Review: Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. "Abomination"

This episode was good, but it had some problems. It's Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. Quality's a bug, not a feature.

The central theme for this episode was "secrets." Unfortunately, some of those secrets are military secrets. As I said in the Recap portion, military secrets are not things that you share with family members. However, the Hulks are living at a military base, and the military secrets have to do with an enemy from the Hulk's past, so I can see where the episode is coming from with that. I still stand by my comments that Red Hulk did not do anything wrong when he refused to divulge classified military intelligence to his teammates, though. After all, we've seen that the Hulks are working with S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm pretty sure they have some sort of military clearance, so they shouldn't be completely out of the loop. Heck, what with Rick's webshow divulging all those secrets, the Hulks should be glad that they're not locked up under the ocean alongside the Abomination.

Speaking of the Abomination, let's talk about him. He's awesome. First of all, I'm a sucker for that Russian accent. Second of all, he's crafty. I've always thought that the difference between the Hulk and the Abomination is that while the Hulk may be stronger, the Abomination is more clever. Heck, I think I might like this version of the character better than the version from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Serious kudos there.

Yeah, I stand by what I said. Wanna make something of it?

You may have noticed that not only does A-Bomb look a bit like the Abomination (more than he looks like the Hulk), but "A-Bomb" sounds quite a bit like "Abomination". Well, in the comics, A-Bomb was a villain. Not only that, he was essentially Abomination's replacement. So, Rick was in the dark about the Abomination, as revealed by this episode. If Rick didn't know too much about the Abomination, a villain with a similar mutation as him, then why did he give himself an almost identical name? ...yeah, I'm nitpicking, but it still bugs me.

Let's have a talk about Red Hulk, like the one I did for She-Hulk.

The Red Hulk is General Ross. This has never been explicitly stated before this episode, though it was made known that he was a military general of some kind. The problem is, the revelation is ultimately pointless. Not only does the Hulk never react to this revelation, aside from dull surprise, but I don't believe the show has made reference to General Ross once. For those of you who don't know, General Ross was in charge of subduing/capturing/killing the Hulk. This is never explained in the show. So if you don't know who General Ross is in the comics, then the revelation doesn't work because your reaction is "So what? Who's General Ross?" And if you do know who General Ross is, then you already know that he's now the Red Hulk, so the revelation is still pointless.

The general (no pun intended) problem with the Red Hulk in this show is that he never learns his lesson. He doesn't trust the team, he's brash, and he's hotheaded. The only time any character development stuck was when he learned to tolerate Devil Dinosaur. If you're goign to have a "lesson episode," then let the lessons stick! It doesn't help when it's a problem that didn't exist before the episode, but still exists after it.

All in all, the character, though a departure from his OTT comic book persona, works. Mostly. And so does this episode. It may have a few hiccups, but I could see myself watching this episode again just for fun. I cannot say the same about the next episode. I don't want to spoil anything, but... EEEEEUUUUURRGGGH.