Drew Pearce | 14 mins | Blu-ray | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12
Presently it looks as if Marvel’s burgeoning TV empire (as I write, seven distinct series are in the works) has taken over the kind of short-form storytelling that had previously been the preserve of these DVD/Blu-ray-debuting One-Shot short films; which, if true, will leave this as the last one. That’s a shame, both because they have such potential, and because I don’t think All Hail the King is a particular high.
Set sometime after the end of Iron Man 3, we catch up with ‘villain’ Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) to see how his prison life is going. As you might imagine from the chosen lead character, it’s primarily a comedy. Kingsley is surprisingly adept at this humorous role, but it’s a little rehash-y of the main film’s greatest hit(s). The best bits are fan service: placation for vocal critics of how Shane Black’s movie treated one of Iron Man’s more iconic foes, and a witty closing cameo (after the one in Agent Carter, that looks to become a signature move of these shorts).
As an entertaining and brief diversion, All Hail the King is fine if you have access to it, but not particularly worth seeking out. I doubt we’ll be getting a spin-off TV series this time.
All Hail the King is available on the Blu-ray release of Thor: The Dark World.
On Blu-ray, 
The best of the bunch is Super Manny, because Manny’s always fun and it’s the most inventively zany. Worst is Earl Scouts, because it’s just a poor Tom & Jerry / Itchy & Scratchy riff — Sky viewers won’t be missing much by not seeing it. Attack of the 50ft. Gummi Bear! falls somewhere between those two stools, as I suppose does Steve’s First Bath, though slightly less objectionably so — there’s fun to be had in how it sets up Flint’s grand uber-romantic date, then how it’s trashed by Steve and the robot built to wash him.
On the whole, the shorts are passably entertaining if you like slapstick-y 2D animation and want to kill quarter-of-an-hour (or 22 minutes with Earl Scouts thrown in). But there’s nothing particularly innovative or original about any of them — certainly not worth going out of your way for.
The fourth 
The second half is more familiar Toy Story stomping ground — indeed, if there’s one bum note, it’s that the villain and his ‘plot’ are almost a rehash of 
Apparently Toy Story of Terror! spent two years in development. While that might seem excessive for a mere under-half-hour animation, the time and effort have paid off handsomely: the result is a thoroughly entertaining short — and one that actually embraces its seasonal theme, rather than forcing it in as an afterthought. Terrific.
Of all the defining images of cinema — certainly of the silent era — the face on the Moon with a rocket in its eye must be one of the most recognised, though you have to wonder how many have actually seen Méliès’ full vision. More than it could have been, though, because A Trip to the Moon was so popular that, in the copyright-lax world of early cinema, it was widely copied and ripped-off; the kind of thing that destroyed Méliès’ career and, along with it, much of his work.
But Méliès wasn’t making a documentary, he was making an entertainment. Indeed, the analogy to a blockbuster is a good one, because this is essentially the turn-of-the-century equivalent. The fantastical sets, costumes and story are all designed to wow the viewer — and remember, we’re only a few years on from people diving out of the way of film of a train arriving in a station.
Whatever it is, it’s certainly not period-authentic.
A year after the end of 
Included on the Blu-ray releases of both The Avengers and (unlike Joss Whedon’s commentary or the tip of Loki’s spear) 
This is exactly the kind of tale I presume the imminent TV series 
From the makers of the successful Christmas TV shorts 
Unveiled at San Diego ComicCon and then released 
The one glaring flaw (unless you hate realistic CGI-aided bloody violence, in which case there’s that too) is its use of music from Hans Zimmer’s 
Despite that aim, these aren’t glaring holes that desperately need a fix. Rather they’re join-the-dots enterprises; the thing most people won’t have noticed at all, that fans may have wondered about, that it’s more fun to connect up than strictly necessary. It makes this piece resolutely fan-only — while it’s quite good, it’s more admin than a story in its own right, showing how various films connect together in the lead-up to 
It’s a standalone piece, and though it’s brief (under three minutes before the credits role), it still manages to add quite a lot to the character of Agent Coulson, who in the main films to this point has been a minor (albeit increasingly major) supporting role. I suppose it’s fitting that Clark Gregg has been the star of these connecting shorts, as he’s one of the main links across the films (he appears in 
100Films.co.uk 