Recap: Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. "Galactus Goes Green"

Well, you know what they say: Once you go green... you reduce your carbon footprint? I don't know, I don't have the inclination to make a better "Once you go _____" joke. Now, when this episode only existed as an Avengers Assemble DVD-exclusive, I came up with two theories about the plot.

A. Galactus tries to utilize renewable energy to satiate his hunger for planets.
B. Galactus... shall we say, "breaches She-Hulk's Gamma reactor." You know, a little "nuclear fusion." Dinner dancing, wining, dining, then back to his place to "Scram the control rod."

A little bit of the ol'

n0  +  6 3Li  →  3 1T  +  4 2He + 4.784 MeV, if you get my drift.

Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, eh?

"Are you trying to insinuate something?"
"No! No. No no no. no. ...Yes."

Well, the episode is primarily about She-Hulk....
Prepare to bleach your brain, should the need arise.

What happens in Vegas... no, too easy.

The episode opens with our jolly giants arriving in Vegas by Hulkjet. The team's all gussied up in tuxes and dresses (well, one dress) for the grand opening of THA COH-LAHSUUUUUUUUHSS, as Rick pronounces it. It seems that She-Hulk scored them some "exclusive" invitations (which makes me scratch my head when it comes to her story for the episode, but we'll get there). The COLOSSUS is some kind of casino?/hotel?/building-thing in the shape of a man. For some reason, it comes complete with Galactus-esque head fins. I swear to Bob, if the plot of this episode involves Galactus falling in love with a building, then I'm quitting my blog. Anyway, apparently, the COLOSSUS is the "resort so big, they wanted the world's biggest hero to promote it."

Uh, I've got a few points to bring up.

A. The world's biggest hero is Hank Pym. Sometimes. I guess he's still calling himself Ant-Man?
B. I thought She-Hulk "scored them invites," as opposed to them wanting the Hulk to promote it.
C. Why would you want a guy primarily known for destroying buildings with his bare hands in fits of rage to promote your new feat of carefully constructed architecture?

Moving on, the team lands the jet, and they emerge, to the gasps and mutterings of the paparazzi. Hulk futzes with his bow-tie and grumbles to She-Hulk, who's latched onto his arm and squealing with excitement like a drunken date. The others emerge as well. Red Hulk comes out showing off his tux, and Skaar...

...is apparently a pimp. The only thing that would make that outfit any better is if Skaar had a monkey named George hidden under that hat.

So the guests-of-honor-Hulks are introduced to the crowd as the world's greatest team... of monsters. Unsurprisingly, the team takes offense to that. So do I. Everyone knows that the Creature Commandos are the world's greatest team of monsters! She-Hulk protests that they're heroes, not monsters, and backs this up by yelling loud enough to shake the building they're all standing on. I guess no matter where the Hulks go, they're seen as inhuman monsters. Who could have expected such fear and loathing in Las Vegas?

Later, at the afterparty, the team goes to town on the buffet table when the building starts collapsing around them. The puny humans run and panic, and the Hulks go out to the building ledge, where they find, standing on hovering rocks in the sky, Terrax the tamer, an armored giant with a big ol' spear.

Silver Surfer was busy polishing himself for his date with Platinum of the Metal Men.

Hulk knows what that means. As it turns out, Terrax works for... Galactus. Intro rolls, let's continue.

She-Hulk grumbles about never getting to go anywhere nice, tosses Rick her purse, and jumps up to take on Terrax, but he swats her away. Then he starts yammering on about his great master, the eater of planets, blah blah blah. Hulk shuts him up with a fist, then rips off his tuxedo in a series of non-animated still frames while yelling "STUPID MONKEY SUIT!" It doesn't fit with the scene at all, so my theory is that the animators realized that Hulk was tuxedoed-up in one shot, and wearing ripped clothes in the next, so they slapped this together. After decking Terrax again, Hulk tells A-Bomb to get weapons, Shulk to help civilians, and Rulk and Skaar to start a-smashin'.

She-Hulk protests that she wants to beat up Terrax too, but Rulk whips his misogyny out and tells her that this is a job for "the big boys."

She-Hulk (cutaway): "Two things I hate: losing, and Red trash talking me."

She does her job evacuating, and the others smash away. Rulk's stomach gives him some issues (having eaten too much), and Terrax gains the upper hand by earthbending around some boulders. That is, until Rick sneaks up from behind with the Hulkjet and fires away. After that... well, Terrax still has the upper hand. He reflects the bullet barrage, crashing the jet into the balcony.

She-Hulk saves the civilians by grabbing a hunk of balcony and sliding down the resort's roller coaster, dropping them off at the bottom. The team regroups, and Hulk tells Shulk that she done good. Rick tosses everyone their weapons, and the fight begins anew. They manage to knock Terrax to the ground, but he grabs a chunk and rides it back into the air onto the building, where he sends a signal to Galactus. She-Hulk knocks him off of the building, but too little too late. Galactus descends from space. She-Hulk steals Terrax's spear and jumps up to attack, but Galactus simply holds her in place with his infinite power.

Galactus: "...but I have not come to feed, mortals."

I refer you to my earlier comments.

"Hey, girl. I’m attracted to you so strongly, scientists will have to develop a fifth fundamental force."

Galactus, as he announces, had finally realized that Terrax was a bit crap, so he came to Earth to find the Hulk and make him his new herald. But what with Terrax's swift defeat, Galactus ended up coming for She-Hulk. ...not like that. Galactus sucks the Power Cosmic out of Terrax, and inserts it into She-Hulk. ...not like that. In a burst of energy, She-Hulk transforms into the "Emerald Emissary." Hey, its a better name than the "Green Glider." She even gets Terrax's spear and a green version of the Silver Surfer's surfboard. Well, it could be worse; Galactus could have chosen Red Hulk instead.

