Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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I don't know. I have old recordings of the show I use.
World Spider-Man: The Animated Series
- Thread starter Picard Sisko
- Start date
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 01: Night of the Lizard:
This is the pilot episode of a cartoon taken seriously by its fans, and it needed to be taken seriously for ratings to be good so they'd make more episodes.
It opens up with a teaser intro before the intro theme, and it makes it look off when the title is revealed before showing the villain's full face or hear his name in the Daily Bugle scene.
One of the writers of this episode is Gerry Conway, the guy who introduced Hammerhead, killed Gwen Stacy, went deeper with the seeds Stan planted between May and Ock and made May actually in love with Ock she accepted to marry him, killed Ock for the first time, made a werewolf out of John Jameson, introduced me to Luke Cage, gradually started and finalized making Peter and Flash good friends, and made Harry Osborn a Green Goblin.
Another writer is DCAU famous Stan Berkowitz, so this should be a great start storywise, right?
The color palette in the morning setting of the city looks fine, but the colors of Spider-Man's costume doesn't lend itself well to the background when it's all glassy blue, there is something a bit appalling about it.
We get introduced to two characters, one who looks like Super Mario, the other one is a slimmer balder design of Peter Parker. Their introduction in this episode is easily more pleasant than the way their conversation went in the comic adaption of this episode.
Scared guy drives through crappy CGI models, but we need mediocrity to progress to greatness, but I wish it was better designed and less standing out than what we got. Remember that first flight of Supergirl from Superman the Animated Series? Part of her flight sequence is CGI, but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb cause they made it blend well with the rest of the work.
And the intro starts by how the web was spread around the Amazing Spider-Man comic title in the 70s, something simple and well spread. This show apparently has a few homages to comic covers art pieces, not the cover art, smaller details that are made as garnish.
I'm still not a fan of the intro song, or the awkward otherworldly wacky and pointless overdesign for the Spider-Sense, and it shows in the intro
When Spider-Man is carrying that scared guy, you can notice the McFarlane inspired chest logo on Spider-Man while the frame is zoomed in on the terrified guy.
In the span of 42 seconds Peter insulted 4 people, and displayed two smug cocky mug shots. He's a smug jerk in the first and second seasons of this show.
Two of his superiors tell him about an event in the city, and once that guy he doesn't like backs them up he just threw an insult toward anyone who believes the story of a giant Lizard. Aside from poking some fun at Jameson (and webbing him to the ceiling of his office to listen) to motivate him to send Peter Parker to Florida to fight the Lizard, he had a much nicer attitude.
Nicolas Hammond inspired design for Peter Parker is apparent once he's at his home, very inspired, and very odd given that John Semper dislikes that show. Hammond is easily more likable than this version of Peter, even with the almost no personality given to that show.
The colors of the costume in this episode look fine at night, in some other episodes the blue and red take a more purple-ish hue, and lighter color tone, even when there are no lights around the place he's in.
Flashback to the experiment, and this is the first time we see Peter and Conners working together on the Lizard formula. This episode inspired other adaptions like the MTV series, the Amazing Spider-Man movie (which took more even cues from this episode), and.. wait, no, it didn't inspire anything else after that.
Peter Parker without his costume did help Curt Connors in some experiments in the comics, so I guess this may have played a part in this adaption.
"Friendly neighborhood breaking and entering man".
Fighting animation is pretty good in this place, animation as a whole in this episode is pretty well done.
Flash of lightning makes the lizard man disappear. Ok.
Introduction of the Neogenec Recombinator, one of the story elements made up exclusively for this show, stuff I'm glad never made it elsewhere.
Yaaayyy, referencing other Marvel properties time.
I like referencing the Defenders the most, cause he wasn't talking about the Marvel Netflix Series, the original comic team that started by Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Namor. I think I may have missed a fifth founding member.
Spider-Man blamed himself for the creation of the Lizard, which is true to his character. Although in this case his help may have not made much of a difference.
How did Spider-Man hear what Mr. & Mrs. Lizard were talking about? He was too high to listen to their almost whispering.
The Lizard said Martha.
Underwater battle is one of the more fun parts of the episode. I remember how when I first saw it, I thought the water got cleaned.
This is one of those episodes that make fans of the show wonder how Spider-Man didn't lose his powers although it is the device that made him Spider-Man.
May talks about rest and soup after a trip to the sewers, but no mention of a bath. Peter needs a bath.
..................................................
A nice episode, not the perfect pilot it could have been.
I'll give it: 4/5 webheads.
This is the pilot episode of a cartoon taken seriously by its fans, and it needed to be taken seriously for ratings to be good so they'd make more episodes.
It opens up with a teaser intro before the intro theme, and it makes it look off when the title is revealed before showing the villain's full face or hear his name in the Daily Bugle scene.
One of the writers of this episode is Gerry Conway, the guy who introduced Hammerhead, killed Gwen Stacy, went deeper with the seeds Stan planted between May and Ock and made May actually in love with Ock she accepted to marry him, killed Ock for the first time, made a werewolf out of John Jameson, introduced me to Luke Cage, gradually started and finalized making Peter and Flash good friends, and made Harry Osborn a Green Goblin.
Another writer is DCAU famous Stan Berkowitz, so this should be a great start storywise, right?
The color palette in the morning setting of the city looks fine, but the colors of Spider-Man's costume doesn't lend itself well to the background when it's all glassy blue, there is something a bit appalling about it.
We get introduced to two characters, one who looks like Super Mario, the other one is a slimmer balder design of Peter Parker. Their introduction in this episode is easily more pleasant than the way their conversation went in the comic adaption of this episode.
Scared guy drives through crappy CGI models, but we need mediocrity to progress to greatness, but I wish it was better designed and less standing out than what we got. Remember that first flight of Supergirl from Superman the Animated Series? Part of her flight sequence is CGI, but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb cause they made it blend well with the rest of the work.
And the intro starts by how the web was spread around the Amazing Spider-Man comic title in the 70s, something simple and well spread. This show apparently has a few homages to comic covers art pieces, not the cover art, smaller details that are made as garnish.
I'm still not a fan of the intro song, or the awkward otherworldly wacky and pointless overdesign for the Spider-Sense, and it shows in the intro
When Spider-Man is carrying that scared guy, you can notice the McFarlane inspired chest logo on Spider-Man while the frame is zoomed in on the terrified guy.
In the span of 42 seconds Peter insulted 4 people, and displayed two smug cocky mug shots. He's a smug jerk in the first and second seasons of this show.
Two of his superiors tell him about an event in the city, and once that guy he doesn't like backs them up he just threw an insult toward anyone who believes the story of a giant Lizard. Aside from poking some fun at Jameson (and webbing him to the ceiling of his office to listen) to motivate him to send Peter Parker to Florida to fight the Lizard, he had a much nicer attitude.
Nicolas Hammond inspired design for Peter Parker is apparent once he's at his home, very inspired, and very odd given that John Semper dislikes that show. Hammond is easily more likable than this version of Peter, even with the almost no personality given to that show.
The colors of the costume in this episode look fine at night, in some other episodes the blue and red take a more purple-ish hue, and lighter color tone, even when there are no lights around the place he's in.
Flashback to the experiment, and this is the first time we see Peter and Conners working together on the Lizard formula. This episode inspired other adaptions like the MTV series, the Amazing Spider-Man movie (which took more even cues from this episode), and.. wait, no, it didn't inspire anything else after that.
Peter Parker without his costume did help Curt Connors in some experiments in the comics, so I guess this may have played a part in this adaption.
"Friendly neighborhood breaking and entering man".
Fighting animation is pretty good in this place, animation as a whole in this episode is pretty well done.
Flash of lightning makes the lizard man disappear. Ok.
Introduction of the Neogenec Recombinator, one of the story elements made up exclusively for this show, stuff I'm glad never made it elsewhere.
Yaaayyy, referencing other Marvel properties time.
I like referencing the Defenders the most, cause he wasn't talking about the Marvel Netflix Series, the original comic team that started by Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Namor. I think I may have missed a fifth founding member.
Spider-Man blamed himself for the creation of the Lizard, which is true to his character. Although in this case his help may have not made much of a difference.
How did Spider-Man hear what Mr. & Mrs. Lizard were talking about? He was too high to listen to their almost whispering.
The Lizard said Martha.
Underwater battle is one of the more fun parts of the episode. I remember how when I first saw it, I thought the water got cleaned.
This is one of those episodes that make fans of the show wonder how Spider-Man didn't lose his powers although it is the device that made him Spider-Man.
May talks about rest and soup after a trip to the sewers, but no mention of a bath. Peter needs a bath.
..................................................
A nice episode, not the perfect pilot it could have been.
I'll give it: 4/5 webheads.
