Welcome back to Boomb Tube, Multiversity’s weekly column detailing the current Cape Cartoons scene. This week, Beast Boy tries to brain up in Teen Titans Go! and Mojo makes his disturbing debut on Avengers Assemble. Spoilers ahead!
Before we get started it should be noted that Beware the Batman is not on Cartoon Network’s 2014-15 schedule. This is pretty dour news considering it’s the only show I really enjoyed viewing for Boomb Tube’s sake. Funny. It’s been nearly a year since really great stuff aired, Green Lantern and Young Justice’s cancellation anniversary is next Sunday.) The rest of Beware the Batman has been released on DVD, so a memorial post concerning its final episodes should be released sometime in the future. Until then, let’s jump right into it with Teen Titans Go!
As usual, Teen Titans Go! begins with one of the members being degraded by the rest of their team. He’s apparently useless at everything, especially being smart. So instead of watching Cosmos or something, he talks to Cyborg about brain food and shoves an entire fish down his ear in what is honestly one of the most disturbing scenes of the show. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work because shoving seafood into you doesn’t get you anywhere besides Tosh.0. In an effort to not get more results, Beast Boy grabs Raven’s spell book (plots involving someone abusing Raven’s magic for personal petty gain has shown up in this show more than the theme song at this point) and uses some dark magic to make himself more intelligent. Of course, he mucks up the spell because Beast Boy’s got less use than a pack of condoms in the Pope’s dresser and ends up making Silkie the Silk Worm the intelligent one.
Tragically, all the other Titans have become dumber due to Beast Boy’s spell, which took me a solid minute to catch on to considering the tone of the series. Now it’s only Silkie and Beast Boy who can actually save Earth from a gigantic meteor arriving in 24 minutes. While Beast Boy babysits the other Titans, he notices said meteor barreling towards Titan Tower. He, then following a string of logic regarding gravity and the moon, decides that the only way to stop the meteor is to kill the ocean. Frankly I’m surprised that last bit hasn’t been the name of a New 52 Aquaman series. Thankfully Silkie manages to scrap together a Pacific Rim robot and destroys the meteor. Finally realizing the error of his ways, Beast Boy casts a spell that just makes him dumber than everyone else. At least the day is saved!
Or is it? In the proud tradition of presenting drinking-whiskey-behind-a-radioshack-with-your-clown-uncle endings, Teen Titans Go! has now given us a world where its heroes aren’t smart enough to do that toy for kids where you put the blocks into the holes with the corresponding shapes. Heck, I can’t even do that with women! (Intense roars of applause from a high-fiving audience.) All frivolity aside, the world of Teen Titans Go! has now become one where a group of teenagers are unable to save the world, instead floundering around while a silk worm in Warby Parker glasses thanklessly saves the world on a daily basis.
Someone get Cartoon Network on the phone; I got their replacement for Beware the Batman.
Final Verdict: 6.2 – Fun in a shallow way, as usual.
Over on Avengers Assemble, Hawkeye and Hulk get into a tizzy because Hulk ate Hawkeye’s puzzle in an effort to make my jokes as lazily written as the script is. (The audience returns, hands red from previous high-five, lustful for more sick slaps.) In an effort to exact revenge, Clint takes a page from the Tennessee Williams handbook and knocks over The Glass Menagerie, both enraging Hulk and impressing me over the fact that I’ve been able to reference Williams twice in this column. However, before I can write a couple thousand words on the degradation of Southern ideals and the quest to find a sense of inner self, Mojo’s minions snipe Hulk and Hawkeye with a teleport rifle, sending them to Mojoworld. They’re immediately sent into a gladiatorial fight with a Brood, with Hulk being strangely enthusiastic about it. I mean, if Agents of SMASH is going to be about Hulk trying not to seem like a monster, shouldn’t he abstain from broadcast gladiator fights? Do the Avengers Assemble team have a privilege I don’t? That of ignoring Agents of SMASH altogether?
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Also, Mojo announces Hawkeye as “a human hitchhiking parasite that shoots sharp sticks, this guy!” I’ll put down five American dollars saying that Matt Fraction will put that into a dreaded “Hawkguy in Space” comic. Hell, I can see it in any issue to be perfectly honest. He also announces the name of their opponent which sounds almost incomprehensible. “Morgo?” “Stordo?” “Stormur?” Are they going to fight Sigur Ros? Unfortunatley no, it turns out to be some purple looking robot feller that’s not Machine Man. <Serious request to Marvel: Please make a show or comic where The Avengers fight Sigur Ros.”>
Not Sigur Ros ends up punching The Hulk into space where he’ll face either certain death or a really complicated adaptation of Planet Hulk. Everyone cheers except for some Watchers who are literally just watching because True Detective is over and what else is on? Just as Hawkguy seems like he’s going to get crushed by the robot until Hulk mysteriously teleports in and smashes Torgo (whose name I figure out when he says it aloud with Roger Craig Smith’s Macho Man Randy Savage voice which is one of the few ways to really endear me to a character besides actual character development.) Surprise surprise, we actually sort of get that after Torgo bashes the Hulk’s head in. Apparently, Mojo fixed fights for him, making him think he was the galaxy’s greatest fighter, only for Mojo to keep Torgo as a slave in exchange for not destroying Torgo’s home planet. It’s a sad story, though undone a bit by everyone’s names and the ever-persistent Macho Man voice. Not that there’s anyway the latter could be a complaint, though it probably does contribute to Hawkguy and Hulk immediately disregarding Torgo and focusing on themselves.
Hulk and Hawkguy then go ahead and fight everyone in a “Derby of Demise”, the sign for which is a font that looks like a more amateurish Comics Sans. Everyone gets into a big clash, especially Torgo who just started Kamen Rider Fourze like I did and does a Rocket Drill Kick. Apparently this move brings in hella views (as it should; Fourze is masterful) which gives Mojo a charge of electricity that blows him up like a frog and is somehow not the most disturbing thing this week. Thanks, Beast Boy’s ears. Hawkguy takes out Torgo with some rope arrows which seems like something they could’ve tried earlier which leads to Mojo requesting the two Avengers fight each other which results in Hawkguy’s incredible response: “Sorry, we only fight over pickles.” Mojo somehow fails to respect this and sends them back to Earth along with an invasion force to destroy the whole planet. Okay. Clint Barton and his pickles getting everyone into trouble has definitely been a plot in the Fraction/Aja “Hawkeye.” However they’re able to bust back onto Mojo’s ship, defeat him and free all his slaves before Mojo teleports away leaving Torgo in charge of a giant ship full of bounty hunters and the thousands of unarmed audience members who cheered for their pain. That should turn out well.
Finally, Hawkguy goes back to Avengers Towers and finds fifteen boxes of pickles in his room. What seems to be a thoughtful gift from Hulk is revealed to be from Hawkguy’s private stash which he broke into. I’m real glad the theatre references didn’t stop at Williams as we are now in full-on Odd Couple mode here.
Final Verdict: 7.3 – With Macho Robot Turgo Savage and an at-times fun dynamic between Hulk and Hawkeye, this was a pretty fun adaptation of Ratchet: Deadlocked.
