The season has a major downside which I want to address first. While the really overt "oh this team member is off in another country today" nods in season 1 were kinda distracting, they also tended to be, y'know, just for a couple episodes. Season 2 has, variously, Cap, Hank Pym, Thor, and Hulk disappear for 10-13 episode stretches. ie half the damn season. Now while they do provide story justifications for all these, in a show whose primary appeal was team dynamic spending essentially the entire season with the team missing at least one major member is pretty lousy. Cap being gone by itself is fine, it's setting up a long-term plot they pull a lot of drama from, and watching Skrull!Cap's attempts to emulate the original kept the overall team dynamic from breaking down too much. The others are less workable. I know Hank's thing is being an empty husk of a human being but you could have... y'know, not put that in this continuity. Something more productive than "spend 20 consecutive episodes sulking" over the whole Ultron thing could have been thought of. Thor and EMH Hulk are my favorite characters in the lineup so just having less of them in general is sad times.
Otherwise this is the superior season overall. While Secret Invasion is a pretty good episode, there unfortunately was a price to be paid in dreary WHO CAN YOU TRUUUUSTTTT episodes leading up to it. And there is a stark (pun intended) difference in the focus between seasons; Season 1 was Iron Man, Season 2 is Cap. So having a fake in the first half really holds the season back. Once he's back the whole "Humans are Special" counterpoint to the daily alien invasions can actually be made and the season functions as intended. Given the major baddies of the season are alien invaders who Cap FUCK YEAHs in the face and the Red Skull just seals the point. It's Captain America time baby.
I had this thought in the first season, but the second season here really cemented it, and ties in nicely to having watched Batman:TAS S3 in the interim; I think when Marvel was working on this they wanted to do a Marvel Animated Universe, with EMH, Wolverine and the X-Men, and Spectacular Spider-Man forming a loose continuity. Although since both those shows ended less-than-ideally right before this one started means it didn't quiiiite line up. And then Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble started and derailed the whole thing. I gather those two shows ARE in continuity with each other, except nobody really cares because Ultimate Spider-Man is just okay and Avengers Assemble is... less than okay.
Anyway, so one of the things that works is EMH has enough continuity now to make stories about Enemy Mine situations and stuff actually work, which felt forced in the first season and had a lot of <Iron Man> "Oh sure I know about [thing that hasn't actually been on the show before], I had to deal with that in [fight that apparently happened off screen, possibly between episodes]." Now when they call back they have something to call back TO. Although sadly this meant the felt the need to pull "Previously On
Luke Cage and Iron Fist are great. Carol Danvers actually being a regular feature on the show was also welcome, because look having Jennifer Hale to punch evil in the face is an unequivocal Good Thing. Even if her seeming inability to recognize when she's being played and when she's not is a bit of a downer.
I miss the theme song.
Best Episode: Acts of Vengeance. It ties up a lot of the loose ends from season 1, let's each of the Masters of Evil show off in a way they never really did before, has probably the best use of the "Skrull!Cap is giving himself away but nobody's noticing" aspect for the first half of the season, and ends on a nice cliffhanger note even if they did not actually get around to Ragnarok.
Weakest Episode: Yellow Jacket. Hank is back! Wait no it's an empty husk of a man who's a jackass because reasons.
Grade: 7/10. The series never quite achieved a real "holy shit this is GREAT" moment but it was steadfastly entertaining throughout.
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