Last edited:
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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YEEESSHHH. Talking about the pilot alone took more time and text than I thought I'd work for it.
Canonically speaking; the next episode is the one introducing Scorpion, but airing schedule aired the Spider-Slayer first and saved Scorpion a few episodes later.
I think I'll do the Scorpion episode next, and I will mention the informant Ned Leeds depended on in Roger Stern's run of the Amazing Spider-Man and how his design went into Gargan for this episode.
I think every writer after Roger Stern ignored that character completely, and I'm pretty sure he didn't die.
Canonically speaking; the next episode is the one introducing Scorpion, but airing schedule aired the Spider-Slayer first and saved Scorpion a few episodes later.
I think I'll do the Scorpion episode next, and I will mention the informant Ned Leeds depended on in Roger Stern's run of the Amazing Spider-Man and how his design went into Gargan for this episode.
I think every writer after Roger Stern ignored that character completely, and I'm pretty sure he didn't die.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 02: Sting of the Scorpion:
This is the actual second episode of this series, you'll find that more noticeable when you remember how Felicia was fawning over Peter in the Spider-Slayer episode, and there is another bit that hints that this episode takes place before the start of that arc, and it has to do with MJ.
Starting with this episode, teaser intros are no longer a thing, you see the musical intro and then the episode. I'm not a fan of pre-intro scenes, cause I'd rather miss parts of the intro than miss parts of the episode while catching up to the full intro I hear every episode I remember how annoying it felt when I missed early parts of episodes of cartoons I cherished and followed weekly when I was younger.
This episode opens with Peter walking Felicia to her apartment building in Manhattan, and they are chased by a fat guy who looks like Arthur "Nose" Norton, who apparently debuted in Daredevil 148 and is not made up for Spider-Man comics like I imagined earlier, but he was still ignored after Uncle Rog's run in Amazing Spider-Man.
This episode introduces another element that is made up for this series; Felicia Hardy is rich. This show was my introduction to a lot of these characters past looks and some superficial elements like Black Cat being a cat burglar, and a lot of it was barely related to their comic books counterparts. My real first exposure to the character was in the solo 80s cartoon, which I saw as a child in the 90s. I have not seen an episode of this series before the year 2000 when we had a free month of Fox Kids.
This is one of the episodes that gave the Spidey suit reasonably good coloring at night time, there is still a pinkish hue to it, but not to a purple degree, and not too brightly colored compared to daytime coloring. I think that wackiness started in the Venom episode, part III of the Alien Costume saga.
Alright, I've gotta comment on a bit of artwork and animation here:
Spider-Man swings after the punk tailing him, and he's three or four stories higher than he is. An explosion happens on ground floor of the same building and he falls from 10 stories height, another explosion drops him from... 10 stories height again. And then the next frame has a completely different building in the background as he swings, while no fore is around. Measurements of where the corner came and gone in these key moments of this scene are displaced through some sort of dimensional rift or something? What happened?
And all of a sudden it's all smoke and no fire just a few seconds after a big fire happened, big loot coming out in the hands of completely unscathed burglars, no damage other than to a few windows, and no heat stroke. And then Spider-Man toys around with these flame heads.
You'll see this jersey design used very often in this show
You're welcome
And then you'll wonder after you see these thugs disposed of.. when did Spider-Man have time to position his autoshoot camera? Not to ignore where he suspended his yoyo/rapple webline from.
This moment of him in the Daily Bugle is very suave and smooth. You guys sure both this and the Raimi movies take on Peter Parker are accurate? Both are very different from one another. Most takes on Peter are him being more suave and smooth than the version Maguire played, starting with the comics.
And now the moment of him being a jackass, breaking into Jameson's office and threatening one of his employees, although he threatened himself.
Why did Gargan decide he should attack Spider-Man? He knows he can't take him on. BTW; Gargan said 'KILL' in one of the most heavily censored shows in the history of animation.
Harley Stillwell is a jerk in this take, he was a modest guy in the original comic, not the kind of guy who responds to "Radiation? Ain't that stuff dangerous?" with "Not for someone with your limited intelligence".
Fun trivia; the guy who voiced Stillwell in this episode voiced both Mysterio and Magneto in the 80s solo Spider-Man and Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends respectively. Both characters appear in both shows, but Magneto was voiced by someone else in the solo series, and Mysterio was voiced by Peter Cullen (yeah that's right, Optimus Prime himself took part as a villain in a show where Spider-Man is voiced by Bumblebee and Iceman is voiced by the leader of the Decepticons) voiced Mysterio. Peter Cullen also voiced Hulk in that Spider-Friends episode.
It's funny how radiation mixed with DNA of a small creature can give a guy more muscular and skeletal mass, and suddenly eliminate his mass of fat to give him very detailed muscular definition.
Introduction of stock footage goes to character designs and frame movements. And another reference to the Fantastic Four in this cartoon. Too bad their own cartoon of that decade is crap, both seasons of it.
It's nice of Scorpion to give Spider-Man time to catch the debris he broke before tackling him, but where did that long distance between the two come from when they were only a few feet apart? And Scorpion did not trip into the hole he made in that cornice.
One design choice for Spider-Man suit in this show I never got is that angular stretch in the spine area of the red of the back of his shirt, another is how they mostly left the legs of the back spider short most of the time.
Scorpion mutate into a monster... waaaaaahhhh. A thread that will go nowhere and will be completely ignored in seasons 2 and on. I get that they wanted to give him more grounded motivation on not liking J. J. for making him Scorpion, but this is a stupid decision in hindsight.
I prefer the first voice actor for Scorpion, not fond of B:TAS's Two-Face taking over for the role.
I wonder if this is the first time ever to give a name for John Jameson's mom, this show called her Julia instead of Joan. I guess comic writers wanted a more matching name for John and Jonah so they went with Joan instead.
After all the time and things Gargan broke, it took him too long to reach the Neogenic labs to get a cure after Jonah Jameson got there, after J. J. took a break in the Bugle.
What should have been the first hint to Mary Jane Watson in this show was relegated to a normal thing because of the episode's airing schedule, it's annoying. And this also should have been the first appearance of Oscrop, but.. you know.
"A nuclear reactor? Why don't villains ever take bakeries to invade?" is a good question. Spider-Man through different media has been given a few good comments and questions on cliches in the genre without going too deconstruction or spoof or fourth wall breaking, and this is a character with some moments of subtle fourth wall breaking.
The nuclear control rod is an idea taken from Roger Sterns's run on Avengers in the 80s, Spidey is a guest star in that story (issues 236-237) and he talks about the control rods to Cap and the Avengers he was with at the time, including She-Hulk.
Here's another fun trivia in this review; A senator told Cap that Spider-Man is not allowed in the Avengers cause they have a rap sheet on him, but She-Hulk was accused of murder and barely exonerated before officially joining the Avengers. Aaahhhh, Marvel, you sure make me shake my head.
Spider-Man punches Scorpion's tail three times, and references Adamantium. Remember that he punches the painful tail.
Because Scorpion doesn't like being insulted, Spider-Man rains him with insults him and tricks him into shocking himself by pulling a livewire to shock him with. This is a time when I reference Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends a second time:
This show is better, but the lesser series can do better things like this one from the episode Attack of the Arachnoid.
Spider-Man: "C'mon tail brain, take your best shot"
Scorpion: "You asked for it"
Tail attack, dodge, Scorpion is shocked unconscious. Funnier, snappier, and more efficient, no after shock tail dance that endangers someone else.
The episode ends with Felicia almost hitting Peter with her car, or rather step on his foot with her tire in cold blood, flirt with him, and they are ready to have googly eyes toward each other in the Spider-Slayer episode.
Remember the final shot in Amazing Spider-Man issue 12? That shot is animated here of a large Spider-Man over shadow walking with Peter. This ending is used for a brighter ending for a story instead of a darker one.
..................................................
A weaker episode than the pilot. Not too bad, but could have been better.
I'll give it: 3/5 webheads.
This is the actual second episode of this series, you'll find that more noticeable when you remember how Felicia was fawning over Peter in the Spider-Slayer episode, and there is another bit that hints that this episode takes place before the start of that arc, and it has to do with MJ.
Starting with this episode, teaser intros are no longer a thing, you see the musical intro and then the episode. I'm not a fan of pre-intro scenes, cause I'd rather miss parts of the intro than miss parts of the episode while catching up to the full intro I hear every episode I remember how annoying it felt when I missed early parts of episodes of cartoons I cherished and followed weekly when I was younger.
This episode opens with Peter walking Felicia to her apartment building in Manhattan, and they are chased by a fat guy who looks like Arthur "Nose" Norton, who apparently debuted in Daredevil 148 and is not made up for Spider-Man comics like I imagined earlier, but he was still ignored after Uncle Rog's run in Amazing Spider-Man.
