Loki steals Christmas in the cringiest holiday movie of all time

I’ve encountered many weird Christmas specials in my time, ranging from the bizarre to stupid to absolutely horrifying. But, until recently, I never knew the Avengers had their own Christmas special, and I certainly didn’t anticipate the level of cringe that is Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Frost Fight!, or as it should have been called, Loki: The Norse God Who Tried To Steal Christmas.

How in Hel did the Avengers end up with the low-rent gig of saving Christmas? Seriously, any idiot in the TV/movie world can save Christmas. Inspector Gadget and Ernest do it all the time!

But for this yuletide adventure, Marvel is bringing out the big guns.The Avengers we’ll be seeing in this special are Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Captain Marvel, and the Hulk.

And then we have Reptil.

You might not be as familiar with him, but he plays a small role in the comics. He’s a kid who shapeshifts into various dinosaurs. He’s the teenage “Avengers trainee.” For anyone who watched X-Men: The Animated Series, you’ll remember Jubilee, the whiny teenage newbie, universally loathed by viewers, and caused far more problems than she actually solved. That’s Reptil’s character in a nutshell.

Loki’s villainous scheme is to steal Santa Claus’s powers so he can take over the world. You see, in this universe, Santa is totally real and he’s a half-frost giant and half-elf (called Jolnir among the Asgardians) and lives in the good elf realm (not the bad elves, they have their own realm).

Santa uses his powers of time and space manipulation in order to successfully deliver presents to the children of the Nine Realms in a single night. This awesome ability sounds great to Loki, so he plans to use a magical device and transfer Santa’s powers to himself and conquer Earth.

To help him locate Santa, Loki puts out a huge bounty on Kris Kringle, accusing him of high crimes such as breaking and entering, burglary, and cookie stealing. This gets the attention of Rocket the Racoon and Groot (grown-up Groot, not adorable baby Groot or sullen teenage Groot), who are going to be in this movie, too, I guess. Anyway, Rocket wants to go hunt down Santa so he can collect cash on the reward.

When the Avengers get wind of Loki’s evil scheme to steal Christmas (and conquer the planet while he’s at it), they travel to Santa’s realm to save him. Except for Thor and Hulk. Thor doesn’t get the whole Christmas and Santa Claus stuff (which is weird because apparently, Santa is from his world).

So, Thor and Hulk stay behind to come up with a back-up plan in case the Avengers can’t rescue Santa in time. So, now this is turning into a Thor: Ragnarok Christmas Special — actually, if this was the main plot of the movie, I might be more down to watch this.

It’s hard not to snicker when you hear how incredibly seriously the other Avengers take Santa Claus. Especially when Captain America using this face:

The only person who expresses doubt about Santa’s existence is Iron Man. Because he’s a scientist, he believes in facts and logic, and there’s no proof that Santa exists. Wait, what?

Whenever someone here raises skepticism about Santa’s existence, it doesn’t make sense within the context of this particular universe. Clearly, it’s been established that Santa does exist within this world. He lives in his own elf-realm, and the presents have been getting delivered to all these dimensions, including Earth, for all these years. The whole argument among the Avengers over whether Santa exists should be moot. In this world, Santa’s existence is a universal fact.

Good god, I never thought I would ever have to listen to the Avengers debate over the existence of Santa Claus.

I’m not going to lie, the only part I found somewhat humorous is when Hulk tries to explain Christmas to Thor. Hulk hits all the high points of the holiday season, Santa, presents, food, pine trees, and more presents. Oh, and ponies.

I had no idea how much Big Green loved ponies.

Thor and Hulk conveniently find a jolly toy store owner named Nick with a white beard who just happens to look exactly like Santa. Wow. What are the odds? Our heroes agree that Nick would be the perfect substitute if the Avengers’ whole Operation: Rescue Santa goes down the crapper.

Meanwhile, Rocket and Groot make their way to Santa’s realm (I keep forgetting they’re in this movie) where they fight zombie gingerbread cookies.

Then they team-up with Mrs. Claus to go find Santa.

There’s a huge showdown where all the heroes unite (including Thor and Hulk with fake Santa) in the elf-realm to battle Loki.

When Santa finally appears, Loki does manage to steal his powers. It looks like it’s the end of Santa Claus and Christmas.

But wait! Santa’s going to be okay! The sheer power of the Avengers’ belief revived him! He’ll live, if you just believe! Apparently, Santa’s life works the same way as Tinkerbell’s. At least the Avengers didn’t have to clap their hands.

Christmas is saved, Iron Man believes in Santa, the Avengers help Santa deliver the presents, and Loki’s a snowman now.

Frost Fight! is definitely not great. It’s cheap, the voice acting is mediocre, and the humor is stale. It’s a far cry from any of the Avengers moves, and it doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the cartoon Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which has plenty of action and humor that both kids and adults can appreciate.

If you’re an adult, you’re probably not going to like it as a Marvel movie or a Christmas special. Teens are definitely going to hate it, but if you have kids under the age of 10, you might be able to use it to shut them up for an hour after they’ve eaten all the Christmas cookies.

Rewind is an Inverse series that remembers the forgotten heroes we love.