Now, with Ultimate Spider-Man, that’s actually worked out ok so far. It’s not quite up there with it’s predecessor, but it’s a quality show that has a lot of fun fan service. Can the same be said of the new Avengers series, Avengers Assemble?

Sadly no, so that infuriates me quite a bit. Avengers Assemble ultimately feels a lot like the recent Spider-Man movies, where they feel like they had to do something with the property and it’s just treading way too familiar ground. The team faces the exact same issues (and occasionally the same villains doing the same or similar things). Thor and Hulk don’t get along and beat the crap out of each other? Check. Cap feels like a man out of time even though he’s been around a few years and always seem quick to pick up on things? Check. Hawkeye’s a giant asshole? Check. Iron Man doubting himself, but not to the point of alcoholism because it’s a kid’s show? Fucking check.

Probably the worst thing about Avengers Assemble is how it seems to exist in it’s own continuity from everything else despite the fact that it was essentially made to capitalize on the movies, because it has very little in common with them. Ultimate Spider-Man pretty much exists in the Marvel movie continuity. Agent Coulson is his fucking principal. It’s silly, but it works as fun jokes and fan service and is consistent with the movie universe they have spent so much time carefully setting up. There is none of that in Avengers Assemble, and the prime example is just staring in your face the whole goddamn time in the new token black character on the team, Falcon (Black Panther is nowhere to be found).

Now I have nothing against Falcon, he was great in Winter Soldier. And if Disney/Marvel wanted to make THAT Falcon part of the team, cool. But the Falcon on Avengers Assemble is nowhere close. Not just in how he acts, he’s literally a different person. Younger, a rookie and in Stark’s employ. What the hell is the point of that? At the end of the day, Avengers Assemble isn’t terrible, but it feels like such a retread and is completely pointless and that might actually be worse.

Final Rating: 2/5-Avengers

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While just because of the breadth of content this column will mostly feature Japanese anime. I will definitely be reviewing stuff from other countries if possible, even surprisingly stuff from Northern America. Of course Western animation much like Western video games has a very different approach. Stories are often told in quick 22 minute bites with a very easy premise rather than a bunch of mini-arcs over the course of a season. This of course not bad, just different. I enjoy most of the well known US animation giants like Simpsons, South Park and Archer. But beyond that, there’s probably not a ton of Northern American animation that people are really aware of, so hopefully this column will bring a spotlight to something beyond the really big names.

Fugget About It is on Hulu as an “original exclusive” but like many of their exclusives that just means they bought the rights to something from Canada and claimed it as their own. Anyway, the setup of Fugget About It is something you can probably guess from from the title and picture alone. Stereotypical Italian hitman goes into witness protection with his family. The twist? They have been moved to Canada! Let the wacky hijinks ensue!

Fugget About It is essentially a very low rent version of the Seth Macfarlane comedies. I mean seriously, all they are missing is a smart alec pet. I’m not a huge fan of Macfarlane and his comedy style of throw everything at a wall until something sticks with random references with no jokes and this is a much lower quality version of that. The main character constantly mispronunces Regina. the name of the town they live in, as “Vagina”. This is not one throwaway joke, I watched 4 episodes and it’s a constant thing like it’s a fresh idea every episode. Or the writers are mentally twelve and think being able to say “Vagina” on TV repeatedly is the funniest goddamn thing ever. The characters not only don’t evolve, the aren’t even consistent. One character has a very bad gambilng addiction. They spend an entire episode dealing with it. In a later episode (and mind you, I only sat through 4) he claims he never gambles. Not that he doesn’t gamble anymore, that would should consistency and growth, God forbid. That he never gambles. And that is just one of many examples of characters constantly changing with no rhyme or reason. That might be forgivable if the jokes were evenly mildly decent, but I think I snickered once (in an episode where Canadian Icon Alan Thicke guest starred as a billionaire genius) in the roughly two hours worth of episodes I sat through. Mostly I just didn’t even react or occasionally felt embarrassed for even watching. The animation is lazy as hell too, one of the characters has the exact same drink in his hands at all time no matter where he is or what he is doing. It might’ve actually been a decent running joke if they did anything with that “trait” but it’s just there.

And finally, I think the writers know exactly the kind of brain dead lobotomized idiots who would watch this tripe and enjoy it, you can just tell by the opening. Because not only do they explain the premise TWICE IN A FUCKING ROW AT THE START OF EVERY FUCKING EPISODE (there’s the opening teaser that explains the basic plot and the title theme which spells it out yet again just in song), but they also cram in an extremely forced reference to the show title because clearly they believe somebody who would willingly watch this doesn’t even have the attention span of a squirrel and obviously they will forget what the hell they are watching less than a minute in. This is pretty much the worst animated show I’ve seen in a long time, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it, and I hate Canada a little more for having made it.

Rating: 0/5 Towns mispronounced “Vagina”.

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