This episode introduces another element that is made up for this series; Felicia Hardy is rich. This show was my introduction to a lot of these characters past looks and some superficial elements like Black Cat being a cat burglar, and a lot of it was barely related to their comic books counterparts. My real first exposure to the character was in the solo 80s cartoon, which I saw as a child in the 90s. I have not seen an episode of this series before the year 2000 when we had a free month of Fox Kids.
This is one of the episodes that gave the Spidey suit reasonably good coloring at night time, there is still a pinkish hue to it, but not to a purple degree, and not too brightly colored compared to daytime coloring. I think that wackiness started in the Venom episode, part III of the Alien Costume saga.
Alright, I've gotta comment on a bit of artwork and animation here:
Spider-Man swings after the punk tailing him, and he's three or four stories higher than he is. An explosion happens on ground floor of the same building and he falls from 10 stories height, another explosion drops him from... 10 stories height again. And then the next frame has a completely different building in the background as he swings, while no fore is around. Measurements of where the corner came and gone in these key moments of this scene are displaced through some sort of dimensional rift or something? What happened?
And all of a sudden it's all smoke and no fire just a few seconds after a big fire happened, big loot coming out in the hands of completely unscathed burglars, no damage other than to a few windows, and no heat stroke. And then Spider-Man toys around with these flame heads.
You'll see this jersey design used very often in this show
You're welcome
And then you'll wonder after you see these thugs disposed of.. when did Spider-Man have time to position his autoshoot camera? Not to ignore where he suspended his yoyo/rapple webline from.
This moment of him in the Daily Bugle is very suave and smooth. You guys sure both this and the Raimi movies take on Peter Parker are accurate? Both are very different from one another. Most takes on Peter are him being more suave and smooth than the version Maguire played, starting with the comics.
And now the moment of him being a jackass, breaking into Jameson's office and threatening one of his employees, although he threatened himself.
Why did Gargan decide he should attack Spider-Man? He knows he can't take him on. BTW; Gargan said 'KILL' in one of the most heavily censored shows in the history of animation.
Harley Stillwell is a jerk in this take, he was a modest guy in the original comic, not the kind of guy who responds to "Radiation? Ain't that stuff dangerous?" with "Not for someone with your limited intelligence".
Fun trivia; the guy who voiced Stillwell in this episode voiced both Mysterio and Magneto in the 80s solo Spider-Man and Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends respectively. Both characters appear in both shows, but Magneto was voiced by someone else in the solo series, and Mysterio was voiced by Peter Cullen (yeah that's right, Optimus Prime himself took part as a villain in a show where Spider-Man is voiced by Bumblebee and Iceman is voiced by the leader of the Decepticons) voiced Mysterio. Peter Cullen also voiced Hulk in that Spider-Friends episode.
It's funny how radiation mixed with DNA of a small creature can give a guy more muscular and skeletal mass, and suddenly eliminate his mass of fat to give him very detailed muscular definition.
Introduction of stock footage goes to character designs and frame movements. And another reference to the Fantastic Four in this cartoon. Too bad their own cartoon of that decade is crap, both seasons of it.
It's nice of Scorpion to give Spider-Man time to catch the debris he broke before tackling him, but where did that long distance between the two come from when they were only a few feet apart? And Scorpion did not trip into the hole he made in that cornice.
One design choice for Spider-Man suit in this show I never got is that angular stretch in the spine area of the red of the back of his shirt, another is how they mostly left the legs of the back spider short most of the time.
Scorpion mutate into a monster... waaaaaahhhh. A thread that will go nowhere and will be completely ignored in seasons 2 and on. I get that they wanted to give him more grounded motivation on not liking J. J. for making him Scorpion, but this is a stupid decision in hindsight.
I prefer the first voice actor for Scorpion, not fond of B:TAS's Two-Face taking over for the role.
I wonder if this is the first time ever to give a name for John Jameson's mom, this show called her Julia instead of Joan. I guess comic writers wanted a more matching name for John and Jonah so they went with Joan instead.
After all the time and things Gargan broke, it took him too long to reach the Neogenic labs to get a cure after Jonah Jameson got there, after J. J. took a break in the Bugle.
What should have been the first hint to Mary Jane Watson in this show was relegated to a normal thing because of the episode's airing schedule, it's annoying. And this also should have been the first appearance of Oscrop, but.. you know.
"A nuclear reactor? Why don't villains ever take bakeries to invade?" is a good question. Spider-Man through different media has been given a few good comments and questions on cliches in the genre without going too deconstruction or spoof or fourth wall breaking, and this is a character with some moments of subtle fourth wall breaking.
The nuclear control rod is an idea taken from Roger Sterns's run on Avengers in the 80s, Spidey is a guest star in that story (issues 236-237) and he talks about the control rods to Cap and the Avengers he was with at the time, including She-Hulk.
Here's another fun trivia in this review; A senator told Cap that Spider-Man is not allowed in the Avengers cause they have a rap sheet on him, but She-Hulk was accused of murder and barely exonerated before officially joining the Avengers. Aaahhhh, Marvel, you sure make me shake my head.
Spider-Man punches Scorpion's tail three times, and references Adamantium. Remember that he punches the painful tail.
Because Scorpion doesn't like being insulted, Spider-Man rains him with insults him and tricks him into shocking himself by pulling a livewire to shock him with. This is a time when I reference Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends a second time:
This show is better, but the lesser series can do better things like this one from the episode Attack of the Arachnoid.
Spider-Man: "C'mon tail brain, take your best shot"
Scorpion: "You asked for it"
Tail attack, dodge, Scorpion is shocked unconscious. Funnier, snappier, and more efficient, no after shock tail dance that endangers someone else.
The episode ends with Felicia almost hitting Peter with her car, or rather step on his foot with her tire in cold blood, flirt with him, and they are ready to have googly eyes toward each other in the Spider-Slayer episode.
Remember the final shot in Amazing Spider-Man issue 12? That shot is animated here of a large Spider-Man over shadow walking with Peter. This ending is used for a brighter ending for a story instead of a darker one.
..................................................
A weaker episode than the pilot. Not too bad, but could have been better.
I'll give it: 3/5 webheads.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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Reviews and commentary for episodes of this show take too long, I doubt I can make them shorter for future episodes while relaying everything I want to say about each episode.
I apologize in advanced about future long reads, and apologize now for these ones.
I apologize in advanced about future long reads, and apologize now for these ones.
Spidey_62
You just don't get it!
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Great reviews, Aziz! You make a good point with Spidey being by the recombinator when it's activated at the end, it makes sense that another dose of the device at close range might have triggered the neogenic nightmare stuff. Then again he just keeps getting blasted by it to stop his transformations so I don't know.SEASON 01 - EPISODE 01: Night of the Lizard:
This is the pilot episode of a cartoon taken seriously by its fans, and it needed to be taken seriously for ratings to be good so they'd make more episodes.
It opens up with a teaser intro before the intro theme, and it makes it look off when the title is revealed before showing the villain's full face or hear his name in the Daily Bugle scene.
One of the writers of this episode is Gerry Conway, the guy who introduced Hammerhead, killed Gwen Stacy, went deeper with the seeds Stan planted between May and Ock and made May actually in love with Ock she accepted to marry him, killed Ock for the first time, made a werewolf out of John Jameson, introduced me to Luke Cage, gradually started and finalized making Peter and Flash good friends, and made Harry Osborn a Green Goblin.
Another writer is DCAU famous Stan Berkowitz, so this should be a great start storywise, right?
The color palette in the morning setting of the city looks fine, but the colors of Spider-Man's costume doesn't lend itself well to the background when it's all glassy blue, there is something a bit appalling about it.
We get introduced to two characters, one who looks like Super Mario, the other one is a slimmer balder design of Peter Parker. Their introduction in this episode is easily more pleasant than the way their conversation went in the comic adaption of this episode.
Scared guy drives through crappy CGI models, but we need mediocrity to progress to greatness, but I wish it was better designed and less standing out than what we got. Remember that first flight of Supergirl from Superman the Animated Series? Part of her flight sequence is CGI, but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb cause they made it blend well with the rest of the work.
And the intro starts by how the web was spread around the Amazing Spider-Man comic title in the 70s, something simple and well spread. This show apparently has a few homages to comic covers art pieces, not the cover art, smaller details that are made as garnish.
I'm still not a fan of the intro song, or the awkward otherworldly wacky and pointless overdesign for the Spider-Sense, and it shows in the intro
When Spider-Man is carrying that scared guy, you can notice the McFarlane inspired chest logo on Spider-Man while the frame is zoomed in on the terrified guy.
