Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes 5 [Import]

As I was watching this particular volume (vol. 5)I noticed some things that made no sense at all. Showing excerpts from previous episodes that hadn't occurred. Then going back to air dates on IMDB, I realized the episodes were out of sequence.
Great animation and story lines. You just need a list of air dates and then select one episode at a time in order for it to click.(make sense)

The air dates are as follow;

The Private War of Dr. Doom - Apr. 1, 2012
Alone Against A.I.M. - Apr. 8, 2012
Acts of Vengeance - Apr. 15, 2012
Welcome to the Kree Empire - Apr. 22, 2012
To Steal an Ant-Man - Apr. 29, 2012
Michael Korvac -May 6, 2012
Who Do You Trust - May 13, 2012
The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill - May 20, 2012
Nightmare in Red - May 30, 2012
Prisoner of War - May 31, 2012
Infiltration - Jun. 4, 2012
Secret Invasion - Jun. 5, 2012
Along Came a Spider... - Jun. 6, 2012
Behold... The Vision - Jun. 7, 2012

The episode order on the volume 5 disc's;

Disc 1:

1. The Private War Of Doctor Doom
2. Alone Against A.I.M.
3. Acts Of Vengeance
4. Welcome To The Kree Empire
5. To Steal an Ant-Man
6. Michael Korvac
7. The Ballad Of Beta Ray Bill (should be #8)

Disc 2:

1. Who Do You Trust? (Should be #7)
2. Behold... The Vision! (Should be #14)
3. Nightmare In Red (Should be #9)
4. Infiltration
5. Prisoner Of War (Should be #10)
6. Secret Invasion (Should be #12)

Along came a Spider... aired as #13, but is not in volume 5

AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES is pretty much the best superhero cartoon series since Cartoon Network's JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED; it's incredibly smart with having Christopher Yost as show-runner, who also was behind the surprisingly excellent (and sadly cancelled) WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN; the character design and voice acting are all equally good.

Be wary; if you haven't seen the entirety of the first season, spoilers will follow.

Where this show really shines though is through character, which always stays very true to the comics, and also is in using the bits and pieces of the existing Marvel Universe mythology and creating great story arcs around them. This particular disc features fallout from the finale of the first season in which Captain America is revealed as a Skrull. For those who aren't uber-fans of comics like myself, the Skrulls are a race of shapeshifting aliens whose own world is gone and they believe they are destined to take control of Earth as their new home. This leads the Skrulls and their Queen to infiltrate the highest places of power and even different criminal organizations, such as AIM and Hydra. Their most valuable asset though is Captain America. He works within The Avengers and SHIELD to fracture them and sow the seeds of distrust but in a very passive and seemingly benevolent way. Soon the question of trust becomes so preeminient on certain characters that they can't trust anyone.

Of the episodes that are on this disc, there are so many excellent ones, such as the cartoon adaptation of the classic Thor storyline, "The Ballad of Beta Ray Bill", where Thor finds out his is not the only being in the universe worthy of wielding the mighty Mjolnir. Also "To Steal an Ant-Man", which introduces us to the Heroes for Hire team of Danny Rand (Iron Fist) and Luke Cage (Power Man). The episode "Michael Korvac" introduces The Guardians of The Galaxy, who are awesome because ROCKET RACCOON. The most powerful episodes though are "Who Can You Trust?", which shows the fracturing of the Avengers from a more personal point of view; "Nightmare in Red", which introduces the Red Hulk battling Hulk through the machinations of a mysterious but well-known villain; and "Prisoner of War", which features Captain America (the real one) teaming up with good guys and bad guys alike to escape their Skrull captors.

The thing that stings the most about this is that this series will soon be over, and there's no good reason for it, other than to capitalize off the success of the AVENGERS feature film. This will lead to Chris Yost being pulled off this show and being replaced with hack extraordinaire Jeph Loeb and to a new cartoon called AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, which will be placed more firmly in the Marvel film universe. But what Marvel and Disney don't seem to get is that the reason this cartoon is so fun and so good is because it isn't in the film universe. We have the live-action films for that. To abandon THESE characterizations in favor of what can only be a cash-grab gives me just another reason to be a little disappointed in the Marvel/Disney partnership.

Although, while each volume of EMH is great in its own right, I'm also hopeful that someday, we will be treated to full-season releases of these episodes at a more reasonable price, and maybe even on Blu-Ray, which apparently Canada has already been treated to...

I am BEYOND disappointed with this release.

The episodes on the DVDs are not in the order they were aired, they are in the order they were produced. So if you watch them in the order they're in on the DVD, you're going to skip around a lot and be extremely confused with the plot-line. At one point, the "last time on the Avengers" segment actually SPOILED some major points for us before we realized that the episodes were out of order.

When studios release shows like this, it only tells me one thing: they don't give a crap about the show. They don't care about the fans, they're just putting some mess down on a DVD and calling it a day in an attempt to earn some money.

I was very happy that the season starts off with a cameo from the Fantastic Four. That was a nice surprise! Then we got a cameo from the Guardians of the Galaxy later on, another happy surprise.

But the jumbled up episodes completely ruined this release for me, especially since I can't even watch the episode "Behold... The Vision!" yet, as it's episode 14 of the season, but on the DVD they have it as episode 9. I'm putting a hold on watching it until Volume 6 comes out to finish the rest of the season, so I can watch the episodes in order.