Welcome back to Boomb Tube, Multiversity’s weekly column regarding all comic book cartoons currently on the air! After a brief hiatus (nothing aired last week) we’ve come back with some shocking news.
Avengers Assemble was pretty darn good.
The episode started off with Thor flying back to Asgard late for the festival of Thursday. We all know Thursday was named after Thor but apparently Odin did that just so they could hold a gigantic feast every week in his honor and he is furious that Thor missed out on one feast that is held once a week for the past couple thousands of years. Meanwhile, the only gift Loki’s received from Odin is a reminder that he could’ve killed him as an infant. Heimdall interrupts the gods’ bickering by saying that Earth has been completely changed and when Thor goes to investigate he finds that Midgard has been completely conquered by Doctor Doom to the point that he renamed Earth not just Planet Doom, but Planet Von Doom. He couldn’t just name the planet after the concept of doom itself, he needed Earth to be named like a child. Surprisingly enough, Doom ends up being a better parent than Odin.
On this new Earth, Thor is attacked by Doombots but saved by The Defenders: Clint Barton AKA Bullseye, Peter Parker AKA Slinger AKA Spider-Man Noir But They Couldn’t Say Noir Because It’d Make No Sense Here, and Sam Wilson AKA Snap AKA The Writers Still Don’t Know What To Do With Falcon So They Just Put Him In A Tank Top And Gave Him the Name From That Time In The Comics He Was A Pimp. They explain that they’ve been looking for The Thunderer, the man who would save the world from Doom. They emphasize “man” so I figured it’d be a cop out and that it’d be someone besides Thor, a god, but he turns out to be the Thunderer and my hopes for a cartoon about Eric Masteron, Thunderstrike, are once again dashed.
Eventually they’re all captured by Black Widow, seen above in her Madame Masque cosplay but under the name “Black Bride” since the audience might make the assumption that more than one female character exists on this show. She takes Thor and The Defenders to Doom who gloats about how awesome time travel is when it comes to conquering the world, as shown when Tony Stark and Bruce Banner walk in and talk about how Doom saved them from the accidents that defined their origin, which is why they now work for him. For Tony, he mentions how Doom saved him from getting shrapnel in his test which, alright is a little specific but not too odd while Banner straight up says he would’ve turned into a monster if not for Doom saving him from the gamma experiment. I don’t know about you Bruce, it seems like if you knew becoming a monster would be a possibility from the experiment I don’t think it was that much of an accident.
Anyway, Doombots escort a hammerless Thor and The Defenders out to his balcony on the refurbished Avengers Tower where they’re to be executed by a hooded man in a gatling gun in front of all of Manhattan. Thor remembers what his father said about Midgard and how weak its inhabitants were and knows this to not be the truth. He urges the crowd to rebel against Doom, to not give in to tyranny. The crowd totally gives in to tyranny. Well, since the plea for humanity to reconcile its mistakes failed, it seems like all is, er, doomed. Humanity does have feelings, and when exposed they are base ones that will ultimately give way to fascism and subjugation.
It’s a good thing the dead don’t feel.
That’s right. Black Bride/Madame Masque gives the man behind the gatling gun the signal and it turns out to be none other than Frank “The Punisher” Castle. He has never shown up any of Marvel’s latest animated shows and my reaction to his surprise appearance here is why my roommate just bought earplugs. The best part about all of this is that, since this is a kid’s show, Castle can’t use the giant gatling gun he’s already positioned behind so he throws it away and tackles two Doombots while screaming something incomprehensible that sounds like “I’m the PuniSMASHER!” Then he dies, I think. Without any explanation of how he got there or what his historywas in this timeline controlled by Doom. Truly, for the entirety of my time here doing Boomb Tube, this is my single favorite moment. Young Justice, Generation X, or Beware the Batman will have anything on Punisher’s forty second lifespan. Shine on you demented angel.
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Oh, but the good moments don’t end there. Doom knocks out Thor but he gets revived when Black Widow straight up tasers him in the chest. Somehow alive, Thor’s able to recover Mjolinir from Doom’s lab and on its way it crashes through an ice sculpture Doom kept above his throne. Yeah, not only did Doom use his time travel to make sure Captain America never woke up from the ice, he even took it out from the Antarctic where no one would find it and placed it in his presumably room-tempertature palace. That level of hubris is so crazy, Jonathan Hickman asked Avengers Assemble Doom to calm down. Thor and Doom fight near his time machine, sabotaged by Banner, and the day is saved when Steve just comes in and hits Doom in the face with his shield. So uh, problem solved right? Pretty much. Thor tells everyone that they were true heroes for betraying Doom even though they presumably assisted in the high number of deaths he likely caused. Thor flies back to Asgard so Earth time can reset itself(???) and finds his friends again, quarreling in Avengers Tower about sandwiches or something.
Final Verdict: 7.6 – An honestly fun episode that had some compelling moments but mostly amazingly insane ones.
Over on Cartoon Network, Teen Titans Go! furthered its storyline of deception, betrayal and ruination of the human spirit with a Christmas special. The Titans are celebrating Christmas and having the time of their lives, until December 26th when they’re all hungover. Robin’s ready to move on with his time, but Cyborg, Raven, and Beast Boy all want a “Second Christmas” so they trick Starfire into thinking that’s a thing and force her into preparing the feasts and decorations for it. Robin, who has taken part in his fair share of Machiavellian schemes, walks in to remind them this is messed up but doesn’t do anything because on Teen Titans Go! doing good is for the weak. Eventually Starfire learns Second Christmas is fake and goes on a rampage that is only quelled when Second Christmas Santa, a skinny man in a white afro, arrives and knocks them all into a 363 day long coma, leaving them to wake up on Christmas Eve 2014. They are all super excited about this because not having to make contact with anyone for nearly a year is what these sociopaths love the most.
Final Verdict: 6.8 – Entertaining, yet again.
Finally, Hulk and the Agents of SMASH teamed up with Spider-Man while a Venom symbiote launched by Doctor Octopus swapped from character to character until Octavius was finally defeated. I know, I’m dissapointed too, I spent 20 minutes watching that. That’s really all the plot I can describe here. Oh wait, it started when Spider-Man got booed by a crowd after interrupting the Hulks destroying a building to make way for a children’s hospital. When Peter Parker ends up more vilified than the group of gigantic monsters, who aren’t even that bad considering they’re literally building a children’s hospital, I can’t help but question what the thesis of this show is anymore. It’s supposed to be about how Hulk is ostracized from society and needs to fit in right? So why does it feel like it’s written by a joint team of a grandma and a 12 year old who just found out what Venom was?
Final Verdict: 3.2 – How did this outlive Beware the Batman?