In the span of 42 seconds Peter insulted 4 people, and displayed two smug cocky mug shots. He's a smug jerk in the first and second seasons of this show.
Two of his superiors tell him about an event in the city, and once that guy he doesn't like backs them up he just threw an insult toward anyone who believes the story of a giant Lizard. Aside from poking some fun at Jameson (and webbing him to the ceiling of his office to listen) to motivate him to send Peter Parker to Florida to fight the Lizard, he had a much nicer attitude.
Nicolas Hammond inspired design for Peter Parker is apparent once he's at his home, very inspired, and very odd given that John Semper dislikes that show. Hammond is easily more likable than this version of Peter, even with the almost no personality given to that show.
The colors of the costume in this episode look fine at night, in some other episodes the blue and red take a more purple-ish hue, and lighter color tone, even when there are no lights around the place he's in.
Flashback to the experiment, and this is the first time we see Peter and Conners working together on the Lizard formula. This episode inspired other adaptions like the MTV series, the Amazing Spider-Man movie (which took more even cues from this episode), and.. wait, no, it didn't inspire anything else after that.
Peter Parker without his costume did help Curt Connors in some experiments in the comics, so I guess this may have played a part in this adaption.
"Friendly neighborhood breaking and entering man".
Fighting animation is pretty good in this place, animation as a whole in this episode is pretty well done.
Flash of lightning makes the lizard man disappear. Ok.
Introduction of the Neogenec Recombinator, one of the story elements made up exclusively for this show, stuff I'm glad never made it elsewhere.
Yaaayyy, referencing other Marvel properties time.
I like referencing the Defenders the most, cause he wasn't talking about the Marvel Netflix Series, the original comic team that started by Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Namor. I think I may have missed a fifth founding member.
Spider-Man blamed himself for the creation of the Lizard, which is true to his character. Although in this case his help may have not made much of a difference.
How did Spider-Man hear what Mr. & Mrs. Lizard were talking about? He was too high to listen to their almost whispering.
The Lizard said Martha.
Underwater battle is one of the more fun parts of the episode. I remember how when I first saw it, I thought the water got cleaned.
This is one of those episodes that make fans of the show wonder how Spider-Man didn't lose his powers although it the device that made him Spider-Man.
May talks about rest and soup after a trip to the sewers, but no mention of a bath. Peter needs a bath.
..................................................
A nice episode, not the perfect pilot it could have been.
I'll give it: 4/5 webheads.
I wish this show was streaming somewhere. I saw it's not listed as something that will be on Disney + at launch, none of the old Marvel cartoons are. They'd be foolish to not include any shows from their vast Marvel library spanning decades, it's not like they've been around for just the last 10 years with the MCU.
Instead the way I "stream" this show if I ever want to watch it is go on the PS4's web browser and go to Dailymotion and put on a playlist of episodes and it's the jankiest, low quality way of watching lol. Come on Disney, throw us a bone.
Spider-Aziz
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Thanks, I'm pleased you read and enjoyed the reviews.
I said the device made him Spider-Man, cause that was his origin revealed in season 3, but since you brought up a good point about Man-Spider mutation, I'll be sure to remember it.
I love it when a misinterpretation leaves a good impression.
Yeah. C'mon Disney, you own this show now. Give us the goods.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
- Joined
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- 83,442
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 03: The Spider Slayer:
No hyphen in this title. I wonder why I keep thinking of a hyphen there.
The first arc in the series, the story that breaks out of the mold of the villain of the week. And after establishing that Scorpion's debut is the actual second episode of this series, we can look at this as the third episode chronologically, and get past any confusion that happened due airing order delaying the second episode for a month or so.
Spider-Man senses flying bombs that we learn are meant to find him, not attack him, it makes you wonder why they explode. This is the episode that also introduces the visual design of changing Spidey size mid animation, an issue that happens multiple times through the different seasons
We get to meet the father and son Smythe -who are made British here for one reason or another-.working with/for Norman Osborn, and introducing the Spider-Slayer; Black Widow model.
Felicia Hardy is rich, this episode established this version of the character for me. She and her mother know Jonah Jameson personally and up close.
"Acid penetrates the widow's armor". Be happy this is not the kind of acid that runs for xenomorph blood, cause it would melt the bottom end of the armor and the floor.
This is possibly the first time Alistair and Spencer were shown together, and I think they weren't close when Al was first introduced in the comics. Fat and perverted creepy Al (who sort of looks like Kurt Russel in the comic) was complaining that his dad was.neglecting him and his mom, and he told Kingpin (who cared for providing his employees with a proper working environment) he quits working for him with no consequences dealt.
I never knew of the Chrysler building before watching this show, so when I saw a real picture of it I was surprised to see Kingpin's building.
Let's bring the definition of the Kingpin to the table here; that title goes to the top of the food chain, the big man, the creme de la creme. I repeated saying that Green Goblin wanted to be the Kingpin of crime since the Ditko era, and I said it under the definition of the word, not under which character gets the name, he worked to be Kingpin before Kingpin came to be.
One of the smartest storytelling decisions Stan Lee made in his story 'SPIDER-MAN NO MORE' is that it happened when Green Goblin was a lost idea in the mind of Norman Osborn. Another brilliant idea is that Spider-Man was out of the picture, and he stayed that way for a while.
As an adaption; Fisk had the right timing to be Kingpin here, he had the right timing and abilities, so it's not wrong to say the coming of Spider-Man is a threat to his work, it's an interesting change.
What is not an interesting change is making Norman a slave of Wilson, loans money from him to start up his company. This change took away from what originally made Norman worthy of being an enemy to be dealt with carefully even before introducing the concept of "He's the sickly father of my best friend", or that idea to Spider-Man's mind.
Fun trivia; Neil Ross voiced Norman and Green Goblin in this show, and it's his second show voicing these sides of the same character. He sounds less grating as Goblin in the solo 80s series.
Another fun trivia; this is the forth show in a row to make Kingpin an enemy of Spider-Man, and the third show to bring him for more than one episode.
Debut episode for both Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn. For one of them you see this episodes introduced two pairs of father and son between the Smythes and the Osborns.
This is also the second show to make Flash dress up like Spider-Man and show up in a fancy party, but key difference between this show and Spider-Friends is that he went to a costume ball in that one, another is that this show remembers that Flash is a fan of Spider-Man.
Time to mention another problem with art designs in this episode, second to the one about introducing the mass shift:While Jonah Jameson and May Parker are watching TV the door in the background changes position; in one frame it opens counter clockwise, when they zoomed in on J. J the door opens clockwise.
And when you hear Spider-Man talks and the camera shifts to him, his shoulder suddenly pops up before fully directing the camera his way.
Humor in this show is really funny, I normally laugh pretty hard at what I hear. Too bad that between coughing and writing this review as I watch it, I can't laugh right now.
Spider seekers worked as small ranged bombs in the start of the episode, but they have different explosion logic in this moment when Spider-Man is fighting the Black Widow (Spider-Slayer, not to be confused with Natasha Romanoffa, or that other, newer Black Widow Jessica Drew doesn't like), he hits it with a girder and it drunkenly flies away until it breaks and is activated like an incendiary grenade with large area range.
And it's strange that when Spencer controls his robot by computer, it suddenly feels like he moved to another location away from the fight between his robot and Spider-Man.
The oil spit from the intro is green, but here in the episode it's black.
"If anyone finds out, Felicia, PARKER. you won't say anything, will ya?"
For years, this line made me wonder why Flash knows Peter is Spider-Man in this show, it still sounds like he knows, even as I'm well aware he doesn't know.
Explosion logic in this episode is confusing. Flame is spreading slowly in the lower floor, and suddenly an explosion starts from the top floor, fully destroying a full tower of Oscorp that is no sooner rebuilt.
..................................................
A weird blend of good and funny, but also weird and baffling.
3.5/5 webheads.
No hyphen in this title. I wonder why I keep thinking of a hyphen there.
The first arc in the series, the story that breaks out of the mold of the villain of the week. And after establishing that Scorpion's debut is the actual second episode of this series, we can look at this as the third episode chronologically, and get past any confusion that happened due airing order delaying the second episode for a month or so.
Spider-Man senses flying bombs that we learn are meant to find him, not attack him, it makes you wonder why they explode. This is the episode that also introduces the visual design of changing Spidey size mid animation, an issue that happens multiple times through the different seasons
We get to meet the father and son Smythe -who are made British here for one reason or another-.working with/for Norman Osborn, and introducing the Spider-Slayer; Black Widow model.
Felicia Hardy is rich, this episode established this version of the character for me. She and her mother know Jonah Jameson personally and up close.
"Acid penetrates the widow's armor". Be happy this is not the kind of acid that runs for xenomorph blood, cause it would melt the bottom end of the armor and the floor.
