Welcome back to Boomb Tube: Multiversity’s column recapping the week’s Cape Cartoons that I swear isn’t becoming bi-monthly. The previous week just had one episode of Agents of Smash. Instead we now have two this week with a Teen Titans Go! palette cleanser. God knows we’ll need it as we’re about to experience what is, without a doubt, the most fucked up episode of Agents of Smash right here.
It begins with A-Bomb talking about finding a secret within the recesses of Mesa Verde which Red Hulk refuses to discuss because, as everyone constantly mentions, he’s bad at teamwork. His secrets end up taking a backseat when Skaar goes missing and a security video of him, inexplicably playing fetch with himself, reveals that he was taken down by The Abomination, who could be one of the first actually foreboding enemies to come out of this show. And he actually sort of accomplishes this by locking the Agents inside Mesa Verde and picking them off one by one. Apparently he has a history with Red Hulk, who’s revealed to have turned Emil Blonksy into The Abomination, thereby giving him both a Hulked out form and the voice of that guy from the Dos Equis commercials. Everyone’s more angry over the fact he’s been keeping secrets than creating a murderer but whatever. Anyway, Blonsky leads Red down a hallway, goading him on and saying he’s got “something in store for him.” What exactly does Abomination have waiting for Red?
Literally what the fuck. Who the fuck. How the fuck? Fucking why the fuck is Tom Selleck in this cartoon, wearing a dog suit from The Shining and being hanged? Oh no, no one ever actually addresses the fact that this is a goddamn thing; it’s just there to traumatize anyone who might be half-watching this show out of obligation, scaring the crap out of them. As for the two other people I’ve mentioned who watched this show, it’s comforting to know that they will actually grow up to be serial killers now.
Red mentions something about how he don’t need no “pop gun” and this leads to a theory I found on the message boards of Behind The Voice Actor (the only source I could find that’d even talk about the dog) that the image was meant to block the image of a gun and they didn’t want to just have a black square where the gun would be.
Well that’s fucking comforting. I have absolutely no idea who’d replace the image of a gun (in a show that has dozens) with what happens when you combine a fur suit, mustaches, and autoerotic asphyxiation, but I hope he’s comfortable in that flesh mask he’s just sewn together.
Anyway the rest of the episode somehow ignores Dog-Man and focus on Blonksy setting off one of Red’s secret projects: a “Anti-Gamma” bomb which… wait that doesn’t mean a fucking thing. “Anti-Gamma Bomb?” What could that be packed with? Lysol? The name’s not the craziest part about the episode though, as Red reveals that the bomb’s actually located on a rocket that Blonsky’s using to escape because honestly logic flew out of this episode when that furry drew its last breath. Hulk jumps onto the rocket, and Red follows saying there’s no point: they can just let Abomination explode. Hulk explains that he needs to save Blonksy because it’s the right thing to do and then kicks Red off the miles high rocket while smiling. What? If you wanted a show where characters didn’t miss the point they’d have made a Bullseye cartoon. Blonsky ends up doing the same kick routine on Hulk when he tries to warn him about the bomb, then proceeds to be completely surprised about the bomb he was just warned about that blows up in his face. Ultimately, that also doesn’t matter as Red Hulk shrugs and says he’s probably still alive. Also that his secret project was using that rocket and its Anti-Gamma bomb (which is apparently the same as a regular bomb) for an Independence Day fireworks display. That might seem like a cop-out so the show doesn’t have to have any moral ambiguity, but I’d like to point you to the Dead Furry who Red was totally fine with.
Continued belowFinal Verdict: 4.3 – Dead Dog Furry
Let’s just try and take a little intermission here with Teen Titans Go! which spends its first three minutes having Cyborg and Beast Boy repeat the word waffle ceaselessly. Then Brother Blood kidnaps the Titans who aren’t repeating “Waffle” which causes Cy and BB to try and save them which results in the former being beat up and the latter losing all the flesh on his torso. Then the other Titans make Brother Blood run away by singing “Waffles” at him.
Final Verdict: 10.1
Well that was refreshing. Back to Hulk and the Agents of Smash which now has an episode where the fight Fin Fan Foom, a character ruined for me by the fact he’ll never show up in Nextwave: Agents of HATE ever again. No one will, in fact. Tragic. Anyway, The Impossible Man teleports in, becomes intrigued by the heroes, and decides to play with them so… wait…
This was a fucking episode of Avengers Assemble. This was literally just a couple months ago. No. No, I refuse to review the same episode twice, even if they do end up swapping out Avengers for Hulks. I will not stand for this, and as such I’m just gonna take a few liberties with the rest of this review.
Finally, Avengers Assemble Hulk and the Agents of Smash featured the debut of The Impossible Man who grew an instant infatuation with The Falcon A-Bomb. Glad I’m not the only one. The Impossible Man has The Falcon Seth Green fight The Wrecking Crew Fin Fang Foom, who have grown to become the stand-in “Someone is Destroying New York but it’s Not That Big a Deal” threat for every Marvel character. The Impossible Man is filming a movie about The Avengers The Agents of SMASH and wants Falcon A-Bomb to be the main star which, again, is something I completely identify with. From there, The Impossible Man does traditional Bat-Mite style fourth-wall breaking hijinks until The Avengers Agents realize The Impossible Man is being chased by the aliens from the Avengers movie Sauron. From there, the rest of the episode turns into a straight-up shot-for-shot remake of the final twenty minutes of The Avengers, just with The Falcon Sauron and Impossible Man Fin Fang Foom thrown in, any of the thrills removed, and Black Widow Uncle Hulk saying crap like “That’s what being a team is all about.”
I get that this cartoon was created solely because the movie was so popular and Marvel didn’t want their Avengers cartoon to confuse new viewers by including The Vision anyone but The Hulk. Believe me, I get it; I don’t want children being exposed to The Vision either. Still, how presumptuous do you have to be to make your last act a reference to the movie you’re already referencing by trying so hard to be. This episode isn’t even a parody an episode, it’s just acknowledging it’s status as a knock-off imitation of the Joss Whedon movie Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. If I was a small child, I’d be furious. I already saw The Avengers, and I’m devoting my time between naps and sippy juices to an Avengers cartoon filled with stuff I already saw with Dead Dog Furries? Do you know what small child me could have been doing instead of watching your show a dead furry? I could have been playing Pokemon doing anything but that! It’s because of Avengers Assemble that children all over lost countless half hours playing Pokemon X & Y with their innocence left intact. No, I’m not crying at my 3DS who I used to be. Don’t look at me.
Final Verdict: 5.1 – Mediocre. Why did that episode have a dead furry?!
Well that’s that. Two very confusing episodes of Hulk and the Agents of Smash and a demented Teen Titans Go! Not for nothing, but I’m certain that the lack of any good cartoons has made Boomb Tube Multiversity’s most structurally unfortunate column.
