Recap: Avengers Assemble "Mojo World"

Friday, Friday, Friday! Avengers Assemble!

Today, Hulk goes head to head against not only the toughest of alien enemies, but also his own teammate! You do not want to miss this!

The Recap, I mean.

The episode's probably a take-it-or-leave-it-type deal.

The episode begins with Hawkeye angry at the Hulk for eating all the pickles. Actually, as Hawkeye storms off to the Hulk's room, let me raise a point. The Hulk's stomach can probably fit an ottoman inside. The furniture or someone from the empire of the same name, take your pick. So why doesn't he have his own supersized fridge to stop things like this from happening when he gets hungry?

Anyway, he arrives as Hulk watches a horror movie on his oddly small TV.

Hulk: "How do you know it was me?"

Well, the smashed fridge is a hint. But what gives it away to Hawkeye is when Hulk burps.

Hawkeye: "There it is. Pickle juice; I can smell it!"

Ew.

Hulk, surprisingly, is being the more mature one in all this and goes back to watching TV. As we've established in earlier episodes, Hulk has a collection of glass figurines made by Glorian, an interdimensional craftsman. Hawkeye spots a winged unicorn figurine, and picks it up.

Hawkeye: "Gotta say, there really is nothing like a little glass unicorn to show off your soft side, Hulkie."

But Hulk is quick to protect his Twilight Sparkle figurine, and grabs Hawkeye's arm, resulting in one of his exploding arrows falling out and resulting in the figurine's destruction.

Well, Hawkeye's dead.

Hulk chases the poor, stupid man through the tower, alerting the other Avengers.

Captain America: "Again?"
Sam: "Your turn, Captain Hall Monitor."

As Hulk finally corners Hawkeye, he tries to defuse the situation.

Hawkeye: "This was totally your fault!"

It's like he wants to die.

A sleepy, irate Captain America demands to know what wrong.

Hawkeye: "He's bent outta shape over one of his stupid glass animals that fell."
Captain America: "You... you didn't... Hawkeye. Did you mess with the Zoo?"
Iron Man: "No, the Zoo? You got a death wish, Hawkeye?"
Hawkeye: "Me!? What about those pickles?"

Just buy some more pickles. You utter child.

Meanwhile, on a nearby rooftop, a coulpe of aliens are reporting the Hulk's activities back to their boss.  After Hawkeye taunts the Hulk some more, Hulk grabs him and tackles him out the window. The rooftop aliens take this opportunity to teleport the Hulk away to their leader's headquarters, but Hawkeye gets caught in the teleportation beam, too. In classic John Carter fashion, Hulk and Hawkeye are now in an alien coliseum, with "Hulk and special guest" as the main event. Almost immediately, Hawkeye is attacked by an alien that X-Men fans will immediately identify as one of the Brood. Geez, a Hulk team-up featuring X-Men villains? What is this, Ultimate Spider-Man?

The fight is advertised all across the galaxy, with the viewers including the Watchers, the Kree, Impossible Man, Star-Lord, the Skrull, and Tana Nile, whose only appearance up to this point was in a video game owned by Peter Parker. And I thought the continuity was messed up before this point.

You get the Hell out of here, you little green hobgoblin!

Anyway, the whole media frenzy is whipped up by the battle station's owner. But Gleeman Vox is nowhere to be found. Here, the lord and master is a yellow, demonic blob named Mojo who disguises himself as a fat human over broadcasts for some vanity-related reason that will never be explained.  The announcement is made that Hulk will fight the reigning champion, Torgo.

Wrong.

There ya go.

Hulk takes the Brood out in one hit, then gets knocked out of the space station itself by a single hit from Torgo.

Mojo: "Now that's good cookin'!"

...I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

But now, it's Hawkeye's turn to go up against Torgo as Mojo encourages the crowd to praise him for all this entertainment, like the good cult leader he is. As Hawkeye dodges Torgo’s attacks, Mojo berates his minions for leaving him with such boring filler (insert Agents of S.M.A.S.H. joke here) and demands that they teleport Hulk back into the arena. He also demands buckets of krill, because we really need to drive home the point that he’s evil and gluttonous by having him eat the same things that whales do. Hulk gets teleported back into the fray, and the viewership goes way up, according to Mojo’s readouts. But it’s not enough for him.

Mojo: “We’re on the verge of a nasty comeback, and I can only get 5.2 billion to watch?”

Well, to be fair, that’s a little more than a hundred times what the average episode of Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. gets, according to Wikipedia. So Mojo’s doing much better than Marvel in that respect.

Hawkeye manages to blind Torgo with some magnetic spheres to the eyes, but this doesn’t last long. Luckily, Hulk manages to come to the archer’s rescue. This underdog comeback manages to get the ratings to go so high that Mojo electrically overloads and starts to swell up like a balloon. He enjoys this a bit much, considering this is conceivably something kids can watch.

