Review: The Awesomes “Pilot Part 1”

So, Hulu Plus  finally gets into the animation game with The Awesomes. So how good was the debut? Only the jump knows!

So, this is the first in what may become a growing trend. Hulu put their hat in the animation game by getting The Awesomes. It’s a show that was created by Seth Meyers, and Michael Shoemaker  and has a host of SNL  alums as voices. They include Bill Hader, Keenan Thompson, and of course Seth Meyers. Hell, even Broadway Video produced it.

Spoilers Ahoy!

This show starts up with a lot of apocalypse happening. Dr. Malocchio (the villain) and Prock (the main character and hero) are fighting in Washington DC, and they have a clash a la Injustice. Then we get a flashback to 6 months prior. Superhero Tonight, akin to an  Entertainment Tonight or a  Dethklok Minute, brings us the news that Mr. Awesome is retiring. With that, he is naming a successor to take his place as leader. He names a hero named Perfect Man, but he declines. Prock jumps at the chance, or rather, gets thrown into it by Muscle Man. After talking his dad into taking over The Awesomes, and getting a nose bleed for using his power to stop time, everyone but Muscle Man walks out .  He tries to settle in at Muscle Mountain, but he gets rule 33’d by the government. That means they lose their funding. After stopping time to decide on the best course of action, he begs on his knees to get time to get a new team.

Concierge, Prock’s new and only assistant, compiled a list of every level 6 and higher superhero that is unaffiliated, and they all told Prock to go fuck himself. However, she had a risky contingency plan. She gives Prock the Reject folder, with all of the rejected applicants. Prock sees this as a good start, and they set off. No, not in the Awesome Jet, or the Awesome Copter, but the antiquated bi-plane. Prock, Muscle Man and Concierge meet Frantic first. He is a high level speedster that is bat shit crazy. Then they meet The Impresario. A level 7 conjurer who found a space gem who lets him conjure whatever he wants. The problem is that they all end up having the resemblance of his overbearing mom. To round out the team, they find Sumo, who rages out and turns into a sumo wrestler. Last up is Gadget Girl. Her arch-rival shoots her with a ray that reverts the victim to revert back to a younger form. As Gadget Girl prepares to accept, a monster named Compost arrives, and is about to attack the city as the episode ends, on orders from Malocchio.

For a first episode, the animation from Bento Box was very crisp, especially for streaming over X-Box Live. The writing was very well done and I thought Seth Meyers did a great job with really my only issue is the odd pace at the end. They spent a lot of time with Frantic and Impresario, but they gave very little time to Sumo and Gadget Girl which might have been fixed if the producers had decided to push Compost to episode 2.  Another drawback with the show is the voice acting. Despite the stellar selection of talent,  I think it  would have been better if the voices sounded more natural as a lot of the actual dialogue seemed very forced with the actors making out like  like they didn’t rehearse their lines, but I’m sure the fact that this is a pilot episode, probably had something to do with it. Overall, this show is worth the watch if you have Hulu Plus however screw the clunky XBox player, and wait for the show to be on Hulu Plus as featured on other devices otherwise your viewing experience won’t be awesome.