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Boomb Tube: For The Birds

By | March 4th, 2014
Posted in Columns | 2 Comments

Welcome back to Boomb Tube, Multiversity’s weekly column detailing the current Cape Cartoons scene. This week, Teen Titans Go! gets an extended Regular Show cameo and Avengers Assemble gets savage. Spoilers ahead!

TTG! opens with a fire alarm leading to the exact amount of slapstick violence you’d expect from the Titans Go. Robin goes up to find the source of the problem, the birds blocking Titan Towers’ Victorian-era chimney. He tosses down some homemade bird-repellant grenades while mumbling about how mockingbirds are ruffians compared to the noble robin, just so we the audience never forget that everyone on this show is literally insane. Unfortunately, this turns the birds into what I can only describe as literal characters from Regular Show  with cockney accents.

Incredible. The Titans are instantly mesmerized by how cool they are, except for Robin who gets mocked by them. To quote Robin, “Are you mocking me? Oh! You’re the mockingbirds I kicked out of the chimney!” Truly trained by the world’s greatest detective. Unfortunately, Robin is no match for how cool these 80’s bullies are, especially in the eyes of Raven and Starfire who, if the Barry White soundtrack playing every other second, is any indication, are definitely going to have sex with these mutant birds. The Birds also take over Robin’s room which is covered in white stuff. With birds? Yeah I can imagine that’s just bird poop. Two frat bros? Well there’s a reason I typed “just bird poop.” The Birds then take over even more stuff by throwing a massive birdhouse party where that ninja Robin bird from a couple episodes ago hits on Raven. Like I said last week, continuity’s becoming a weird thing for this show.

At the party, The Titans decide that enough’s enough but another chimney blockage means the Birds force them to go clean it one last time. The blockage this time is Robin who is straight up slumming it after being too mocked by the Mockingbirds. Frankly, I don’t know what he expected. The Titans agree though and go to fight The Birds. Unfortunately, Cyborg decides the best way to fight is to throw MORE mutagen stuff at them which results in them further evolving into brain-birds from the future which thankfully allows them to see the futility of conflict and end the fight. However, Robin’s a psychopath and beats the crap out of them with a stick until they fly out. So that’s one more heroic victory right?

Meanwhile, in the Birds’ former bedroom, an egg hatches. This means one of two things: either the birds (who I assumed were both males) got lucky at their birdhouse party or I was absolutely right and either Raven or Starfire bore their child. Do not send me deviantART links to confirm I’m right.

Final Verdict: 6.3 – A pretty entertaining episode, all things considered.

Meanwhile on Avengers Assemble, it’s more like Jerks Assemble over here (bows for applause) because most of the Avengers spend their time crapping all over each other, and not in a fun fan fiction way. Speaking of which, Tumblr’s most fanfictiony couple, Tony and Steve are bickering over technology. Tony thinks that Steve should really start utilizing technology in order to keep up and Steve thinks we should really be checking into that Obana feller’s birth certificate. They make a bet that Stark can’t go a whole day without technology or else he’ll have to teach Steve how to record the 700 Club on his TiVo or something. Tony fails almost immediately so he challenges every Avenger to go without tech for a day which seems like a pretty big waste of time when the literal Dracula is running around with two MODOKs and a Nazi in a suit you designed yourself. Still, Tony decides to make it interesting by bringing everyone to the best tech-free zone he knows: The Savage Land. Because when you can’t go a half-hour without looking up YouTube videos, you are definitely prepared for a day with literal goddamn dinosaurs.

Of course, Tony doesn’t tell anyone that which leads to the plane crashing after colliding with some Pterodactyls. Tony crash-lands but says that’s he not crazy because he landed the plane far away from the dinosaurs which is pretty untrue considering that anywhere, literally fucking anywhere, would have been farther away from dinosaurs than The Savage Land.
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Meanwhile, Thor and Hulk AKA the two remaining Avengers who are actually equipped to live in The Savage Land (Black Widow only shows up every other episode for some dumb reason) make popcorn by having Thor call thunder down on some kernels. Then, in what is sincerely my favorite moment on this show, they find out they’re out of food save for a pack of mints in Tony’s closet. Hulk immediately bursts through several walls to get to it. Haha, those rowdy kids! Back at The Savage Land, Falcon’s homemade cookies (which everyone readily agrees to because they’re taking this low-tech bet as seriously as I am) attract roughly a couple hundred dinosaurs who just got the memo about Murphy’s Law. JARVIS refuses to let The Avengers back on board because he doesn’t want them to have to lose the bet and wash Hulk’s laundry for a week. That’s not a joke I made, that’s the actual plot.

Eventually, The Avengers realize the dinosaurs aren’t running after them, but away from something which turns out to be Justin Hammer’s mining operations. Justin Hammer, aka Sam Rockwell, who has raptor guards with machine guns mounted on them, dances to his own ringtone before answering the phone, and who I want to be when I grow up. That phone call, by the way, is from Red Skull who’s hiring Justin to mine all the vibranium in The Savage Land. The Avengers get cornered by the laser raptors except for Iron Man who’s saved by Grok and his Rock People. I can’t tell if that’s a fictional character or an indie band, but either way I haven’t heard of either. Iron Man saves his pals by using his ingenuity to create an actual Iron Man suit made out of rocks and I call absolute bullshit. I’ll let it slide because he says “Let’s Rock” but I can only forgive so much. But The Avengers end up punching some dinosaurs while Tony gives a thumbs up to the rock tribe who catapult themselves onto Hammer’s forces, so I can absolutely forgive that. Hammer then fires a laser at Tony, destroying his armor, but Stark then casually removes the ammo clip (on a rocket launcher?) Solid Snake style and crushes Hammer.

With the 24 hours up, Falcon and Hawkeye run into the Quinjet screaming things like “I can’t wait to shower! or check E-mail!” That’s right, Falcon’s perception of things to do on the internet hasn’t changed since 2003. Thankfully they do get home to bathe and “check out what this MySpace is about”and find Thor and Hulk post-vandalism-coital. Those crazy, crazy kids!

Final Verdict: 6.5 – Entertaining at parts, but I don’t know if those parts were meant to be.


//TAGS | Boomb Tube

James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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