This is possibly the first time Alistair and Spencer were shown together, and I think they weren't close when Al was first introduced in the comics. Fat and perverted creepy Al (who sort of looks like Kurt Russel in the comic) was complaining that his dad was.neglecting him and his mom, and he told Kingpin (who cared for providing his employees with a proper working environment) he quits working for him with no consequences dealt.
I never knew of the Chrysler building before watching this show, so when I saw a real picture of it I was surprised to see Kingpin's building.
Let's bring the definition of the Kingpin to the table here; that title goes to the top of the food chain, the big man, the creme de la creme. I repeated saying that Green Goblin wanted to be the Kingpin of crime since the Ditko era, and I said it under the definition of the word, not under which character gets the name, he worked to be Kingpin before Kingpin came to be.
One of the smartest storytelling decisions Stan Lee made in his story 'SPIDER-MAN NO MORE' is that it happened when Green Goblin was a lost idea in the mind of Norman Osborn. Another brilliant idea is that Spider-Man was out of the picture, and he stayed that way for a while.
As an adaption; Fisk had the right timing to be Kingpin here, he had the right timing and abilities, so it's not wrong to say the coming of Spider-Man is a threat to his work, it's an interesting change.
What is not an interesting change is making Norman a slave of Wilson, loans money from him to start up his company. This change took away from what originally made Norman worthy of being an enemy to be dealt with carefully even before introducing the concept of "He's the sickly father of my best friend", or that idea to Spider-Man's mind.
Fun trivia; Neil Ross voiced Norman and Green Goblin in this show, and it's his second show voicing these sides of the same character. He sounds less grating as Goblin in the solo 80s series.
Another fun trivia; this is the forth show in a row to make Kingpin an enemy of Spider-Man, and the third show to bring him for more than one episode.
Debut episode for both Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn. For one of them you see this episodes introduced two pairs of father and son between the Smythes and the Osborns.
This is also the second show to make Flash dress up like Spider-Man and show up in a fancy party, but key difference between this show and Spider-Friends is that he went to a costume ball in that one, another is that this show remembers that Flash is a fan of Spider-Man.
Time to mention another problem with art designs in this episode, second to the one about introducing the mass shift:While Jonah Jameson and May Parker are watching TV the door in the background changes position; in one frame it opens counter clockwise, when they zoomed in on J. J the door opens clockwise.
And when you hear Spider-Man talks and the camera shifts to him, his shoulder suddenly pops up before fully directing the camera his way.
Humor in this show is really funny, I normally laugh pretty hard at what I hear. Too bad that between coughing and writing this review as I watch it, I can't laugh right now.
Spider seekers worked as small ranged bombs in the start of the episode, but they have different explosion logic in this moment when Spider-Man is fighting the Black Widow (Spider-Slayer, not to be confused with Natasha Romanoffa, or that other, newer Black Widow Jessica Drew doesn't like), he hits it with a girder and it drunkenly flies away until it breaks and is activated like an incendiary grenade with large area range.
And it's strange that when Spencer controls his robot by computer, it suddenly feels like he moved to another location away from the fight between his robot and Spider-Man.
The oil spit from the intro is green, but here in the episode it's black.
"If anyone finds out, Felicia, PARKER. you won't say anything, will ya?"
For years, this line made me wonder why Flash knows Peter is Spider-Man in this show, it still sounds like he knows, even as I'm well aware he doesn't know.
Explosion logic in this episode is confusing. Flame is spreading slowly in the lower floor, and suddenly an explosion starts from the top floor, fully destroying a full tower of Oscorp that is no sooner rebuilt.
..................................................
A weird blend of good and funny, but also weird and baffling.
3.5/5 webheads.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 04: Return of the Spider Slayers:
Spider-Man is talking in a public phone to his aunt, high where there is a pretty dense population, but nothing to loud to keep anyone from hearing you say names of people and personal events in your life.
I get Spider-Man hearing the name Spencer in the previous episode, but how did he come to the conclusion that he is the one who built it? And that his last name is Smythe? Maybe I should defend it like I defend Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3 knowing about Flint Marko and his daughter and how working in a newspaper can give you access to special sources and resources of info.
Microwave relay dish can easily sizzle a robots circuits in the 90s. Cartoon logic.
One spider slayer found Spider-Man, and no sooner did another find its way to the precises tower where Spider-Man is hanging from. A little too convenient.
Tower drops
Spidey falls
All these floors
And Spidey aims
Up to the top
But not somewhere close
Brilliant act of intellectual greatness there webhead. At least he managed to save himself fast, and didn't need to be saved by another superhero (especially not a Spider themed hero) like in a certain other cartoon.
Smythe: "My employment here is temporary"
Fisk: "And this lab in my main building becomes yours if and only if you destroy Spider-Man"
Doesn't that kinda insinuate that you want him as a permanent employee of yours to fund as you need his expertise? Maybe this saying is a double edged sword.
Aahhhh, the gate of the Technodrome... I mean the Chrysler building opens up.
I blame a certain member here for being right in that analogy.
Smythe: "You and your webslinging friend's pity rivalries destroyed my father."
How did Jameson do anything? I don't think Norman Osborn did what he did based on Jonah's words.
And how did he know the name Flash Thompson? Did he happen to hear May say the name TVs and miles away from his position? Maybe he checked the phone book in Kingpin's building to find his address or something? There are a few weird things here, and I won't forgive all of them under the banner of "vengeance is blind", cause they make little sense as they are presented.
"You hate a lot of people Smythe... must be rough around the holidays." is one of the funniest lines in this entire season, or show.
"Is this another one of your gags Flash Thompson?"
Who recreates a traumatizing experience as a gag? And a very expensive one while they're at it? Maybe more expensive than two standard issued army tanks together.
Oscorp is rebuilt. With Kingpin being the new owner it sure is a cinch for him, but boy was it rebuilt really fast. At some point during the show's run you gotta wonder how much was Kingpin willing to pay into the repeated repairs of this specific plant that is constantly blown up.
This is one of the fewer moments when Norman Osborn is shows stern leadership in this show, coupled with guts and composure.
I always assumed the newspaper Eddie went to next was the Daily Globe and that he was interviewed by Barney Bushkins, but I don't see the names today like I used to, at least not the newspaper name.
How did the Spider-Slayer know the exact location of where to find Eddie? That is awkward. And I feel sorry for him in these two episodes.
Jameson to all these reporters standing very close to the Black Widow taking multiple pictures of it "Don't worry, it's harmless now." and it suddenly moves again.
And I think of something Spider-Man told him in this episode "You ever thought of being a family therapist". I think it could be paraphrased to better fit this situation.
Why did Spider-Man sit in one spot changing his we cartridges and pondering whether to deal with the bomb first or to stop the giant monstrosity that had a long time to attach all three components of it together and fight Oscorp's drones? This suggests that he spent too much time static in one spot when he could have made a full decision. Not only that, but he may have changed the web cartridge for his left wrist, the one that is blocked by the bomb.
And another reference to the Fantastic Four, or rather the only member who had a Team-up book dedicated to him the way Spider-Man had Marvel Team-Up mostly dedicated to him.
Why did he rip his costume to complain his costume is torn? This is a question I continue to ponder nearly two decades after watching this episode for the first time.
Peter working himself on fixing and making his suits.
The iconic MJ line doesn't feel right in this episode for some reason. Maybe it's that dumb derpy smile on Peter's face after he see her face for the first time. Whatever derpy means.
..................................................
Not much different from part 1
3.5/5 webheads.
Spider-Man is talking in a public phone to his aunt, high where there is a pretty dense population, but nothing to loud to keep anyone from hearing you say names of people and personal events in your life.
I get Spider-Man hearing the name Spencer in the previous episode, but how did he come to the conclusion that he is the one who built it? And that his last name is Smythe? Maybe I should defend it like I defend Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3 knowing about Flint Marko and his daughter and how working in a newspaper can give you access to special sources and resources of info.
Microwave relay dish can easily sizzle a robots circuits in the 90s. Cartoon logic.
One spider slayer found Spider-Man, and no sooner did another find its way to the precises tower where Spider-Man is hanging from. A little too convenient.
Tower drops
Spidey falls
All these floors
And Spidey aims
Up to the top
But not somewhere close
Brilliant act of intellectual greatness there webhead. At least he managed to save himself fast, and didn't need to be saved by another superhero (especially not a Spider themed hero) like in a certain other cartoon.
Smythe: "My employment here is temporary"
Fisk: "And this lab in my main building becomes yours if and only if you destroy Spider-Man"
Doesn't that kinda insinuate that you want him as a permanent employee of yours to fund as you need his expertise? Maybe this saying is a double edged sword.
