better character than Wonder Man on the show, so I'm glad he got more screentime instead.

 

[Frontier]

Vision was a much better character than Wonder Man on the show, so I'm glad he got more screentime instead.

I thought Simon was an understandable and effective villain with his conflict with Iron Man, and I was hoping we would eventually get to see him turn hero on the show. Disappointing that never happened .

 

[TheVileOne]

I thought Simon was an understandable and effective villain with his conflict with Iron Man, and I was hoping we would eventually get to see him turn hero on the show. Disappointing that never happened .

I was far more moved by Vision's decision to rebel from Ultron and earning the Avengers' trust and respect. Plus, they went with the pure living energy version of Wonder Man, and I never cared for that design.

 

[Capt. Speedbump]

From what I've heard (a couple of years ago), supposedly, there weren't a lot of radical changes, just some script tweaking here and there to focus on the big three (Cap, IM, Thor). Man Of Action had credits in only five of the episodes; the other seven may have been virtually unchanged from the original vision. I think I remember Josh Fine saying somewhere that the Surtur stuff was meant to continue into Season 3, so I don't think that was truncated.
But I'm not an insider, and it has been a while since I remember reading about this stuff, so don't necessarily take what I'm saying as gospel...

 

[Rick Jones]

Wasn't there a version of Powerless with Hawkeye and Ms Marvel leading the heroes?

 

[macattack]

From what I've heard (a couple of years ago), supposedly, there weren't a lot of radical changes, just some script tweaking here and there to focus on the big three (Cap, IM, Thor). Man Of Action had credits in only five of the episodes; the other seven may have been virtually unchanged from the original vision. I think I remember Josh Fine saying somewhere that the Surtur stuff was meant to continue into Season 3, so I don't think that was truncated.
But I'm not an insider, and it has been a while since I remember reading about this stuff, so don't necessarily take what I'm saying as gospel...

The other big change beyond what you were mentioning is that Loeb wanted an end to the story arcs that had come to dominate AEMH, so it's likely all twelve of those episodes had some form of alteration by MOA in order to fit into the one-shot preference, even if they weren't credited for it.

 

[Dsneybuf]

Whenever I watch the Galactus episode, the fact that so many heroes don't have lines (as I lamented after first watching the episode, they fell a "Hulk smash!" short of ensuring that at least all of the Avengers had lines) makes me wonder if Chris Yost originally wrote it as a two-parter, but someone cut out a lot of character moments to make it a one-parter.

 

[TheVileOne]

Whenever I watch the Galactus episode, the fact that so many heroes don't have lines (as I lamented after first watching the episode, they fell a "Hulk smash!" short of ensuring that at least all of the Avengers had lines) makes me wonder if Chris Yost originally wrote it as a two-parter, but someone cut out a lot of character moments to make it a one-parter.

When you have so many characters on screen, you can't always take time to give them their own dialogue. Case in point, Justice League Unlimited.

That's why I prefer smaller, more intimate rosters for superhero shows.

 

[Capt. Speedbump]

When you have so many characters on screen, you can't always take time to give them their own dialogue. Case in point, Justice League Unlimited.

That's why I prefer smaller, more intimate rosters for superhero shows.

Valid point, and also, more voices = more expensive, and executives that oversee television animation tend to reeeeally not like to go over-budget.

 

[Dsneybuf]

Well, I didn't say that I expect actual recordings of deleted scenes to exist.