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Boomb Tube: Reassembling Avengers

By | May 20th, 2014
Posted in Columns | 2 Comments

Boomb Tube, Multiversity’s weekly column detailing the current Cape Cartoons scene, is back! After, uh… after a month. Sorry about that guys. In between finals, moving back to New Jersey and the fact that the only show that aired during this time was Teen Titans Go!, I had to shift my priorities around a bit. I’m sure all three of you faithful readers were distressed.

But worry no longer! We’re back with an Avengers Assemble double feature! Teen Titans Go! is a big kid; they can look after themselves.

Also, since the summer is coming up and we won’t have as many cape cartoons around, feel free to suggest anything you’d like to see reviewed/recapped by Boomb Tube! Literally anything: from new movies to old cartoons, cartoon to live action! If you can vaguely tie it into comics, I’m in! It’s either your suggestions or a 90’s toss up between Godzilla: The Series and Animorphs. 

For now though, we’ll kick off with our first Avengers Assemble episode regarding Hawkeye and Falcon answering an alarm within Avengers Tower and discovering what could best be described as that dog scene from The Shining. 

Seriously, I think they might’ve used similar music. Considering that it’d be easy to assume Avengers Assemble would try and make this more of a gag moment, it’s kind of nice to see that they’re not just making this into another “character make loud noises” gag. On the other hand, why?

Apparently The Avengers, now wearing really bad outfits and face paint, have either been mind-controlled or got #2TURNT. That’s really the only explanation I could think of when it comes to stealing stuff from your own house while dressed like a Lady Gaga extra but we get a different answer in the form of Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime.

Okay, real talk: The Circus of Crime are the most balling villains to appear on this show. I’ve mocked Avengers Assemble in the past for having ridiculously low-tier villains (Attuma, Castlevania: Lord of Shadow’s version of Dracula) but The Circus of Crime are straight up balling. Their first idea after mind-controlling The Hulk, a behemoth who very well had the potential break out of said control, was to paint him like a clown. If not that’s bravery I don’t know what is.

Apparently, The Circus also used to run with Hawkeye back in the day as made explicitly clear to everyone by basically every word said and every slight gesture made by either party. Falcon doesn’t immediately get it and still needs to play catch-up (“Hawkeye, do you know this clown?” is the best line of the episode). That said, I can’t understand why Clint would ever leave the Circus of Crime considering how great they all are. There’s Human Cannonball whose name speaks for itself, The Gambonno Twins who have a pair of rocket boots/gauntlets they just share between them while fighting, Bruto the Strongman who’s a really great Sean Connery impersonator, and Trickshot who is certainly present.

Anyway, the Circus flies off with the rest of the Avengers which leads Hawkeye to immediately avoid Falcon’s questions and run straight to an old flame, Princess Python, who I think they insinuate used the snakes during their trysts? I’m really not sure; there was a smirk and I watched this at like 2AM. Really any moment could’ve been innuendo, it was a long night. Before anything really happens with Princess Python, though, the Circus of Crime shows up to laugh at everyone before Clown-Hulk smashes Clint and brings him back to the circus where everyone proceeds to laugh at him for leaving such a cool club. Even The Avengers, who at this point are most definitely down with the clown.

Regrettably, Clint stops the party by deactivating the mind control collars with his non-power of being good at throwing stuff. What a buzzkill. Of note is the scene where The Gambonno twins, in full on Mario Bros. accents, brag about their rocket boots by asking Black Widow if she likes her shoes Italian. She replies “No. American!” which doesn’t make any kind of sense. Does Natasha wear Skechers in her off-time? We may never know.

Princess Python shows up to help fight the Circus and during the whole conflict she has a great exchange with Iron Man who asks what side she’s on. She replies that she’s on the side of whoever wins. Iron Man replies with “Bet on the good guys. Better yet, be one.” It’s a really simple moment but I like it when superheroes actually act like heroes, so kudos to AA. As part of Python’s rehabilitation process she’s whisked away by Nick Fury who literally just shows up, touches her shoulder, and walks away because Marvel Animation’s local Samuel L. Jackson impersonator Chi McBride didn’t show up, which makes for the weirdest Fury appearance ever. Also, Nick Fury is Pushing Daisies’s Emerson Cod? That’s sincerely incredible.

Continued below

Final Verdict: 8.2 – Speaking of incredible? This episode, kind of. I think this might’ve been the most fun Avengers Assemble had since that ridiculous Planet Doom episode. Let’s hope that continues onto the next episode.

Aaand it kind of didn’t.

In our penultimate episode, The Avengers Assemble Ensemble are ready to finally take out The Cabal once and for all. Unfortunately, Falcon gets hurt in the process, which leads to Iron Man moping and refusing to do anything because he might put others in danger (that last complaint seeming really out of character for Tony Stark).

The Avengers get another call about The Cabal and go to fight them for the second time in two minutes while Tony watches over the KO’d Falcon. And while all the stuff with Sad Sack of Bolts might be a little boring, The Avengers’ fight with The Cabal is actually pretty great on some levels. For one, Black Widow runs up a giant robot causing it to shoot itself. Also, an army of vampire HYDRA soldiers aren’t even doing anything to stop The Avengers besides doing the HAIL HYDRA! salute and getting punched in the face. Of course, Attuma is there to make everything terrible but Thor caves his head in with a hammer so it’s all good.

Apparently, The Cabal got their hands on the cosmic cube Tesseract and are using it to open portals to worlds they desire most. AIM wants to get their hands on Asgard because obviously Modok and some beekeepers could take down The Realm Eternal itself. Hyperion, meanwhile, is seeking to go to a dimension where he’s appreciated, which is the first sign that Red Skull is lying to them as no such place could possibly exist. Indeed, Iron Man shows up with his army of suits from Iron Man 3 and reveals that all the portals would just obliterate the rest of The Cabal so Red Skull could have the power for himself. He learned this through reasons and by having a heart-to-heart moment with Sam by giving him a new suit.

Skull and Tony then proceed to have their big fight where the latter fires his chest cannon through Red Skull and the cosmic cube Tesseract. This causes the obligatory “Oh shit, did we kill off a main character?” mourning scene that always lasts around 45 seconds. After this, everyone celebrates, including Falcon who really didn’t get to do much, and especially Red Skull who gets up and reveals that actually exploding the Tessecube right in his face caused him to become a godly being kthxbai.

So it looks like Iron Man’s return was all for nothing. Actually, if everyone had waited ten minutes later, most of the Cabal would be gone and The Red Skull wouldn’t be infused with divine power. Stuff like this wouldn’t happen if The Circus of Crime were still in charge.

Final Verdict: 6.6 –  This episode wasn’t as over-the-top fun as the Circus episode and was kind of as run-of-the-mill as other episodes but at least The Avengers vs. Cosmic Skull sounds like a promising match-up.

Join us next week for the Avengers Assemble finale!


//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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