Recap: Avengers Assemble "Blood Feud"

Welcome back to October. I want to give you guys something special. To show how much I care about bringing you guys quality entertainment, I will refrain from making Twilight jokes for this Recap and Review. Completely. No sparkly vampire jokes, no Bella/Edward jabs, nothing. Yeah, I'm putting actual effort into the jokes this week.

I mean, like I always do. All the time. No, you're acting suspicious.

The episode opens up with ninjas jumping from rooftop to rooftop in the general direction of Avengers Tower. After violating the Law of Gravitational Attraction by ziplining upwards, they infiltrate the building with ease and sneak past the Avengers. Falcon and Tony are tinkering, Thor and Hulk are getting snacks, Cap's demolishing a punching bag, and Hawkeye's eating all of Hulk's peanut butter.

The ninjas, led by a sexy female ninja, attack Cap. Luckily, he and Hawkeye are ready to defend themselves. Hawkeye arrows the alarm, and Thor and Hulk come a-callin' right through the wall. Iron Man detects no heat or heartbeats from these ninjas, and they start shadowing around. Cap tells Tony to fire up the UV lights, and they all disintegrate, save for the hot chick.

Captain America: "Vampires."

He goes over to the convulsing vampire-ninja-lady, and pulls off her mask, revealing her to be Black Widow! Dun-dun-dunnnnnn! A deep voice greets Cap through her mouth and delivers a message.

???: "I offer you her life in exchange for yours."

But who could be making such a demand of Cap?

Captain America: "That... was Dracula."

Okay, this episode's shaping up to be pretty awesome already.

Falcon: "Black Widow is a vampire?"
Captain America: "No. Not yet. She's still in the early stages. Dracula's hold on her isn't complete."

How narratively convenient. Hawkeye rightly points out (along with a few killjoys in the audience, I bet) that there's a big leap between saying "Vampires exist" and "Count 'I vant to drink yeur blud' Dracula exists".

Captain America: "Not 'Count,' just Dracula. He finds 'Count' insulting, since he's king of the vampire nation."

World building and dismissing goofy preconceived notions. Kudos, writers; you're spoiling us this week.

Hawkeye: "Great. Let me know when Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman show."

Oh, well, I was going to get to their appearance in Ultimate Spider-Man for Halloween.

Widow wakes up, and she escapes, only to hit her head on a mirror (which she didn't appear in), knocking her out again.

She also rides Thor's hammer for a bit. You're welcome for this image.

They take her down to the med-scanner and see what the deal is. According to her files, she was tracking the Red Skull in Transylvania. Iron Man tries to determine if MODOK or Red Skull was doing some brain switching again, but Cap tells him that he's wasting time. Especially since Black Widow's readings actually break the med-scanner. With no other option, Tony gives in.

As they fly off, Cap prepares some silver discs to take care of Drac's goons. Hmmm... it's a mite suspicious that Cap knows a lot about vampires, and Hawkeye calls him out on it.

Captain America: "During the war, Dracula and our country were... uneasy allies."

I want to see that black and white newsreel.

As it turns out, HYDRA tried to invade Transylvania back in the war. In real life, Transylvania was successfully annexed by Hungary, so we can safely assume through insane leaps of logic that in the Marvel Animated Universe, World War 2 was caused by Hungary after Adolf Hitler successfully got into art school. During the Second World War, Adolf no doubt fled to America, where he joined Walt Disney Animation and became close friends with his idol, Walt Disney. Adolf would become CEO following Walt's untimely death, and ushered in a Golden Age of animation that made such films as The Aristocats, The Rescuers, The Great Mouse Detective, and Oliver and Company icons of western animation. Sadly, the "Disney Renaissance" would end with the release of its first major flop, The Little Mermaid. The fallout was so bad that Hitler ended up committing suicide under Disneyland. A few years later, an experimental film called The Lion King proved disastrous and wound up killing traditional animation until it was revived with Home on the Range, which ended up winning every single Oscar that year, including ones it was ineligible for.

Or maybe I just made all that up. Everything except Cap reluctantly working with Dracula. Cap assumes that he must have something that Dracula wants.

Iron Man: "We just need to break into his castle and find out what Dracula is using on her. Nanotech, maybe."

It's magic, you idiot. Yes, "any sufficiently advanced technology," and all that. But it's either the fish-people from Doctor Who or actual f'real vampires. And when the guy you're going to attack is called "Dracula," it's safe to assume that this is supernatural, not technological.

Meanwhile, Dracula sits on his throne and gets a message from the Red Skull telling him to follow "the plan." The Avengers land and begin their short walk through the eternal night to the Count's abode. Dracula himself shows up and reiterates his offer: Cap for Widow. Hawkeye, being Hawkeye, shoots at Dracula. This only makes him angry, so he steals Black Widow.

Dracula: "I see that my mercy is not wanted."

What a horrible night for a curse.

So he summons his vampire minions to fight the team. Iron Man gets JARVIS to roll for Knowledge (Vampires), and JARVIS' scans reveal that Vampire DNA lets them turn into fog, though he explains it all scientifically. The plan for now is to hit them until they stop attacking with these weird organic whips.

Isn't that bass-ackwards.

Tony scans one of the organic whip-weapons that Falcon snared, and figures it out. Vampires are biological computers. Basically, they use "non-genetic bio-drivers" to transfer data and rewrite DNA through the white blood cells in the blood. There is so much to get into with that explanation, so I'm going to confer with my science advisor and get back to that point in the Review.

Tony goes off to work on a solution, and the others break in. Falcon gets separated by Black Widow's disembodied voice and falls for an obvious trap set by Black Widow. Luckily, Hawkeye shows up for the save, only to be taken out by Dracula himself. Thor and Hulk end up taking out a mess of vampires, and JARVIS makes a discovery about Cap's blood. Speaking of Cap and blood, Cap meets up with Drac in his throne room to confront him about the whole thing.

Dracula: "My enemy is humanity!"

Mankind ill needs such a savior as you.

He punctuates this by throwing Falcon and Hawkeye into the corner while explaining that he's through with hiding. He also explains that Cap's super-blood can be used to turn himself into a super-vampire. In an attempt to bite the star-spangled man, Dracula loses a fang, which drives him into a frenzy. The frenzy is enough to knock down the Captain, but Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man rush in to save him. Unfortunately, Hulk gets bitten. Creating Hulk-ula and a vampire Hulk. Ruh-roh.

Because the Hulk simply wasn't overpowered enough.

Hulk attacks his former allies as Hulk-ula attacks Cap. Iron Man scans the King of Vampires, and it turns out that Hulk's blood is attacking Dracula's blood. Probably with little fists made out of blood cells. That's when Tony figures out a cure: mutagenic Gamma rays! Theoretically, if they make Hulk mad enough, they could cure him with his own blood radiation. They all pour it on, and he eventually de-vampirizes. And falls asleep. Because "funny". Dracula gets a hit of Hulk blood, too, and unhulks, as well.

Dracula escapes into Hell, the team evacuates the crumbling castle, and Tony ends up whipping up a Gamma cure form synthesized Hulk blood. Um... you know that this is pretty much She-Hulk's origin, right, Tony?

Later, Red Skull meets with a recovering Dracula in a graveyard, offering membership into his Cabal.

Later again, Black Widow wakes up perfectly fine. No vampiring, no hulking out. She makes fun of Hawkeye's garlic necklace, and the episode ends rather anti-climatically.

And so will this Recap. Let's review.