The Avengers: United They Stand is an
animated series from
1999 starring
Marvel Comics' superhero team,
The Avengers. Unfortunately, due to plans for live-action movies,
Captain America,
Iron Man and
The Mighty Thor couldn't be used as full members (
Thor only appeared in the opening credits, and Cap and Iron Man made single-episode guest appearances), leaving
Ant-Man as the the leader of the Avengers. The rest of the roster included
The Wasp,
The Vision,
Scarlet Witch,
The Falcon,
Hawkeye, Tigra, and
Wonder Man.
Marvel briefly published a comic-book tie-in. Written by Ty Templeton, he managed to tell some accessible, fun, classic Avengers stories. He even managed to perfectly update "Even an Android Can Cry"
and work in a guest appearance by Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy.
This show ran for only 13 episodes.
This Marvel animation provides examples of:
- Action Girl
- Adaptational Modesty: Most likely because this was a kid's show, Tigra's bikini got replaced with a tanktop and a briefs.
- A Father to His Men: Ant-Man
- A.I. is a Crapshoot: Not just Ultron, but some equipment of his that somehow fuses with plant matter and comes alive in "Remnants".
- Always Someone Better: Ant-Man feels this towards Captain America in his guest episode.
- Animesque: The use of Powered Armor and lengthy Transformation Sequences especially.
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Used all over the place. There's even a "Containment maneuver #12".
- Badass Normal: Hawkeye
- Battle Couple: Ant-Man & Wasp, Wonder Man & Scarlet Witch
- Big Red Devil: Invoked with Taurus, who's actually a minotaur but is also really red.
- Cats Hate Water: More specifically, Tigra does.
- Covers Always Lie: Wonder Man and the Vision in the same lineup? HAH.
- Da Chief: Mr. Sikorski
- Dead Star Walking: Wonder Man
- Demoted to Extra: Captain America, Iron Man and Thor.
- Fantastic Racism: The witches of New Salem are pretty much known for being persecuted in history, yet they call out Scarlet Witch for being a mutant.
- Follow the Leader: The Powered Armor sequence apparently rides off the success of the Iron Man animated series that came before this.
- Happily Married: Ant-Man & Wasp
- Hidden Elf Village: New Salem, Scarlet Witch's old training grounds.
- Invocation: The Scarlet Witch: "Winds of Destiny, Change!"
- Lethal Joke Character: Egghead has just enough knowledge of manipulating Pym particles to nearly kill Ant-Man.
- Man Behind the Man: Swordsman, who convinced his old pal Hawkeye to join his group, was acting under orders from Taurus.
- Multiple Head Case: Gemini of the Zodiac villains. Male and female heads.
- No Ending: The series ends with the Zodiacs getting what they were after, and able to turn the Zodiac Key, while Wonder Man's powers have been rendered unstable due to the Zodiacs' Doomsday Device, and Ant-Man votes to drop him from the team. That's it.
- Opponent Switch: The Avengers do this to defeat the Masters of Evil.
- Organic Technology: In "Remnants", some technology Ultron left lying around somehow turns into this when fused with the local flora.
- The Plan: See What the Hell, Hero?. When asked, what if it didn't work, Ant-Man replied "You know, that never even crossed my mind."
- Red Herring: The Monster of the Week in "Remnants" looks to all the world like Man-Thing, but is actually plant matter fused with Ultron's technology.
- Ret Canon: The comics' Falcon briefly wears the armor he wears on this show.
- Robot Buddy: Vision
- Sacrificial Lamb: Wonder Man, who's very quickly put into a coma while setting up the Vision's origin.
- Say My Name: "HENRY!" said by Wasp whenever she or Ant-Man are in peril.
- Shout-Out: Ant-Man in his microship maneuvers between the keys on a keyboard, looking for all the world like the trench run.
- Stock Footage: The transformation sequences. See below.
- Stripperiffic:
- Hawkeye's old circus costume from "Comes a Swordsman". And unnecessarily so.
- Nearly the whole teamnote Vision is inexplicably spared, while Tigra is already in her element gets jungle-themed outfits in "Remnants" that wind up more like this for some reason.
- Team Mom: Wasp
- Transformation Sequence: Ant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye and Falcon's snap-on armour.
- Western Zodiac: A whole group of themed villains from outer space, with Taurus the acting leader.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Several. Hawkeye in the first episode for leaving his post and the president getting hurt. Later Ant Man for seemingly giving in to the demands of the Monster of the Week who took Wasp hostage. Though in that case it was a plan which worked, so everybody was cool with it.
- Winds of Destiny, Change: The Scarlet Witch. Trope Namer.
- You Don't Look Like You: Ultron can swap out every part of his body for whichever reason, giving him several different appearances. He's even missing his feelers in "Remnants".
- You Killed My Father: This show's Baron Zemo has been under the impression that Captain America killed his father ie. the previous Baron Zemo. In actual fact, it was his own shots reflected off the vibranium shield that did it.
