Being a Marvel fan one thing that always frustrates me is the lack of demographic consistency. The animation can range from 15's down to U's and this one is certainly the latter.In this adventure aimed directly at the tiddly winks the Avengers must team up with Rocket & Groot to stop Loki from gaining the power of Santa Claus.Yep, that wasn't a typo. Santa is now part of the Marvel Universe I suppose and essentially has his own Christmas realm full of candy canes & gingerbread men.As you can imagine the whole thing is very low-key (Pun intended) and childish. The animation is all very colourful, the action scenes are cutesy and the humour is aimed at the young.The whole Santa Claus thing made it difficult to take any of it seriously, that and the addition of Reptil who Marvel just can't seem to stick with an ethnicity of. He was originally hispanic but I've seen both caucasian and african american incarnations.Great for your kids, not so good for adults.The Good: Well madeThe Bad:Humour is infantileReptil's ethnicity has changed repeatedlySanta, really?Things I Learnt From This Movie:Ironman has a Stargate

The live action Avengers will probably never do a 'Christmas special' - too expensive, and, y'know, stupid. So, to fill the void, we've instead been graced with an animated kids cartoon equivalent, pitting Earth's Mightiest Heroes against arch-foe Loki in a quest to track down…um… Santa Claus. And, as you'd imagine, Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight, rather than filling the viewer with festive spirit, instead recalls the uncomfortably hallucinogenic madness of the Star Wars Christmas special Lucasfilm would pay any price to have you forget. For Disney's sake, let's hope young Marvel fans have shorter memories…That's not to say that Frost Fight is a complete waste of time. Marvel has really stepped up the production values in their recent animated work, and Frost Fight shines in its relatively fast-paced and intense fight sequences, including working in some creatively designed Frost Giants and other monsters for the heroes to smack around (even if the animators recycle several background or transitional templates, a-la 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, giving the film a visibly cheap look at times by comparison). That said, the film as a whole struggles with a pretty intense identity crisis in terms of how young or old to skew, contrasting the slicker fight choreography with some pretty abrupt 'kid-friendly' tonal shifts – poke in the butt/cartoon sound effect/massive double-take, etc. – which is thoroughly distracting and vaguely unpleasant throughout.It doesn't help that the 'quest for Santa Claus' is an unmistakably goofy premise, and it's hard to imagine even younger audiences not raising an eyebrow in disbelief at the disjuncture in plausibility (though I will now always lament never getting to hear Tom Hiddleston suppress a smirk while saying "Santy Claus" in full live action Loki garb). Still, the script handles the silliness as gamely as possible, and there's a certain campy fun in having Santa grounded in Asgardian mythology – and we can now look forward to industriously nerdy kids correcting their peers by referring to Santa as 'Jolnir' - as well as a knowing dig at Santa nonbelievers, here represented by both the hyper-logical Iron Man and Loki, both of who are forced to extensively eat their words. 'Tis the season for shaming non-practitioning parents?That said, the tonal whiplash takes an even more frightening turn at the arrival at the ludicrous land of the Elves. The setting - a flurry of nonsensical candy canes, like Hallmark threw up in the middle of a snowstorm - is rendered a surreal nightmare for adults let alone kids, as gratuitous guest stars Rocket Raccoon and Groot battle a wasteland of sentient, evil gingerbread men… and subsequently massacre them, shooting and bashing them to pieces, as the gingerbread men howl in agony. And if this wasn't bad enough, Rocket and Groot are then pursued by the disintegrating, occasionally two-headed 'zombie' gingerbread remains, like a Calvin & Hobbes snowman sequence directed by David Lynch. Anyone deranged enough to think this was suitable viewing for children deserves coal in their stocking indefinitely. There's also some dubious gender politics regarding the 'maternal instincts' of a reptilian behemoth, but even objectionable ideological content in kids programming pales in comparison to the Zombie. Gingerbread. Massacre. I'm shuddering just thinking about it.But in the end, the Avengers lineup is too much fun to ever be a complete write-off. Including Captain Marvel is a fun plug for the upcoming MCU Phase 3, even if the inclusion of requisite teen sidekick Reptil and his vaguely defined dinosaur transformation powers (what…?) is predictably annoying. Mick Wingert does a plausible Robert Downey Jr. impression, though voice vet Kevin Michael Richardson disconcertingly appears to forget to inflect while repeating "I am Groot", while having Fred Tatasciore's Hulk become a Christmas-obsessed carolling pun-machine is…disconcerting, at best (Thor uttering war cries while driving Santa's sleigh is a different story altogether, though).Frost Fight is occasionally fun, though mostly uncomfortably enjoyable in a delirious 'how is this happening' sort of way. It's undeniably one of the more short-sighted and demented Marvel cartoon offerings, and ultimately one worth passing on, save for the most obsessive and forgiving youngsters (and those with a pretty sturdy tolerance for freakish sentient snack food violence, to boot. Seriously. ZOMBIE GINGERBREAD MASSACRE. Yeesh). -4/10