This is the least disturbing frame I can show you.

Hulk has won the fight, but he doesn’t feel like being a gladiator. Why, if he wanted that to happen, there’s already an episode of Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. to butcher that plot.

Mojo: “What does an audience adore even more than a champion or an underdog?”

Pictures of kittens?

Mojo: “A reeeematch!”

Torgo vs. Hulk and Hawkeye, Round 2! My money’s on the big guy.

Torgo gets a good, solid punch in, and Hulk blacks out. He later wakes up in a containment cell with Hawkeye watching over him and collars around both their necks. Torgo’s in the cell next to them, much to our heroes’ surprise. Torgo explains the situation.

Torgo: “Torgo prisoner like you.”

I neglected to mention this earlier, but Torgo’s voice actor (Roger Craig Smith) is doing a “Macho Man” Randy Savage impression. It’s awesome; I keep expecting him to rant about the Danger Zone at any second.

Anyway, Torgo explains that Mojo is an evil intergalactic fight promoter who basically drafted Torgo and other beings into his gladiatorial arena. If they refuse to fight, then their planet gets destroyed because, basically, Mojo is a poor man's Galactus. Simple as that. And much like in Earth wrestling, the outcomes are decided ahead of time, which is why Torgo’s the reigning champion. It’s not so much skill or power as it is the fact that Mojo gets the best ratings from his victories. Maybe they should have gotten John Cena to voice the character?

Torgo: “This Torgo’s story. This Torgo’s apology.”

"Torgo only pawn in game of life. Snap into a Slim Jim! The MASter DeManDS iT."
(There, I think that's all the references.)

Speaking of apologies, Hulk and Hawkeye still haven’t apologized to each other. And tensions are still high. Soon enough, it’s time for the next fight. Hulk is decked out in Planet Hulk-style gear, while Hawkeye gets cricket chirps for his entrance music. I don’t know about you, but I think there’s some favoritism.

"Are you not entertained!?"

The assorted alien cameos enter the arena, and the free-for-all soon begins as the control collars magnetize, drawing all opponents together. The unnamed characters are soon dealt with, leaving Hulk, Hawkeye, and Torgo standing. A Baymax-style rocket punch soon takes out Hulk, but this doesn’t last long. Some quick teamwork between the two Avengers takes down Torgo, and the day… is not saved just yet. It’s time for our heroes to fight each other. And even though they might not be the biggest fans of each other at the moment, they refuse.

Hawkeye: “We only fight over pickles.”

Keep those standards high, boys.

In retaliation, the two are teleported back to their freefall on Earth, shortly before Mojo’s arena-ship appears in the sky, ready to destroy the planet. Warwolves are unleashed upon the streets of New York, and the Avengers soon assemble to deal with the invasion. Hulk prepares to throw Hawkeye at the ship to disable it from the inside, and the two heroes finally hash out their problems.

Hulk: “Hey. I’m sorry for your pickles.”
Hawkeye: “Thank you! I’m sorry t… Wait, why are you saying this now?”
Hulk: “Just in case.”

You know, in case of splattening.

But Hawkeye manages to grab onto grab onto an antenna on the outside of the ship like Luke at the Cloud City, and follows Hulk as the green goliath leaps inside. The two interrupt Mojo as he finishes giving his promo for the big Torgo/Avengers fight, so he aims Torgo at them. But Torgo turns on his master, getting shocked by his collar as he lifts up Mojo’s hoverchair. Mojo starts aiming electrical burst at Hawkeye and Hulk, as well. He starts giving his spiel on how humans are horrible and fight over every little thing like animals. Well, you know what time it is now. It’s time for Hawkeye to give the Captain Picard speech about how humans may be imperfect, but they learn from their mistakes. Unfortunately, Mojo ejects him out into the arena be right as Hawkeye opens his mouth.

Ironically, of the two, Hawkeye is the one whose mouth I'd prefer be open.

Stupidly, Mojo flies his hoverchair down into the arena to finish off the heroes, which gives Hawkeye a clear shot at the weak point on the bottom of the hoverchair. He shoots Mojo down, and Mojo’s ugly mug is soon broadcast across the galaxy, blowing the secret of his cosmetic CGI wide open. Faced with such humiliation, Mojo teleports away, leaving his ship behind. Torgo offers to take it and travel with the other gladiators to find Mojo and bring him to justice. He and the Avengers part on good terms, and Hawkeye and Hulk apologize, having learned the true meaning of friendship or some such.

Some time later, Hawkeye returns to his room to find boxes and boxes of pickles waiting for him. Unfortunately, the Hulk got a bit hungry, so all the boxes are empty. Hawkeye curses the Hulk’s name, and the episode ends. Time to review.