Creepers, gang! I hate to say it, but our time together comes to an end on a note of total bullshit. Not content with simply ending the show with literally the whole rest of the story, we’re solemnly brought together one last time to celebrate a C-list villain and their fruitless attempt at single-handedly thwarting the fucking Avengers. I’m sorry it came to this but we’ve one last puzzle to solve: why?
1. Off Target
Let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the room: Hawkeye has some shit to work out still and the season ended like five episodes too early, so this is just some requisite therapy to set up a new season where Clint isn’t a total psycho with baggage. After getting his biscuits saved by T’Challa like three different times in ten minutes, Hawkeye finally starts to shatter his own ego and admits that maybe, just maybe, Black Panther is a cool dude and his ex-girlfriend is legitimately totally nuts, mad with delusions of totalitarian grandeur. It takes nothing short of Madame Masque frankly telling Hawkeye that her plan is to wage thought-war on the entirety of sentient life on the planet for him to consider that she’s not the same reformed criminal she was before getting mind-hacked by the illicit use of ancient Wakandan technology that she was expressly forbidden from using under cited safety concerns. Phew.
I hate Hawkeye now but he and T’Challa were able to patch things up so I guess we can finally fucking move on, UGH.
2. Skull-Faced Society
As much as I want to drag this superfluous episode, it does have Crossbones in it and he does have his laser-puking skull rifle and, as you know by now, I love that damn thing. Mark Hamill is back as Arnim Zola, which is cool if not thankless and contractual, simply throwing out some bonus lines from a previous reading, probably. It’s utterly nuts to me that Typhoid Mary made the cut for Red Skull’s gang, but she’s here from a relatively freshly-canceled Netflix Iron Fist, and she’s totally schlocky, but the writers room has enough tact to shy away from vilifying mental illness. Last but not least (no, I’m not going to talk about Red Skull if I don’t have to) is Yelena Belova, one of my very favorite evil flunkie hero clones in all of Marveldom. This is not to say she does a single damn thing worth mentioning but I am very happy to see her!
3. Writer’s Room Riddle
I honestly couldn’t tell you what the hell is going on in this episode. The Avengers and the Alt-Right show up to the same defunct Nazi castle and duke it out with Madame Masque (cosplaying as Doctor Octopus?) to give Hawkeye and Black Panther some closure on their recent turbulent past. Maybe it sounds like I just accurately summarized the general plot of the episode but lo, dear reader, things just happen in a sequence that only passingly resembles a ramshackle story, let alone the final episode to a serialized cartoon. There’s something about sucking out the brain juices of Tony (Bologna) Stark and Red Skull to, like, unify the technology between paramilitary superheroes and Nazi ingenuity, but it doesn’t really go anywhere except a tender heart-to-heart between Masque and Hawkeye where she heals his hands so we can forget any of this shit ever happened.
4. Infinity Snore
Following last episode’s trend of being named after a lame event (“Atlantis Attacks”) this one, “House of M,” similarly shares absolutely fucking nothing with the mutant-centric 2005 event comic of ill repute. Maybe it’s a slight blessing that this bears no resemblance to that misbegotten horse plop, but a miracle it is not. Honestly? I’m not even sure what the hell the title is referencing besides the titular M representing Madame Masque but, frankly, none of this matters. It’s just a weird episode that makes little to no sense in the grand scheme but to tie up loose ends that shouldn’t have unraveled anyhow. Oh, also Thor is an entirely different character now because Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War came out on DVD during the production of this, so there’s just a lot of inexplicable development there for yucks, I guess. I digress. Bad episode, don’t bother.
5. Panther Puzzle Pal Partings
By now, you’ve figured out that I hated the episode and the time of ours it wastes, HOWEVER, I am hugely appreciative of you, dear readers! Thanks for sticking with me on this often puzzling ride and putting up with the many half-baked theories, costume appraisals and weekly griping over this Disney XD show. I’ve had to endure a lot of damned Lego Ninjago commercials to rant at you for the better part of the year and, all said, it was fun and totally worth it so thanks for hangin’ in there! As ever, do yourself a favor and keep up with the rest of the talented folks here at Multiversity Comics and I’ll see y’all around the comments sections. Thanks gang, may your future be rife with insane panther-gullet puzzles and skull-faced villains and stay away from any several-thousand foot falls into mist that you may encounter. You’ll survive but you may be tried as a class-A war criminal. BYE.
