This week on Big Hero 6: The Series, everyone’s favorite incompetent supervillain Globby made his comeback as an art thief, and Hiro had to contend with a school project he had neglected as a result of moonlighting as a hero. (Haven’t we all?)
1. Globby’s baaaaaack
Globby’s back, and he’s just as endearingly bad at committing crimes as ever. For example, he asks the gang to give him time to remove these shards of glass he accumulated while crashing into the museum, when they would’ve given him a tactical advantage. More importantly, in this episode he discovers he has the ability to transmutate his own matter into a variety of substances, including – chocolate! It makes no sense, but can Marvel’s Absorbing Man turn into chocolate? I don’t think so.
Even more delightful is how Globby discovers his ability. He gets so frightened by Big Hero 6 that he turns into a puddle – he becomes wetness! He literally wets himself! It’s a visual pun so good that I’m a little disappointed Hiro later joked about it, but at least younger viewers got to be on the joke too.
2. Down on his luck Hiro
The episode’s titular theme is a sweet reminder to kids that it’s normal to feel despondent. Globby is a failure, but he became a serious threat in the end.
Oh wait, I’m forgetting Hiro’s personal storyline, where he has to design an earthquake proof skyscraper. I thought the storyline was a cool nod to to San Fransokyo’s real counterparts, in America and Japan. It makes me hopeful that Big Hero 6 will tackle a real one later in the season.
Also of note: social media is a cruel mistress, and her name is Karmi. Hiro’s nemesis/secret admirer is back, and is among many who mock him online for failing his test, definitely placing her at the Flash Thompson end of the spectrum this time round. It’s fascinating how cyberbullying was becoming a thing a decade ago when I was at school, and now it’s presence on a cartoon is practically unremarkable.
3. Baymax = Data, Honey Lemon = Crusher
It’s great that Baymax has started to hang out with members of the team other than Hiro. His pairing with Honey Lemon this week, where she tried to open his eyes to the arts, brought back memories of Data and Dr. Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, whereas Data strived hard to become a human, Baymax seems nonplussed about it all, explaining he’s just a machine. It’s fascinating how he’s adept at reading human emotions, but not capable of understanding how a human may go about expressing it in art. (Granted, so many of us struggle with the latter.) He also reveals he doesn’t know what poetry is, which implies he’s learning from his surroundings and programming in real-time, rather than already having read everything as you’d expect a supercomputer would.
I’m looking forward to seeing Baymax hang out with other members of the gang separately, and how his view of the world and himself may change as a result. At some point, he’s going to have to choose whether he’s a hero because he’s programmed to be, or because he genuinely cares about others.
4. Mark 42
There’s a hilarious moment in the episode where Hiro, Wasabi and Go Go have to take a slow self-driving car to Globby’s latest theft. It’s a good thing he’s so incompetent, as any other supervillain would’ve already finished by the time they arrived with all of their equipment. I imagine improving the team’s access to their own tech is going to be an ongoing issue, as obviously they can’t lug it everywhere. If only Tony Stark was around to develop a propulsive transportation for their armor, right?
5. Globby got away!
It’s great that Big Hero 6 don’t fight Globby one more time after he defeats them, other superhero cartoons wouldn’t have resisted the temptation to have one last fight to leave the viewers on a good note, or slapped a “To be continued…” on the episode. It feeds well into the message that you can mess up, but life still goes on, and that’ll be a next time. The end reveal that the painting Globby stole contains a schematic that Andrew Scott’s big bad, Obake, needs, is another sign that there is a well-planned endgame for this season, and that as goofy as the show is, there is a mature serial beneath it.
Continued belowBonus thoughts:
– Norlum (the inferior of the two animation studios on the show)’s framerate is still noticeable, but less distracting one week after an episode by Snipple.
– I guess if you’re not a billionaire superhero, it makes sense that you could sell the aftermath of your battles as art.