Aahhhh, the gate of the Technodrome... I mean the Chrysler building opens up.
I blame a certain member here for being right in that analogy.
Smythe: "You and your webslinging friend's pity rivalries destroyed my father."
How did Jameson do anything? I don't think Norman Osborn did what he did based on Jonah's words.
And how did he know the name Flash Thompson? Did he happen to hear May say the name TVs and miles away from his position? Maybe he checked the phone book in Kingpin's building to find his address or something? There are a few weird things here, and I won't forgive all of them under the banner of "vengeance is blind", cause they make little sense as they are presented.
"You hate a lot of people Smythe... must be rough around the holidays." is one of the funniest lines in this entire season, or show.
"Is this another one of your gags Flash Thompson?"
Who recreates a traumatizing experience as a gag? And a very expensive one while they're at it? Maybe more expensive than two standard issued army tanks together.
Oscorp is rebuilt. With Kingpin being the new owner it sure is a cinch for him, but boy was it rebuilt really fast. At some point during the show's run you gotta wonder how much was Kingpin willing to pay into the repeated repairs of this specific plant that is constantly blown up.
This is one of the fewer moments when Norman Osborn is shows stern leadership in this show, coupled with guts and composure.
I always assumed the newspaper Eddie went to next was the Daily Globe and that he was interviewed by Barney Bushkins, but I don't see the names today like I used to, at least not the newspaper name.
How did the Spider-Slayer know the exact location of where to find Eddie? That is awkward. And I feel sorry for him in these two episodes.
Jameson to all these reporters standing very close to the Black Widow taking multiple pictures of it "Don't worry, it's harmless now." and it suddenly moves again.
And I think of something Spider-Man told him in this episode "You ever thought of being a family therapist". I think it could be paraphrased to better fit this situation.
Why did Spider-Man sit in one spot changing his we cartridges and pondering whether to deal with the bomb first or to stop the giant monstrosity that had a long time to attach all three components of it together and fight Oscorp's drones? This suggests that he spent too much time static in one spot when he could have made a full decision. Not only that, but he may have changed the web cartridge for his left wrist, the one that is blocked by the bomb.
And another reference to the Fantastic Four, or rather the only member who had a Team-up book dedicated to him the way Spider-Man had Marvel Team-Up mostly dedicated to him.
Why did he rip his costume to complain his costume is torn? This is a question I continue to ponder nearly two decades after watching this episode for the first time.
Peter working himself on fixing and making his suits.
The iconic MJ line doesn't feel right in this episode for some reason. Maybe it's that dumb derpy smile on Peter's face after he see her face for the first time. Whatever derpy means.
..................................................
Not much different from part 1
3.5/5 webheads.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 05: The Menace of Mysterio:
Written by Marv Wolfman who brought back the burglar; Dennis Carradine (I'll go by his Spider-Man 3 given first name) into the folds of the comics, and made him involved with Mysterio. This little tidbit will be brought back in an upcoming paragraph in this review.
Marv Wolfman also inspired another moment from this show, one I'll mention when I revisit a specific episode in season 4.
The other writer is Stan Berkowitz, who is known for his DCAU work. I remember his name most from Batman Beyond, which is a better Spider-Man cartoon than this one.
You ever wonder what is the role of each writer when they hire multiple writers to work on a single 20 minutes episode? I'm not going to call this a half hour programme cause commercials don't cut through the runtime here, and while both intro and outro are included this episode is still under 20 minutes long.
This episode opens in a museum where a robbery takes place, and one of the displays make me think Moon Knight gadgets. One of the security guards looks a lot like Shane Black in Predator.
It's established that this Spider-Man robbing the museum can shoot webs, but he chooses to carry loot in his hands making it hard to carry anything else in the duration instead of immediately making web sacks to carry the loot. And he webs the guard who was shocked he saw him robbing the place.
Other guard knew Spider-Man was involved before seeing him.
I don't know why this design error happened
Cut to Peter's room where MJ calls him in the morning. It makes sense for him to date MJ now that Felicia thinks he's a coward and doesn't want to see him. Feels less disjointed when you know you should watch Scorpion's episode before this one.
I love how security cameras use stock animation footage to capture what we already saw the way we saw it on our TV to see characters see it on their TV. Classic.
Cut to the familiar shot of his back while swinging we first see in the intro, stock footage from the Lizard's episode that doesn't match with the previous background, and stock footage between trees that was show in this episode before Doc Ock's one, and Pete's in the museum.
I love how J.J. talks to Peter here in this scene, he behaves more like a concerned father than a normal boss would before going live. I think this is my favorite take on the jolly one in animation.
Hey Peter, the area that has the shocking webline sticking to its ceiling has surveillance cameras, you shouldn't stick up that ceiling there carelessly.
And we get our introduction to substitute Jean DeWolf known as Teri Lee. What happened? Did James Cameron decide she shouldn't be animated or something at that time? Why would license for a movie hold back animation studio making a show on the same protagonist from using specific characters cause it chose to use them anyway? That feels like red tape bonkers.
I like Teri Lee, but replacing Jean with a character made up for this show is pretty unnecessary, and that may have been before they had plans to make her Blade's short term girlfriend.
Maybe I'm overthinking it a bit, I'll just shut up about it now.
"Well boy wonder, maybe he's just using different chemicals now", I guess this was a line written by Marv Wolfman, who I think was still writing Titans comics at that point. The man had his hands on those character since the early days of their team inception, even before his more well known run introducing fan favorites like Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire.
Introducing Mysterio, and he had a different voice effect here that was discarded in later seasons, I missed hearing it in following seasons.
Mysterio: "Hey y'all. I'm a hero, I will catch that villain for you. Here, I will convince you all to root for me by faking a destruction of this museum hall to gain your trust. MUHAHAHAHAHAAAHHH"
Hey look; Arnold 'Casey' Jones is in the bus with Peter Parker. This won't be my last time commenting on someone else's design being based on the design of a character from a different comic book series for this episode, and this show.
Mysterio: "I won't let him hurt you people"
And then he just vanishes. Such a fearless protector.
Jonah Jameson babbling on TV after the bridge fight:: "The city has a new hero, a REAL hero, that guy who faked the museum destruction on top of us all".
J.J, look back to that specific moment of you reminiscing with Robbie about your late wife and how she was shot by a man in a mask? That is why you don't trust random people with masks and faces you can't see? Mysterio is someone less trustworthy under these circumstances.
Flashback to Carradine, and I will remind you that this is an episode written by Marv Wolfman, so why exactly does the burglar look this buff and large?
I prefer the dramatic moon light reveal of the mistake Spider-Man made over the unmasking of the surprised burglar who probably didn't drop his gun in that flashback. The first Raimi film did something similar to the moon light with using searchlights, and it is much better than this reveal.
This is the show where I got that uncle Ben told Peter "With great power comes great responsibility", I prefer that it is a lesson he learns instead of it being a message relayed to him. The first Raimi film made it work the way they used it, it didn't need to be saved for explaining 4 years or so later.
These last two points are nothing against the episode, they are personal gripes I have, so call them nitpicks here, you won't be wrong this instance.
Hey man, don't terrify a driver by jumping on his/her car, you might cause them to derail the vehicle in panic.
Looking back into the specific origin of Mysterio, I love how old cartoon computers had so much high tech they allowed them to watch high quality -for the standards of that time- footage on their small screens.
Time to bring back character designs, and it is revealed that Quentin Beck looks less like Leonard Nimoy (you know he looks like Mr. Spock, it's too hard to miss that resemblance) and more like Hardcase from Ultra Force. I guess Malibu Comics being newly bought by Marvel back then had a thing to do with that or something? Or maybe that was just the team involved deciding they want to show how much they love different comic franchises.
And going back to nitpicks; one of the things that appealed to me about Mysterio's origin is that he was bored (not specified) and wanted excitement so he did what he did in the first place. Instead, this show made his original motive revenge.
What is not a nitpick is that 3 seasons from now it was revealed that this decision making was a mistake.
Teri: "This is something you had trouble remembering?"
Spidey: "Hey. I hear that kind of thing two-three times a week."
A classic dialogue exchange, well done.
This is the same platform. Can someone please explain
this order of progress for me?
Wonder Studios stuff is kinda familiar, like it takes from the Madness of Mysterio, but is without the shrinkage trick.
Roger Corman.
An indirect reference to 
maybe?
Teri and Jonah opened the door just now, why are they captured? And so fast?
Mysterio: "It's payback time."
Spidey: "Payback? For what? You did it all to yourself."
Mysterio: "Yes, that's what my psychiatrist said. But you know what? His sessions never made me feel this good."
Fun classic dialogue, but I think that line from Mysterio has to be the biggest collection of words on a single shot in a cartoon episode that I have seen in my entire life watching American cartoon.
