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Boomb Tube: Gotta Go Breakfast

By | January 28th, 2014
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome back to Boomb Tube, the only Multiversity Column that’s written through gritted teeth. This week, we’re taking  a look at the latest episodes of Teen Titans Go! and Hulk and the Agents of SMASH!

 TTG! open withThe Titans attacking the HIVE for loitering since the dice thrown before each episode has landed on “Pizza Loving Judge Dredd” which is something that should be created right away. Starfire, the closest thing this sadist nightmare of a show has to a voice of reason, tries to guilt the team into nonviolence but Robin screams “Never!” and punches her. She then tries to make Cyborg and Beast Boy nonviolent by giving them a game where they pet a puppy. At first they’re confused and uncomfortable but grow to love petting their virtual pet which, come to think of it, is a pretty good summary of “Pokemon X & Y.” She then walks by Raven, tells her to move her finger because of some New Wave jazz about her skin cells dying and Raven ascends some level of nirvana by moving her finger. I’d make a joke about my sex life there but considering how easy the set up was I feel the follow-through should match. Finally, Star convinces Robin not to kill a spider which proceeds to bite him. The poison from the bite gives Robin enough brain damage to make him a most righteous mellow and The Titans are made more peaceful than Buddha at a Grateful Dead concert.

Eventually the Titans are called to fight HIVE again but with they’ve now become focused entirely on peace. In what is probably the most shocking twist on TTG! yet, they confront HIVE, fight them with silly cuddle based peace weapons and… succeed? No one’s punished for showing basic human compassion? I thought I was watching Teen Titans Go! not Touched by a Goddamn Angel!

Oh also everyone begins singing about eating cheese for breakfast because someone came up with the title “Breakfast Cheese” and would do anything it took to make that phrase relevant to the episode.

Final Verdict: 6.3 – Teen Titans Go is still the most indescribable cartoon we cover here.

Hulk and the Agents of SMASH opens with Seth Green as A-Bomb voice telling Hulk and the Agents of SMASH fans (which consists of me and a dog whose owner lived alone and died on the couch while watching TV a few weeks ago) the Agents have chosen the next set of “FAIL VIDEOS” featuring some jets exploding and let me just stop everything at the phrase “Fail Videos.”

I don’t know a lot of Rick Jones’s characterization so I’m sure it’s open to interoperation but I draw the line at Tosh.0 with spikes. Considering his target audience (as well as the demographic for similar videos) is broseph male teens, then we can assume that’s sort of the targeted demographic for which show (or at least this segment) too. Kind of weird considering the cross-reference in those two shows’ audiences are one sad kid in Minnesota and The Unabomber but that fits in with Agents of SMASH’s streak of being the most stupidy simple cartoon Marvel’s ever put out. In that case, maybe we as an audience have to adapt. That’s why, for this week, I’ve elected to just skip the first half of the episode and see if I miss anything.. If I do, then I get a good night’s sleep and am actually to do all the real things I have in my real life. If not, then I’ll give out my Snapchat or something.

Okay, I skipped exactly halfway through and The Agents landed on the moon and The Watcher is behind them. I thought it’d be confusing at first but then A-Bomb said “We crashed our spaceship” to which Dad Hulk replied “He won’t do anything. He’s The Watcher. He just watches.” followed by “WE NEED TO STOP THE LEADER!” Well, I don’t think I really missed anything there. This honestly could’ve been the start of the episode if it weren’t for those crafty executives trying to get the elusive “Epic Fail” audience.

I skipped another five minutes and the Agents are now fighting The Leader’s robot and… oh my god he’s not just a robot. He’s the reconstructed jet fighter from the “Fail Videos” which is genuinely unexpected. Yeah, other shows would use a segment like the Fail Videos opening as a segway into the plot but Agents of SMASH  is a discordant piece of trash that would absolutely put in animations of exploding planes for the hell of it. This is scary. The… the show might be adapting. Anyway, after an inspirational speech from Dad Hulk about saving people, Lame-Starscream declares that he must save the Earth and then goes all Iron Giant on everyone by sacrificing himself to stop the missiles. Except a few seconds later he shows up alive and talks about some “Epic Fails” so really it’s more like if Iron Giant was written by 9gag. Anyway Dad Hulk gives some little speech about how “We do what we do to help, not for fame” and Red Hulk proceeds to punch The Watcher, setting off the events of “Original Sin.”

Honestly, I feel like by skipping large segments of the episode, I still got most of the plot in. Incredible twist with Lame-Starscream aside, there’s barely any nuances for me to miss besides someone saying “Epic Fail” for the eighth time. I probably won’t skip episodes again, but it’s definitely nice to know that Hulk and the Agents of SMASH’s runtime is 80% useless and 20% just the absolute worst.

Final Verdict: 3.2 – dontsayepicfaildontsayepicfaildontsayepicfail Uhh… Grand Let Down? Yeah that’ll work.


//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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