Marvel have been making a killing recently, having taken back control of all their big properties and spun them out into an incredibly successful film franchise, merchandise, and spin-off cartoons which might not match the quality of the movies, but definitely have them rivalled in the moolah stakes. The likes of Ultimate Spider-Man look like masterpieces when you compare them to their Japanese equivalents, however, as Marvel have farmed out a bunch of their characters to net them some of that sweet anime money - regardless of the cost. And in the case of the Avengers, the cost has been buying into the merchandise-heavy world of Japanese cartoons (even worse than American, by all accounts), which means turning the superheroes into, essentially, Pokemon. The premise of Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers is that Tony Stark invents something called a Digital Identity Securement Kit - or DISK, see? - which allows supervillains to be captured and contained in a small space. Like a Poke Ball. Except during the public unveiling Loki gets controls of the DISKs and traps a bunch of heroes in them. Now they can only be released for a short period of time, by the trio of kids who look after them, to fight the bad guys the trickster god released. Again, like Poke Balls. It's...it's not good.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
