In the fall of 1999, the Fox Network introduced a new Avengers cartoon for Saturday morning. THE AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND debuted at the end of October with a...LIMITED...line up. No Iron Man (except for one appearance)! No Thor! No Captain America....except for a guest appearance in the show's 6th episode "Command Decision" which aired on December 11th, 1999.
The regular Avengers United line-up consisted of Hawkeye, Tigra, Vision, Falcon, Wasp, and the leader Ant-Man/Hank Pym. Wonder Man made a few appearances as well. The plot behind "Command Decision" consists of Captain America returning to the Avengers and the team naturally looks to Cap as the leader which doesn't sit right with the real leader Hank Pym.
The Avengers cartoon had a lot of villains, including heavy Ultron for a number of episodes, but "Command Decision" featured the appearance of Baron Zemo.
Voice actor Dan Chameroy played Captain America.
Voice actor Phillip Shepherd was the voice of Baron Zemo.
While it is unfortunate that Captain America was not a regular character, fortunately the Falcon was. Voice actor Martin Roach played the character for all 13 episodes.
The cartoon series did spawn a comic book based on the show which ran for 7 issues from November 1999 to June 2000.
As of this writing, the series is not available on DVD for Region 1. However, I did find these other DVD covers below for 2007's Region 2 UK release of the entire series. The first four episodes were, however, released on an Avengers collection. Marvel's other shows are making it to DVD so one can hope the entire series will be released in the near future.
Despite the short run by the comic book series (7 issues) and the short animation run of only 13 episodes with the last running in February 2000, a toy line was designed for the series, which isn't so surprising if you think of these cartoons as 30 minute toy promotions. TOY BIZ released the line for all the main characters including Falcon in his newly designed outfit (which did make an appearance in the regular Captain America Marvel comic book as well). And despite his one appearance, a Captain America figure was released. If the figure is loose from its original packaging, you can tell that it is an Avengers United figure by the Avengers "A" used on the figure's belt buckle. An air glider and Sky Cycle toys were also released with the figures. I'll have a later post on the toy line with photos.
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