This cannot end well.

The new, improved She-Hulk descends to her team, and insists that she's fine, which brings me to the matter of her new voice.

There's this thing that happens with fiction that I just don't get where when a normal person gains some sort of power, all of a sudden, they get this GRANDIOSE WAY OF SPEAKING with inflections that make them sound... well, aroused? Evilly aroused? That's what She-Hulk has. And believe me, you've heard this voice before. It's a stock voice, like the British accent or a redneck voice.

And for whatever reason, this voice has always bugged me. Mostly because however the person in questions talked before, it suddenly changes and that always seems jarring to me.

Anyway, pet peeves aside, She-Hulk is clearly not well. She makes a parking lot full of cars float for no reason, and slams Rulk away when he protests. Terrax tries to take revenge too, but she knocks him halfway across Nevada.

Oh man, that hair. It's like Ghost Rider tried to grow an afro.

Galactus encourages her to test out her new powers, and she does this by putting the COLOSSUS back together. Hulk protests that the power comes with the caveat that she'll have to find Galactus planets to eat, and she says that she'll find worlds without life.

Well, I see no problem with this. She-Hulk sees this as an opportunity to be more than just "some monster," and she'll save countless lives all over the universe by steering Galactus towards uninhabited planets. Win-win. What's the downside again? Oh yeah, the big, green chip on She-Hulk's shoulder. Despite her ability to score exclusive tickets to exclusive events, and her usefulness as a stuntwoman, she can't shake the feeling that people just see her as a high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. But Hulk tells her that she never was a monster, blah blah blah. With urging from the Hulk, she decides to stay. But with urging (and mind control) from Galactus, she decides to attack her teammates instead.

She-Hulk: "Who else would challenge me?"

See what I mean about how her speech pattern changes? If she weren't all-powerful, she'd just say "Who's next?" Why does gaining cosmic power fix your grammar?

A-Bomb doesn't want to hit Shulk, so Hulk tries to instead. But She-Hulk's kind of all-powerful, remember? It's a pretty one-sided fight. She knocks Hulk back to Earth and prepares to kill him. Hulk speechifies some more about friendship, and Galactus' mind control weakens.

Galactus: "Destroy that monster!"
She-Hulk: "He's no monster. He's. My. FAMI-LEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

...are you sure you want to go with that take, Ms. Dushku? You... you can do another take of that line. Are you sure? ...alright.

Back to the action, Galactus tries to destroy the Hulk instead with his eyebeams, but She-Hulk redirects the energy back at him, knocking Galactus into several buildings, no doubt killing many innocent bystanders. Galactus uses his eyebeams to create what looks like an atomic blast, no doubt killing whatever survivors remained. Galactus vows to eat the planet in revenge, and prepares his world-destroyer to convert the planet into energy he can consume. Then he'll go get a new herald. Maybe a bronze guy with rollerblades.

She-Hulk gets an idea, takes Hulk's blaster, and flies off. The rest of the team goes off to jointly break the machine and beat Galactus. She-Hulk, meanwhile, finds Terrax roaming the desert. She offers a rematch, tossing him the blaster. Meanwhile, again, Hulk and Rulk are fighting Galactus while A-Bomb and Skaar try to break his machine. It doesn't go well, but it seems to slow Galactus down about 00.00001%. After more fighting and a few gambling-related puns, She-Hulk flies back in, being attacked by Terrax. Terrax boasts that, even in disgrace, he'll never betray Galactus. This is so obviously staged. She-Hulk and the others pretend to go down from Terrax's attacks, and Galactus takes the Power Cosmic from She-Hulk, giving it back to Terrax. Hulk, having no more bargaining chips, demands that Galactus leave, and She-Hulk hint hints that Terrax should only find uninhabited planets from now on. Neither Galactus nor Terrax have reasons to follow through with their ends of these deals, but they leave anyway.

She-Hulk (cutaway): "I offered Terrax a deal he couldn't refuse. I throw the fight to make him look good, he gets his power back, and the Earth wins."

Galactus looks towards his herald flying away to the stars, and we get the two bits of the episode that actually made me laugh out loud.

Rick: "...soooo... is he gonna leave...? Or what...?"
Red Hulk: "What're ya askin' me for?"

Galactus teleports away, making the Star Trek transporter sound effect.

Galactus: "Farewell, Hulks."
Skaar: "Bye-bye, helmet-head."
Rick: "I will miss you! ...eh, I won't, I just said that to be polite."
Red Hulk: "Yeh, don't let the moon hitcha in the butt on the way out."

What the heck is this? Funny jokes? I expected better of you, show!
She-Hulk tells Hulk that she knows that Hulk threw the fight too.

Rick: "Hear that, Hulksters? Sometimes, to win, you gotta lose. ...hey, wait a minute, you guys threw the fight? Why didn't you tell me!?"
Skaar: "Skaar knew."
Red Hulk: "The ol' bait-and-switch."

More successful humor? This is the last straw, show. I come into this show expecting crap and you give me something I enjoy? I don't want to actually enjoy mysel... wait, what the heck am I saying? Keep it up!
She-Hulk and Rulk get on each others' nerves, and the episode ends with the Hulks going to get breakfast.

Hulk (cutaway): "What would I have done with the Power Cosmic? Well, like I said before: with my friends, I have all the power I need. Hulk out."

Despite a few annoying elements, this was a good episode... but there's a couple major issues with it. Let's talk about that.