The Awesomes is a superhero satire that may be worth a second look

The Internet’s getting into it, boys and girls! From the mind of Saturday Night Live writer (and soon to be Late Night host) Seth Meyers comes The Awesomes (watch the first two episodes on Hulu), a Hulu original production. It’s basically a sort of spoof of superhero cartoons and tropes, with a bit of “adult” humor and imagery added in because it’s entirely an online show.

Seth Meyers voices “Prock,” short for “Professor Doctor,” in a joke that rapidly becomes less funny, who is ostensibly the leader of a team of odd superheroes. Prock is the son of the powerful Mr. Awesome (Steve Higgins, another SNL writer) who has literally flown away from the planet in retirement, playing on concepts of Superman and Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen. It’s really all setup here, because without the big guy, all heck breaks loose. The former team “The Awesomes” disbands, forcing Prock to rapidly form his own team of rejects and weirdos to maintain his precious government funding, arguing against a bureaucrat played by Rachel Dratch, another SNL alum. This conflict gets resolved in a predictable and bland manner, but the promise of more shenanigans is really the best part of that subplot. Prock must create his own superhero team and show his ability to be a leader; typical sort of arc, it would seem. Naturally, it’s all necessary to consider the ridiculous and offensive team.

There’s Muscleman (Ike Barinholtz of Mad TV), Prock’s best and only friend, who’s strong and an idiot — but he has some good lines. Other SNL performers Taran Killam and Kenan Thompson play Frantic and the Impresario. Frantic is an obvious Flash analogue, with the barest hint of redneck silliness, while the Impresario is a Green Lantern ripoff with stereotypical and slightly offensive mother issues. Rounding out the team is Hulk ripoff and quasi-racist Sumo (Bobby Lee from Mad TV), decently interesting “old lady that magically turned young” Gadget Gal (Paula Pell, another SNL writer), and electricity manipulator Hotwire (Rashida Jones). Oh, and Emily Spivey (yes, yet another SNL writer — lot of nepotism here folks) is actually pretty killer as the matter of fact Concierge, a … well, a concierge and helper to keep the team going. The voice performers do an alright job here, and the character designs are simple but clear. The clear standout is Bill Hader’s villain Malocchio, because Bill Hader is awesome. He pulls off line deliveries that would utterly fail from lesser talents. There’s a few other characters here and there, filled with Mad TV and SNL cameos, but most aren’t so interesting yet. What the show needs to figure out is how to insert some humanity and real interest to what are pretty much archetypal and stereotypical characters.

There’s a bit of overkill in the way of gruesome imagery, but it doesn’t particularly bother me, because I am a jaded person. That said, I found some of the horrific sight gags funny and enough storylines built in to warrant more for the time being. The first episode opens in an apocalyptic future but doesn’t explain quite how things got there. By the second episode, it’s pretty obvious how it’s going to go, but perhaps cleverness isn’t the point; it should be, though. Considering the sheer talent of these writers and actors, I think The Awesomes has the potential to be a great satire/comedy cartoon for the “teen and older” crowd. It’s not there yet, of course, but I’ve only seen the first two published episodes. Right now, there’s nothing original or particularly interesting here, but it’s funny often enough as a decent thing to watch, and I’m intrigued by the possibilities.

Don’t let me down, guys.

The Awesomes is now playing on Hulu and Hulu Plus: https://www.hulu.com/the-awesomes