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

This episode… I’m not going to mince words, this episode was a cheap rehash of Thor 2.

The Dark Elf plan of using evil, ancient energy to plunge the universe into darkness was taken straight from that movie. Heck, the character designs were taken from that movie.

Left: Comic Dark Elves
Middle: Film Dark Elves
Right: HatAoS Dark Elves

This whole thing smells of sad effort to piggyback off of the success of Thor 2. The designs, the plan, the villains, the use of portals… it was like watching a school play where every actor is just imitating what they saw in the movie version of the play. It’s something we’ve already seen, and we’ve seen it done better. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not against adaptations. But there’s a fine line between “adapting,” “taking inspiration,” and “ripping off.” For me, this seems to falls squarely into “ripping off" because I get the feeling that they were trying to add enough original elements to disguise the rehashing.

Now, if this episode was meant as an homage, or an adaptation, or whatever… then fine. I think it’s still poorly done, but fine. But I can’t help but feel that this was either a poorly-conceived, late-to-the-game tie-in to the film, or an inferior retread.

Aside from that, this episode wasn’t that bad. The jokes were actually pretty funny, Skaar’s subplot about being an Elite Guard was interesting (well, while it lasts), and I like the idea of the Hulks hanging out in Asgard, where they wouldn’t look too out of place. All in all, this episode was not bad when it was being original (except for Malekith’s uber-form). But the parts that rehashed Thor 2 pretty much brought the whole thing down, I’m sorry to say. Oh well. At least it had potential.

See you next time!