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Boomb Tube: Return of the King

By | October 3rd, 2013
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome back to Boomb Tube: where we review all the currently airing cape cartoons! This week, Teen Titans Go! goes Pacific Rim, The Avengers Hulk Out, and Ultimate Spider-Man returns.

Starting off with Beware the Batman, Anarky is back in Gotham, presumably pumped up by the government shutdown. He steals some shipment from the League of Shadows who can’t just call Amazon to get it for them and so agree to attack a disease control center for him. Katana, meanwhile, beats up some thugs holding a card game. What’s best about this scene is how after Katana says a pun, Batman jumps in to say another one. They HAD to coordinate this before attacking the minions. “Yo yo, I know we need to get to the League of Shadows ASAP but these guys are playing cards and I’ve had this idea for YEARS now wait put back that sword.” Anyway, Anarky and his Heath Ledger impression lead Bruce and Katana to the CDC where the League is. There, Lady Shiva’s ninjas are exposed to a disease that transforms them into the minibosses from Arkham Asylum. At this point, Lady Shiva jumps onto one of the goon’s backs and thrusts an actual sword into the back of their throat. It breaks upon impact, but still, we just watched a genuine attempted murder on TV. I love Beware the Batman. Anyway, Bruce is able to contain the disease before Gordon and the intense CDC director have to burn the place down, with Lady Shiva escaping. At her headquarters, she meets again with Anarky who gives her the shipment: the frozen body of Liam Neeson. Or R’as Al-Ghul. Could be either.

Final Verdict: 7.6 – Another entertaining and still the best cape cartoon running right now.

Meanwhile at Marvel, our favorite prodigal son returned with Arcade showed up and immediately became the biggest threat in the world. He had taken over all of the Life Model Decoys and was in the process of hacking into SHIELD to gain the nuclear warheads of THE WORLD. Kind of a step up from owning a murder theme park, but hey whatever. Captain America immedietly shows up so Nova can go “CAPTAIN AMERICA! LIVING LEGEND!” just in time for Nick Fury to scream out “NOT FOR LONG” before shooting Cap. With a small laser gun. Because Nick Fury was an LMD and LMDs are awful at short-term planning. Anyway, Spider-Man goes against Fury’s orders with Cap to fight some LMDs while Wolverine just kind of stumbles into the show. The three of them continue to fight the robots that had only been previously used for training for a while until Arcade traps them in a virtual version of Murder World that was just a really bad VR game. Here, the writers prove that they have never played a video game as Spider-Man keeps screaming out for Cap and Wolverine to “use the power-ups” and “get the XP” until Arcade loses or something. Wolverine then notes how smart Spider-Man is his for his ability to recognize the existence of power-ups. Also, the warheads are deactivated and that’s a huge relief because can you imagine us as a species having to explain to future generations that our entire civilization was destroyed by Arcade, a fourteen-year-old-supervillain wearing a disco suit who’s obsessed with video games? That would be embarrassing, just like this show actually.

Good to have you back, buddy.

Final Verdict: 5.0 – Still as mediocre as ever.

On Teen Titans Go!, Cyborg JUST saw Pacific Rim and made a giant robot to coincide with it. Robin however, just saw Evangelion and uses that as an excuse to go crazy in a giant robot suit. I just remembered Titan Maximum so I’m using this opportunity to imagine every Titan being voiced by Seth Green. Anyway, Robin is dissatisfied when he is assigned as the left leg and as a result reconfigures the weapons system to focus entirely around the leg. Then he takes away all the attention in a fight and does not face any consequences.

I don’t think Teen Titans Go! is trying to teach children any good lessons. I think it might actively hate children. This show is starting to grow on me.

Final Verdict: 6.8 – Sort of entertaining.

Continued below

Finally, Avengers Assemble featured an adaptation of Jeph Loeb’s “Hulked Out Heroes” story arc in the loosest form possible. The Hulk is attacked by The Blood Brothers after being told he’s being 2ANGRY by The Avengers. The Blood Brothers attach a pack to Hulk that causes gamma radiation to emit from him and turn the other Avengers into Hulks. Hulk then proceeds to kind of stand around while the other Avengers, save Black Widow who avoided the infection, go into a mindless and begin wrecking the city. Hulk teams up with Black Widow, giving her some not-Infinity Gauntlet to cure the heroes while he fights them off. He does so and after having defeated every hero he proceeds to go into a mindless rage. “HULK! STRONGEST! ONE! THERE IS!” he screams admist a backdrop of fire and carnage. Black Widow looks on, worried, perhaps the monster has finally taken over her teammate. “THOR OWE ME FIVE BUCKS” Hulk then lets out, along with a toothy smile complete with a sparkle.

Okay, really, hold the front door. Hulk being a mindless monster is apparently a huge part of Marvel’s Animated Universe. That’s not because they’ve ever shown it, but because everyone’s always talking about it when, at most, all the Hulk does is complain about how there’s no food in the fridge. Not to mention the entire spin-off being produced where The Hulk is basically a wise old leader. With all due respect, that’s one of the stupidest things you could do with The Hulk. Can he be wise? Yeah. Can he be lovable sometimes? Yeah! But can the Hulk really be a mildly grumpy, wizened guru who everyone calls a psychopathic meltdown waiting to happen? No! Because that doesn’t make any sense within the shows and is just really distracting! If you’re going to do the Hulk, decide to either do the one who complains about food or the one who tore Las Vegas and a dog in half.

Final Verdict: 3.2 – This and Agents of Smash successfully stole the title for Worst Shows while Ultimate Spider-Man was gone.

 


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James Johnston

James Johnston is a grizzled post-millenial. Follow him on Twitter to challenge him to a fight.

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