AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x002

"HULK VS. THE WORLD"
Written by Kevin Burke & Chris Wyatt | Directed by Sebastian Montes

The Plot: Bruce Banner wanders into Las Vegas, where he is briefly chased by police before escaping. Inside a diner, he meets with "Crusher" Creel, the Absorbing Man. Banner believes that SHIELD is experimenting on villains inside the prison called the Cube, and he wants Creel, an escapee, to tell him about it. But when Creel reveals that he now has super-powers as the Absorbing Man, Banner transforms into the Hulk. Hulk makes fairly short work of the Absorbing Man, but is subsequently attacked by General "Thunderbolt" Ross's Hulkbusters after the fight moves outside city limits.

Ross is ordered to withdraw his troops when Black Widow and Hawkeye, agents of SHIELD, arrive. Ross, however, defies the command and attacks the Hulk even as he battles the two agents. Huulk saves them, but is injured by Ross's missile to the point that Black Widow is able to subdue him with her Widow's Sting. Banner and Absorbing Man are then taken to the Cube, where Hawkeye visits Banner, who tells the Archer that SHIELD has taken his blood and wants to make more Hulks.

Hawkeye watches as Black Widow sneaks into a medical wing and takes Banner's blood sample. Suspicious, he pokes around the Widow's hidden files and finds record of a communication between the Widow and Hydra, in which she promises the sample to the terrorists. Hawkeye follows her out into the desert, where he interrupts the drop. But when SHIELD arrives, Widow takes out her two Hydra contacts and accuses Hawkeye of being a double-agent. Hawkeye is taken to the Vault, while the Widow retains the blood sample and speaks once again with her Hydra contact.

Continuity Notes: There are a gaggle of first appearances in this one. Besides Bruce Banner/the Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Absorbing Man, and General Ross, there's also SHIELD agent Bobbie Morse (who will eventually become Mockingbird), the Cube's medical officer, Leonard Samson (who will eventually become the gamma-powered "Doc" Samson), plus Cube inmates such as the Leader, the Abomination, the Bi-Beast, the U-Foes, Radioactive Man, and a couple I didn't even recognize.

Absorbing Man's powers are slightly different here than what I'm used to from the comics. He can change his body to mimic whatever he touches, but he's also able to do things like form his hands into mallets. Also, he doesn't have his trademark wrecking ball, but that could simply because he didn't have it on him when Banner found him eating at the diner.

It's noted that Hawkeye and the Widow have been partners for years, to the point that Hawkeye knows about the "Red Room" where she received her training as a Russian operative.

One of the Hulkbusters, piloting a helicopter, bears a striking resemblance to G.I. Joe's main chopper pilot, Wild Bill. No idea if this is an homage or what, but it's interesting.

The Cube, listed in the prior episode among the five super-villain prisons, is seen here. Per Banner, it's meant to hold villains who gained their powers through radiation.

Do I know that Voice? After noting last week that a lot of the cast of EMH were/are unknowns to me, I thought it would be fun to create this category, so that whenever a voice actor pops up who I do recognize, I can mention it. In this case, Leonard Samson is portrayed by veteran Cam Clarke, perhaps best known as Leonardo in the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES cartoon, among many other roles.

Also, Black Widow is voiced by Vanessa Marshall, who I had never heard of in 2010, but who I know nowadays as Hera Syndulla from STAR WARS: REBELS. Oh, and Chris Cox voices Hawkeye. I don't know much about him, other than that he appeared in the Distinguished Competition's cartoons as Captain Atom in JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED.

My Thoughts: My recollection is that when I first watched this series, this was my favorite of the five "microseries" installments -- which is kind of funny, because I've never been huge on the Hulk as a solo character; I vastly prefer him in team-ups or even as an antagonist. The only time I've ever cared much about the character as a headliner in his own series was during the "Smart Hulk" era written by Peter David. But this episode has enough non-Hulk intrigue that it more than makes up for that deficiency. (In fact, where three of Iron Man's four microseries episodes focused on the Golden Avenger with the fourth dedicated to Nick Fury, in this case we have a fifty-fifty split: two segments about the Hulk and two about Hawkeye and Black Widow.)

I will voice one issue, however, which is that EMH's version of SHIELD does seem to be going in the direction I mentioned last week that I don't enjoy: being an obstacle, rather than an ally, to our heroes. I honestly don't remember how a lot of the SHIELD shenaningans shake out in this series, but between last week's confrontation between Iron Man and Fury and this week's idea that SHIELD is secretly experimenting on super-villains and trying to create more Hulks with Banner's blood, I don't like where it seems to be headed.

But we still have to wait and see where that idea goes; I just generally don't like the idea that, over the decades, this idea has become inherent in all aspects of the Marvel Universe that SHIELD can't just be a group of good people doing good things. There always has to be some hidden corruption or underlying motive or anything to tarnish them. I realize that a lot of this is rooted in what we know about real-life clandestine (and not-so-clandestine) organizations, but why can't a fictional spy agency just reflect our best aspirations of what such an organization should be, rather than being a mirror of what we know they actually are?

That said, I'm at least able to divorce my reservations with painting SHIELD in this unflattering light from the fact that this does seem like an interesting plot development. While I may not like it, I do want to see if it goes anywhere, because like I said, I don't remember where any of the SHIELD stuff goes.

The stuff with Black Widow and Hawkeye is good, as well. Obviously she's not really a double-agent, but the question becomes: what exactly is she up to? Is this part of Fury's plan to find the leak, as suggested last week when he summoned her about it? Or is she the leak for some reason yet to be revealed? Again, I honestly don't remember, so I look forward to finding out. And speaking of the Widow, I can't enthuse enough about how happy I was, when this show premiered, to see her speaking with a Russian accent. She seems to tone it down when among her fellow SHIELD agents, but when speaking with Hydra, it's out in full force, and I love it.

(I remember, way, way back when Scarlett Johansson was cast as Black Widow in the MCU, naively thinking to myself, "I hope she can pull off a good Russian accent!" Then, of course, IRON MAN 2 came out and she sounded totally American. As has been the case in every subsequent Marvel movie. So I was fully braced for her to be American in this show as well, and was pleasantly surprised to find they had gone in the correct direction of giving her an accent. The MCU seems to be pretty anti-accent, for whatever reason. Scarlet Witch had one too, in AGE OF ULTRON, but it's become gradually less pronounced with each subsequent movie for some reason. I only hope that when Doctor Doom finally makes his MCU debut, he has sounds Eastern European.)

Also, I need to applaud the series for putting Hawkeye in his real costume. I get that the outfit might not translate verbatim to the screen. It would look silly. But the MCU never really even tried. They gave us good screen versions of Captain America's and Thor's costumes, Iron Man's armor, etc. But for Hawkeye, they went the lazy route and just put him in the drab and uninspired Ultimate look, which is what every single adaptation and licensed product now uses (plus what the comics themselves now have him in permanently). Like, I know this is weird, but it seriously bugs me that my son is growing up in a world where Hawkeye wears a dumb plain "costume" with shades rather than his really cool comic book look.

Anyway -- the intrigue with Black Widow and SHIELD elevates this above the mere slugfest it could've been otherwise, and places it a notch above last week's installment, as well. Next week, we'll check out the microseries episode I remember the absolute least, "Thor the Mighty".