Heroes United (2014)

Iron Man and Captain America: Heroes United,  is the first feature length motion picture showcasing the character of Taskmaster.  As timely as the publishing of this summer's posting, the movie becomes an endorsement to fans of the upcoming Black Widow movie starring Scarlett Johanssen. By providing an inside look at the character, revealing the kind of threat he poses to the MCU; what makes him a unique villain to a skilled Spy turned Avenger like Natasha Romanoff.
In this movie we have the super soldier Captain America and the high tech genius of Iron Man facing two foes Red Skull and Taskmaster. Its a sequel to the 2013 Heroes United teaming of Hulk and Iron Man,  Returning are the same creative team and most of the original cast of voice actors.  This includes on screen characters such as Hyrda scientists Dr. Frump and Dr. Cruler, who we now learned survived the Arc reactor explosion, but now appears to wear special hazmat suits, most likely from their exposure to radiation in the last film. The film plays heavily on the concept of buddy team ups, and characters whose approach and regiments are completely at odds from one another.  Stark & Rogers share a competitive spirit which lends itself to an enormous amount of predictability in the storytelling.  At times the plot device of working their differences into the story goes on for far too long and detracts from enjoyment of  the movie.
The gold standard in the Marvel superhero mythology for the past forty plus years is achieving the success of the Super Soldier Serum, its been retcon in a way that Banner's work with gamma radiation was to achieve the affects in human evolution.  Its been imitated, never duplicated has been Marvel's motto;  Red Skull taps into that concept with the utmost absurdity for results which are distorted and grotesque, that mirrors on the theme of  being drunk on the over abundance of power for this super soldier serum. As harsh of a criticism I just made, the film provides equally as good counterpoints.  The portrayal of Captain America as a fighting soldier with or without the shield is amazing, really utilizing the elements always spoken about and seen from panels of a comic books. we now see actualized with stunning results. The motion animation and colour hues is dazzling, miles above its 2013 predecessor.  The simplicity and ruthlessness of Red Skull's plan is amazing,  executing a plan with contingencies to anticipate the moves of your enemies is on point of what you want from a good antagonist. Similarly to its 2013 predecessor our heroes are driven to the point almost effortlessly where they are at their lowest and the story brings out a second act of where can we go from here to over come insurmountable odds. Granted the final act is a cheat, and makes the title of the movie somewhat misleading.