Mysterio news piece is an article by Ned Leeds. Sometimes you feels those name dropping are just there to remind you this is a show based on comics, but since it is so brief and subtle all is forgiven.
..................................................
It's a bit of a miss, at least it's not the worst we've got this season.
3.5/5 webheads.
But who am I to judge the quality of a work? It's not like I worked on it, I'm just a couch potato commenting on entertainment I had no influence in how it's made and just complain about this stuff not meeting my criteria of demands I've never made.
Written by Marv Wolfman who brought back the burglar; Dennis Carradine (I'll go by his Spider-Man 3 given first name) into the folds of the comics, and made him involved with Mysterio. This little tidbit will be brought back in an upcoming paragraph in this review.
Marv Wolfman also inspired another moment from this show, one I'll mention when I revisit a specific episode in season 4.
The other writer is Stan Berkowitz, who is known for his DCAU work. I remember his name most from Batman Beyond, which is a better Spider-Man cartoon than this one.
You ever wonder what is the role of each writer when they hire multiple writers to work on a single 20 minutes episode? I'm not going to call this a half hour programme cause commercials don't cut through the runtime here, and while both intro and outro are included this episode is still under 20 minutes long.
This episode opens in a museum where a robbery takes place, and one of the displays make me think Moon Knight gadgets. One of the security guards looks a lot like Shane Black in Predator.
It's established that this Spider-Man robbing the museum can shoot webs, but he chooses to carry loot in his hands making it hard to carry anything else in the duration instead of immediately making web sacks to carry the loot. And he webs the guard who was shocked he saw him robbing the place.
Other guard knew Spider-Man was involved before seeing him.
I don't know why this design error happened
I love how security cameras use stock animation footage to capture what we already saw the way we saw it on our TV to see characters see it on their TV. Classic.
Cut to the familiar shot of his back while swinging we first see in the intro, stock footage from the Lizard's episode that doesn't match with the previous background, and stock footage between trees that was show in this episode before Doc Ock's one, and Pete's in the museum.
I love how J.J. talks to Peter here in this scene, he behaves more like a concerned father than a normal boss would before going live. I think this is my favorite take on the jolly one in animation.
Hey Peter, the area that has the shocking webline sticking to its ceiling has surveillance cameras, you shouldn't stick up that ceiling there carelessly.
And we get our introduction to substitute Jean DeWolf known as Teri Lee. What happened? Did James Cameron decide she shouldn't be animated or something at that time? Why would license for a movie hold back animation studio making a show on the same protagonist from using specific characters cause it chose to use them anyway? That feels like red tape bonkers.
I like Teri Lee, but replacing Jean with a character made up for this show is pretty unnecessary, and that may have been before they had plans to make her Blade's short term girlfriend.
Maybe I'm overthinking it a bit, I'll just shut up about it now.
"Well boy wonder, maybe he's just using different chemicals now", I guess this was a line written by Marv Wolfman, who I think was still writing Titans comics at that point. The man had his hands on those character since the early days of their team inception, even before his more well known run introducing fan favorites like Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire.
Introducing Mysterio, and he had a different voice effect here that was discarded in later seasons, I missed hearing it in following seasons.
Mysterio: "Hey y'all. I'm a hero, I will catch that villain for you. Here, I will convince you all to root for me by faking a destruction of this museum hall to gain your trust. MUHAHAHAHAHAAAHHH"
Hey look; Arnold 'Casey' Jones is in the bus with Peter Parker. This won't be my last time commenting on someone else's design being based on the design of a character from a different comic book series for this episode, and this show.
Mysterio: "I won't let him hurt you people"
And then he just vanishes. Such a fearless protector.
Jonah Jameson babbling on TV after the bridge fight:: "The city has a new hero, a REAL hero, that guy who faked the museum destruction on top of us all".
J.J, look back to that specific moment of you reminiscing with Robbie about your late wife and how she was shot by a man in a mask? That is why you don't trust random people with masks and faces you can't see? Mysterio is someone less trustworthy under these circumstances.
Flashback to Carradine, and I will remind you that this is an episode written by Marv Wolfman, so why exactly does the burglar look this buff and large?
I prefer the dramatic moon light reveal of the mistake Spider-Man made over the unmasking of the surprised burglar who probably didn't drop his gun in that flashback. The first Raimi film did something similar to the moon light with using searchlights, and it is much better than this reveal.
This is the show where I got that uncle Ben told Peter "With great power comes great responsibility", I prefer that it is a lesson he learns instead of it being a message relayed to him. The first Raimi film made it work the way they used it, it didn't need to be saved for explaining 4 years or so later.
These last two points are nothing against the episode, they are personal gripes I have, so call them nitpicks here, you won't be wrong this instance.
Hey man, don't terrify a driver by jumping on his/her car, you might cause them to derail the vehicle in panic.
Looking back into the specific origin of Mysterio, I love how old cartoon computers had so much high tech they allowed them to watch high quality -for the standards of that time- footage on their small screens.
Time to bring back character designs, and it is revealed that Quentin Beck looks less like Leonard Nimoy (you know he looks like Mr. Spock, it's too hard to miss that resemblance) and more like Hardcase from Ultra Force. I guess Malibu Comics being newly bought by Marvel back then had a thing to do with that or something? Or maybe that was just the team involved deciding they want to show how much they love different comic franchises.
And going back to nitpicks; one of the things that appealed to me about Mysterio's origin is that he was bored (not specified) and wanted excitement so he did what he did in the first place. Instead, this show made his original motive revenge.
What is not a nitpick is that 3 seasons from now it was revealed that this decision making was a mistake.
Teri: "This is something you had trouble remembering?"
Spidey: "Hey. I hear that kind of thing two-three times a week."
A classic dialogue exchange, well done.
This is the same platform. Can someone please explain
this order of progress for me?
Wonder Studios stuff is kinda familiar, like it takes from the Madness of Mysterio, but is without the shrinkage trick.
Roger Corman.
An indirect reference to maybe?Teri and Jonah opened the door just now, why are they captured? And so fast?
Mysterio: "It's payback time."
Spidey: "Payback? For what? You did it all to yourself."
Mysterio: "Yes, that's what my psychiatrist said. But you know what? His sessions never made me feel this good."
Fun classic dialogue, but I think that line from Mysterio has to be the biggest collection of words on a single shot in a cartoon episode that I have seen in my entire life watching American cartoon.
Mysterio news piece is an article by Ned Leeds. Sometimes you feels those name dropping are just there to remind you this is a show based on comics, but since it is so brief and subtle all is forgiven.
..................................................
It's a bit of a miss, at least it's not the worst we've got this season.
3.5/5 webheads.
But who am I to judge the quality of a work? It's not like I worked on it, I'm just a couch potato commenting on entertainment I had no influence in how it's made and just complain about this stuff not meeting my criteria of demands I've never made.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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I think I'm starting to relate to that fun entertainment reviewer we know as Dread, with long episode reviews.
What happened to him anyway? He can't be tagged.
What happened to him anyway? He can't be tagged.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 06: Doctor Octopus: Armed and Dangerous:
Written by Avi Arad and Stan Lee. Neither one needs an introduction, but I have things to say about the first one:
This is one of the episodes that has this design for lenses, so when you see lenses drawn in this specific style you should expect the best animation this show offered.
Doc Ock: Armed & Dangerous
Night of the Lizard
The Alien Costume - Part 1
Hydroman
Animation is less amazing when the specific design for the lenses is seen.
The Return of the Spider Slayers told us months has passed between the events of both parts of the arc, so there has been quite a while between the time Felicia got mad at Peter for being a coward and this time of her inviting him to her stateside house so she'd go with him as her physics tutor to a science exhibit.
I gotta say one thing for sure, in the comics Peter did not bounce between dating two girls after he met MJ, he remained loyal to Gwen until she died, so there have been some liberty taken with the dating gymnastics Peter played dating both girls some part in the second half of the first season, so he is a jerk in that area.
Peter: "Maybe I should have worn a suit, or at least a new shirt."
Don't worry about that Peter, you'll save wearing the new shirt for season 2, and you will never change after that.
Hey look, that complicated overdesign for Doc Ock you've been spoiled about for the past 5 (4 actually) episodes in the intro, an over design that is of no purpose or value, and is even less meaningful once you see him become one of Kingpin's multiple chew toys in future seasons, starting with 3.
James Gordon works for the J3 communications
Where's Batman when you need him?
Doc Ock was going to kill Jameson after bringing him the ransom for Felicia, and that is when Spider-Man chose to intervene in the deserted warehouse. It's nice when Spider-Man is shown to do right moves instead of being a blundering buffoon, especially when he is this experienced.
