This week of cape cartoons came with a special surprise, as Disney XD aired a lost episode of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Teen Titans Go! did some things.
Avengers: EMH left off with plenty of loose plot threads which makes this “Lost Episode” a painful look at what could have been. Thor, Cap, and Iron Man are fighting off The Wrecking Crew when The Enchantress waves her hand and depowerrs the three. Steve becomes a scrawny Brooklyner again, Tony is reduced to the Mark I armor, and Thor transforms into a burly steel mill worker from the 1980’s. From there, the three, along with Hawkeye, try and find a way to reverse the spell while running away from Loki who has taken over the Destroyer armor thanks to Enchantress. Eventually, Loki!Destroyer is defeated when Enchantress gives everyone their powers back, and The Avengers punch Loki hard enough. Loki demands to know why Enchantress would do that to him, she reminds him that her costume change means she is under Surtur’s servitude, and she wanted to ensure that Loki would not interrupt the fire demon’s plans.
This episode really fit in with EMH’s goals of being “What would happen if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made The Avengers today?” It has plenty of Silver-Age style antics and lightheartedness (The Wrecking Crew, tight t-shirt Thor) mixed with modern sensibilities like Enchantress cold-stone condemning Loki to damnation. The best of both worlds. If anything, the airing of this lost episode did less to sate fans of the now-cancelled series and more to remind them that if EMH hadn’t been cancelled we would have gotten a season about Surtur unleashing Ragnarok. It’s really such a shame that a great series like Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was cut down before it could wrap up all its plots, and this airing only served to remind that.
Review Score: 8 – Watch (well, not anymore)
Teen Titans Go! on the other hand, had some wacky antics with clones and Robin kidnapping Speedy so he can sabotage his date with Starfire and prevent a cartoon adaptation of Red Hood and The Outlaws. The plots were pretty thin, the episode containing mostly fairly lame jokes, and no faux Ben Stein robbing banks while Robin dances to hip hop. The main problem this show seems to have, is that it feels like it doesn’t want to be a superhero show. No one actually does anything heroic and every other line of dialogue is just some forced joke. Not every television show needs to be serious (I will fight to the death to defend Brave and the Bold) but if you’re going to do a show that’s not about superheroes so much as it’s making fun of them then you need to go big or go home.
Almost every situation in TTG! sounds like it could be done on any other show. Wacky clones? Birthday pies? Sabotaging a date? Those are all taken from the Disney Channel sitcom mad-libs bowl. If Teen Titans Go! wants to improve, it needs to stop writing a show, and start writing a show about the Teen Titans. It doesn’t need to be as dark as the light one, hell it can keep the same tone as it already as, but the plots need to stop coming off as so lazy. They even did a pretty good job last week with taking a typical plot, “X needs to learn driving”, and changed it up to “Robin needs to learn driving but his teacher is a bank robber!” If they can do more plots like that and less trite fifteen minute morality plays about how you shouldn’t pretend to be someone else’s date, Teen Titans Go! could be a pretty good show! Until then, it’s just kind of there.
Review Score: 4 – Pass, unless you need a way to kill a half hour.
