It's a great time to love comics and cartoons.
What are they about?
Batman (The Brave and The Bold) is about the adventures of Batman teaming up with other superheroes. Batman has to take down mild threats of criminal scum to universe ending god-like beings. Works pretty well for a kids show.
The Avengers (Earth's Mighties Heroes) is the adventure and formation of Marvel's most powerful superhero team. They struggle to become a team after a supervillian prison break has let loose to much evil for one superhero to fight alone.
Why Should You Watch?
"I'm sorry I was distracted by your hotness", said Blue Beetle in the episode Night Of The Huntress. Excellent writing puts Batman Brave and the Bold in a hight level of cartoon superiorty. Like I said earlier for a kids show it takes some jabs at hardcore material, yet it keeps a campy vibe that it's modeled after. This volume include the episodes like "Legends of the Dark Mite" featuring the writing talent of Paul Dini who worked on the original Batman: TAS and has Batman facing a nerd god like being who tramples through his life with sends up and in jokes hardcores fans will make fun of forever."Mayhem of the Music Meister!" features a villian who controlls people through his singing making the episode into a musical and instant favorite. The songs go through different genres and are catchy. Another great concept is a underlying story around the strange villian Equinox.
On the Avengers side how about excellent writing that keeps both the way characters act in comics and storylines from the medium put in the show. The Avengers perfectley captures the original feel from the comic books. The team isn't helpful or friendly with each other, they fight and come together only after time. Excellent fights fill up the screen and feature all the Avengers giving there all. Captain America, Wasp, Thor, Iron-Man, Ant Man, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Hulk are all in the fight for justice. They aren't a very good team on friendship, but they are heroes. The whole underlying story like Batman about the villians breaking out and who broke them out is great continuity that many superhero cartoons didn't do before. There's just something when you here Avenger Assemble!
Being a nerd
Looking at the covers you see the age old way of marketing to little boys, which means no girls. Wasp is absent from the cover for a reason, she's a icky girl. The big names are all in heroic poses, minus Ant-Man, because he's ant-man I guess. The strange dvd practice of putting on a layer of cardboard for no reason is back, so you have a embossed cover. The box art is catchy and colorful, but isn't perfect. Whoever ripped the clip art and put them in position never went to art school. It seems kind of lazy, maybe someone should have taken the time to draw the covers, not rip images and put them together.
Check out this cover here, I think this was for the short comic series, I have no idea why it wasn't chosen over the others. It includes everyone and them seem to be posing together better. Whoever did the cover should be fired for there simple lack of graphic design skills. Real though could have been put in them, maybe a overall image on the spines, but no.
BTW a huge chunk of Marvel animation is hitting Netflix this Summer. Even the worst idea for children's animation the Silver Surfer. At the time Marvel went bankrupt with the show. A existential search about life, not the best subject matter for a Saturday cartoon.
Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Season One, Part Two $14.49
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Vol. 1 $12.99
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Vol. 2 $14.99
DVD's provided by Disney Home Video
