Ultimate Avengers Movie Collection DVD review

Marvel’s animated “Avengers” tales are rereleased to tie in with the big-screen movie as part of a three-pack collection at a budget price.

In “Ultimate Avengers: The Movie,” an alien threat has the superspy organization SHIELD searching for a solution. The film is based on “The Ultimates” comic book by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch.

More than 60 years after Capt. America’s disappearance, SHIELD seeks the captain’s body, hoping his supercharged blood will hold the key to its super-soldier program, headed by Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. They find him frozen beneath the ocean — still alive. SHIELD director Nick Fury rounds up a team to rally around Capt. America: Giant-Man, who can grow to colossal heights and wants to prove a point to Fury; Wasp, Giant Man’s wife, who is able to shrink to microscopic size and has energy blasts; Black Widow, a former Russian spy now loyal to Fury; Iron Man, secretly wealthy arms manufacturer and playboy Tony Stark; Thor, an environmental activist who believes he’s the son of Odin; and The Hulk, the monster lurking inside Banner.

The team returns in “Ultimate Avengers 2,” which introduces the Black Panther character to this continuity. T’Challa, the heir to the African kingdom of Wakanda, must take the reins of his country when his father, the king, is murdered. The Black Panther turns to Capt. America for advice in defeating his father’s murderer, apparently a surviving Nazi. Cap can’t help — he’s killed this Nazi twice already. The Nazi is one of the aliens battled by the Avengers in the first go-round, but they’re returning to pilfer Wakanda’s trove of the rare and expensive metal, vibranium.