DVD Review: Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow
Reviewed by Craig Byrne
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Browsing KryptonSite in recent weeks you may have seen advertisements for the Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow DVD from Marvel Animated Features and Lions Gate Entertainment. The DVD, aimed mostly at younger people, takes the iconic Marvel characters such as Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor and takes it all to the next generation - literally.

Never mind that Marvel continuity already has several "next generations" in place. The "MC2" universe of heroes even has their own "Avengers Next" in the Spider-Girl universe of characters devised by Tom DeFalco. Those are not the next-generation heroes seen in Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, though. The Young Avengers, New Warriors, and other concepts might have made for cool animated features as well; but instead, Lions Gate and Marvel decided to go with something completely new.

Unfortunately, in a lot of ways it feels like the "Next Avengers" are a pale imitation of Warner Bros.' Teen Titans - an animated series that while also aimed at younger people, it has a lot more heart. Even the character designs in some ways - particularly the goofier and smaller Pym - seem to echo the far superior Titans. And this is coming from someone who is a HUGE fan of Marvel's Avengers.

Avengers fans WILL be happy to see an excellent sequence at the start of the feature that is reminiscent of John Buscema's work on the title. It's iconic, and it's great. There ARE many things for someone to enjoy in this feature - I just think instead of just being "good," the Next Avengers feature should have been excellent. Instead, we're just treated to mildly annoying kid versions of good characters.

Character designs for this feature were pretty good, I will give them that; (SPOILER WARNING!) the design for Thor near the movie's end was something I really liked.

The movie was a bit ambiguous about the parentage of some characters. I am assuming that the mother of "Torunn" might be Valkyrie of Defenders fame; and while it is not explicitly said, "Azari"'s mother has just got to be Storm of the X-Men; where else would his powers come from?

All in all, maybe this is a fun feature if you're 8 years old; it's clearly hoping to lead into a regular series, as it's very open-ended. I admit being a little disappointed and at some times bored, though.

Extras on the DVD include a "Making of the Next Avengers" featurette, which among other things shows the feature's original "Teen Avengers" title. On that note, be sure to watch the closing credits of the main feature; you can see some very cool early character designs.

Also included as an extra is a feature on "Next-Gen Marvel" looking at some of the comics for newer readers; I think this was an excellent inclusion and great synergy on Marvel's part.

Finally, there are previews of other Lions Gate direct-to-DVD features, including Hulk vs. Wolverine which looks pretty cool. None of these are at the level of Justice League: The New Frontier, but hey - that movie was pretty darn awesome.

The Final Verdict: Rent it, or Netflix it. Unless you have a kid or a sibling who would really dig this sort of thing. I think my own love for the original Avengers might have affected my final judgement, and I will concede that other online reviews seem to like it better than I did.

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