This swings far far away from Avengers Assemble to the point of Marvel Super Hero Squad. There's a lot of kid humor and it's too child friendly. 'Frost Fight' offers nothing to an older audience. Teen fans will hate it, adult fans will immediately notice how cheaply this was made, and anyone under the age of 10 will have a lot of fun with it.It presents the Carol Danver's version of Captain Marvel which I was hopeful about, but I found myself missing Hawkeye & Black Widow. Her look is kind of dated and is out-of-place with the other artwork. Basically a completely different art-style.There's a trainee kid who goes by 'Reptil' that I found incredibly annoying. His power is having pterodactyl wings. It's a throw-away character that you might expect to be killed off (for sake of showing death) without erasing a major character.Steve Rodgers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man have different voice actors. It sounds close, but it's a little weird. I personally have a pet-peeve about Marvel changing voice actors just for the films.Santa Claus & Mrs. Claus make their way into the story and it's the Kiss Meets Santa joke from Family Guy. Yeah - Somebody threw out a movie really fast and whoever did it should be fired. Grossly incompetent choices were made about this release.

Admittedly, this is... better than most episode of AA or SMASH, in some spots the animation is not as stiff but it does make it more inconsistent, as was some of the audio sync.Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) was a nice addition, and unlike AA's Black Widow or SMASH's She-Hulk, she has a lot more personality as a female character. She's kind, she's sincere, and she has this uplifting nature and even her own sense of humor when she's interacting with the other heroes. I miss Jennifer Hale, but Grey Griffin did a fine voice as Carol, as was Matthew Mercer, he sounds like a decent stand in for Rodger Craig Smith, though he may have sounded a bit too young sometimes, but he still did a good job portraying the character. Then there's Mick Wingert as Iron Man, very reminiscent to Eric Loomez with his Robert Downy Jr. impression, which I liked since it reminded me of the former's performance back in EMH. Anthony Del Rio, back as Reptil since his role during the SuperHero Squad, never thought I'd hear back from him again, and I didn't think he'd still sound so young. This dude's got range.^^Steve Blum as Santa... I admit was actually rather good. Didn't think he'd steer away from his usual Steve Blum palate, he was a pretty good Santa Claus. Although, I kind'a wish they got someone other than Fred Tatasciore to play Blizzard King, sounds too remnant to The Hulk, perhaps someone like Neil Kaplan or John Dimaggio for a change, but as usual he's still fine with what he's got.While I usually do not like the typical AA style banter, Both Captain Marvel and Captain America expressed some pretty solid character personality, especially regarding their childhood history with Santa.The music for the most part was also very mellow, and there were some bits here that I did find kind'a funny. Mind you I wasn't roaring with laughter, but the few good jokes or lines of dialogue they had, did get a smile out of me.So, with the positives out of the way, it's time for met to point out the negatives.While there are some decent bits of animation, most of it is still stilted (Especially with the camera movement.) and again it feels inconsistent when those different animated sequences clash.Hulk and Thor were being bothersome as usual and I think they may have caused some collateral damage (Hopefully not killing anyone in the process!) and really I felt that bit and the scenes with Rocket Raccoon were just padding.And again some visuals and audio bits seemed rather out of place in some spots, like with Rocket after the sleigh ride with Mrs. Claus for example.Tony I'm... kind'a mixed on. There were some bits were he did play it smart with Reptil, and he even had a couple funny lines, but again I just can't steam the AA style of banter he has with the other characters. And Oi I cannot stand the nonsense puns they keep pulling out of their Christmas puns. *Rimshot Drum Beat*And then there's that forced moral about belief (Which I critically destain against) like with this one moment in the film where Reptil outright says "You don't need proof to believe!"Uh, yeah dude, you do need proof! You need solid evidence to prove something...Also, Believe?! I'm sorry, but when it comes to proving something true, it's about, Knowing! Not "Believing!"And btw, let's get something stupid out of the way! The bit where we see Reptil shivering, and Captain Marvel flat out says it's because he's, cold-blooded... Yeah pop cultural consciousness is not kind to zoology, especially when it comes to prehistoric animals like dinosaurs. Look I don't expect everyone to know by now that dinosaurs and most other Mesozoic reptiles were warm-blooded, but anyway here's the real problem I have with that quirk-- Reptil is HUMAN! He's still a human being, which is an ape, which is a primate, which is a mammal; and we all know mammals are Warm-Blooded! So even putting aside the debate as to whether dinosaurs were warm or cold-blooded, Reptil, as a human being is warm-blooded never the less! And even if he was "cold-blooded" then he wouldn't just be shivering, he'd probably be in a state of suspended animation, or at worst the cold might possibly even kill him! Don't you think Reptil, may have been shivering... simply because he's just really cold?!Ugh, anyway there's also this bit where the Elves apparently listen to Reptil more than the other Avengers because he's younger, and according to them "Youth speaks Truth?" I can't decide if that's either pretentious or just lazy.Ah well. Anyway, as is, Frost Fight is mediocre at best. Which is not surprise, but at the same time I really wanted to like this special, not only for the new character but because it had some other context which I did find pleasing.But as is, over all I give it 5/10 starts. Still not a big step up for Marvel Animation, although I will admit I am eager to see the creators tackle something Halloween related.