Review: Marvel Avengers: Black Panther’s Quest “Atlantis Attacks ; House of M”

 

Time to bring the house down.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

“Atlantis Attacks”

Bask takes over as Queen of Wakanda but sensing she may come down from her perch, Killmonger attempts a coup only to be caught. Meanwhile, Atlantis is pissed that Wakanda has Killmonger anyway and threatens the city with war. Bask fires the first shot with a cannon powered by Bask’s crown that destroys Atlantis. Atlantis invades and casualties are had, but eventually, Bask rescinds the crown to Shuri and prisoners are swapped between Panther and Atlantis, but not before Panther knocks out Tiger Shark in the most violent way possible. T’challa opts to retire from politics but remains an active Avenger which leads to…

“House of M”

The Avengers head to what’s supposed to be the final showdown with HYDRA and it’s a doozy. Red Skull, Typhoid Mary, Crimson Widow, and Arnim Zola are all accounted for, but it’s Madame Masque that shows up to crash the party in an attempt to get all of the technological expertise housed in the minds of Stark and Skull. Thanks to Hawkeye’s decision, Masque is destroyed and the Avengers all go out to dinner.

Our Take

The REAL finale of Avengers Assemble is by far “Atlantis Attacks”, whereas “House of M” is a mess. While the former went nuts on the action sequence the latter was more of a random one-off to really just show off the fact that we’ve got clearly a post-Thor:Ragnarok Thor complete with a scratched eye and a new big ass ax that’s probably going to be meant for Thanos in the real MCU. The other problem with “House of M”, the episode shares a name with one of the more famous Marvel Comics storylines that would’ve required the X-men and a whole bunch of additional cast of Marvel characters that Disney doesn’t have just quite yet. Instead, we waste that on a Doctor Ock rip-off character that completely mangles the beautiful history of the character’s original namesake.

The future of Marvel-animation looks murky at best right now. On one hand, Hulu is getting a bunch of characters for adult animated series, on the other hand, Marvel screwed over Deadpool and continues to bastardize their roster of characters for their youth market with awful renditions of Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. When this merger with 20th FOX happens, we’ve got the X-men, the Fantastic Four, and the Silver Surfer to think about. Will Disney ruin these other stunning mythologies? Or will they show the same care they’ve shown their live-action counterparts? Black Panther’s Quest is about 50/50 in its execution which is better than most of what Disney puts out, however, we’re nowhere near to correct. Madame Masque is a shining example of character assassination from this company and it needs to come to an end.

Score
7/10