Something Homecoming could have taken notes from, one of a bazillion sources for that, but not the best one.
Doc Ock uses his tentacles to keep Spider-Man at bay, something Spider-Man 2 could have learned from instead of making Doc Ock an overpowered punching bag for the super strong Spider-Man.
The camera choices and animation in the warehouse scene are profoundly well done, so this is something powerful in favor of this episode.
One advantage Spider-Man 2 has over this movie is that Spidey shot a webline at the warehouse and got back, instead of letting the momentum of him being tossed away put to a halt by water in the bay.
When you see the video Ock sent to the Daily Bugle you'll see it is stock footage that was shown earlier in the warehouse scene, and the monitors around Ock were there too. So this was a frame made for the later scene but was reused for the earlier scene.
Ock: "Spider-Man. You're making a career of interference."
Spider-Man: "Some career. No salary, no vacation, and talk about all the job's health hazards."
One of those classic dialogue exchanges in this series.
Stock footage of Spider-Man's head once Jameson talks about the fire engine.
One thing to notice in this episode is that it has some footage for it that was made to be reused for the same episode.
And you'll notice that Spider-Man had a chance to save Felicia and Jonah earlier than he did, but that spared him the complication of having to explain his situation.
This wrist motion is very inspired by the art of Legendary artist Steve Ditko
I think this is one of the rare instances in animation that uses his unique style of drawing dynamic hand positions
Spidey: "Let's make a trade; my friends, for your life's work"
Sometimes it's funny when Spider-Man goes the extra mile of the no nonsense attitude to save people, and this is one of the better moments.
When you see the final position Octavius is put in for this episode you wonder how does he sleep with all the back pain from that position, surely he must suffer from sciatica being force to sit that way all the time for days in a row.
Let's not talk about bathroom breaks, it's not like cartoon characters have rights to be catered to.
Maybe I shouldn't care much about pain to his lower lumbar in this show, you have the right to ignore these last three or so lines.
..................................................
One of the better episodes for sure, weird stock footage use and all..
4.5/5 webheads.
Written by Avi Arad and Stan Lee. Neither one needs an introduction, but I have things to say about the first one:
- Spider-Man does not need personal connection to all his villains. Green Goblin 1, 2, and the Venom symbiote rely on it, the rest do not need any kind of connection.
- I'm glad you weren't nose deep in the production of the Spectacular Spider-Man, that made that show better.
This is one of the episodes that has this design for lenses, so when you see lenses drawn in this specific style you should expect the best animation this show offered.
Doc Ock: Armed & Dangerous
Night of the Lizard
The Alien Costume - Part 1
Hydroman
Animation is less amazing when the specific design for the lenses is seen.
The Return of the Spider Slayers told us months has passed between the events of both parts of the arc, so there has been quite a while between the time Felicia got mad at Peter for being a coward and this time of her inviting him to her stateside house so she'd go with him as her physics tutor to a science exhibit.
I gotta say one thing for sure, in the comics Peter did not bounce between dating two girls after he met MJ, he remained loyal to Gwen until she died, so there have been some liberty taken with the dating gymnastics Peter played dating both girls some part in the second half of the first season, so he is a jerk in that area.
Peter: "Maybe I should have worn a suit, or at least a new shirt."
Don't worry about that Peter, you'll save wearing the new shirt for season 2, and you will never change after that.
Hey look, that complicated overdesign for Doc Ock you've been spoiled about for the past 5 (4 actually) episodes in the intro, an over design that is of no purpose or value, and is even less meaningful once you see him become one of Kingpin's multiple chew toys in future seasons, starting with 3.
James Gordon works for the J3 communications
Where's Batman when you need him?
Doc Ock was going to kill Jameson after bringing him the ransom for Felicia, and that is when Spider-Man chose to intervene in the deserted warehouse. It's nice when Spider-Man is shown to do right moves instead of being a blundering buffoon, especially when he is this experienced.
Something Homecoming could have taken notes from, one of a bazillion sources for that, but not the best one.
Doc Ock uses his tentacles to keep Spider-Man at bay, something Spider-Man 2 could have learned from instead of making Doc Ock an overpowered punching bag for the super strong Spider-Man.
The camera choices and animation in the warehouse scene are profoundly well done, so this is something powerful in favor of this episode.
One advantage Spider-Man 2 has over this movie is that Spidey shot a webline at the warehouse and got back, instead of letting the momentum of him being tossed away put to a halt by water in the bay.
When you see the video Ock sent to the Daily Bugle you'll see it is stock footage that was shown earlier in the warehouse scene, and the monitors around Ock were there too. So this was a frame made for the later scene but was reused for the earlier scene.
Ock: "Spider-Man. You're making a career of interference."
Spider-Man: "Some career. No salary, no vacation, and talk about all the job's health hazards."
One of those classic dialogue exchanges in this series.
Stock footage of Spider-Man's head once Jameson talks about the fire engine.
One thing to notice in this episode is that it has some footage for it that was made to be reused for the same episode.
And you'll notice that Spider-Man had a chance to save Felicia and Jonah earlier than he did, but that spared him the complication of having to explain his situation.
This wrist motion is very inspired by the art of Legendary artist Steve Ditko
I think this is one of the rare instances in animation that uses his unique style of drawing dynamic hand positions
Spidey: "Let's make a trade; my friends, for your life's work"
Sometimes it's funny when Spider-Man goes the extra mile of the no nonsense attitude to save people, and this is one of the better moments.
When you see the final position Octavius is put in for this episode you wonder how does he sleep with all the back pain from that position, surely he must suffer from sciatica being force to sit that way all the time for days in a row.
Let's not talk about bathroom breaks, it's not like cartoon characters have rights to be catered to.
Maybe I shouldn't care much about pain to his lower lumbar in this show, you have the right to ignore these last three or so lines.
..................................................
One of the better episodes for sure, weird stock footage use and all..
4.5/5 webheads.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 07: Kraven the Hunter:
Written by John Smeper jr and Jan Stranad. I know one of them, not familiar with the work of the other one, or the name.
I skip naming the teleplay writers, cause I don't know how much of their work changed the episode script they worked on, and whether they improved it or not. Whatever the case I shouldn't be unfair to them, and I'm not in the mood to do a thorough research of their work while binge watching this show.
This is one episode simply named after the antagonist of the story, no enter this or day of that, or certain qualities to the character. I think there might be a handful of episodes titled like that through the series, not counting parts 2 and more of the story of each one.
I'll try to make a list counting these episodes as I watch the show.
This is the only animated show to make Kraven something other than 'I HUUNNNNNT', and stop at that without trying to give him more personality. This might even be the best take on the character ever made.
Second best take is the one from the Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game tie-in, but that's not hard to do, cause even comics didn't give him much personality before J.M. DeMatteis. Most adaptions gave him less personality than the issue introducing the character.
I can say the same thing about Calypso, the girlfriend who was introduced in the 80s merely as a lover as Kraven to be brought back less than a decade later to be eaten by the mindless Lizard she tried to control. I really dig the story of Dr. Mariah Crawford.
This episode has some rough animation, starting with the moment of Dr. Crawford exiting the window of her lab to escape Kraven.
Fun fact to notice: Peter heads to Dr. Crawford in Hardy Foundation labs to interview for a job, guess this is how pleased Mrs. Hardy with Peter for all he did to her daughter in and before Doc Ock's episode.
A doctor gave Mariah his last vile of serum of his wonder drug in the past after she spent so much time looking for him before finding him in a feral state after taking the medicine. It's a wonder that vile wasn't broken when she found him.
Stock footage of the sewers, in a scene where the background behind Spider-Man should be clear blue night sky.
Ok, maybe not clear, it's cloudy... no chance of meatballs.
You can wonder why Kraven came through the apartment door instead of following scents on roofs and entering through the skylight to Robbie's apartment, but then your guess would be as good as mine, so don't mind wondering.
Is there any other media where we hear or read Peter himself describes how horny he feels? Hopefully we focus more on good stories.
This brings me back to Spider-Man 3, where innocent dorky Peter is giddy to see hi girlfriend on stage and hear her sing, without much of a sensual subtext.
In a few seconds we had a jump scare, a friend's request that Peter Parker dodged, an antagonist entering the scene, and a revelation that Mary Jane has a sixth sense of her own telling her when Peter is leaving without much of a notice. It's an exercise in breakneck speed motion this series has in some episodes, and then there are episodes that move in such motion from start to end. YIIIIKES.
Twice, I counted two times of Kraven moving and disappearing more mysteriously than Batman does once Commissioner Gordon turns his back on him. Kraven did it while falling, without tools at his disposal that we know of.
You have to wonder how much of the magical cure did Mariah use on Kraven that she kept enough of it to make tests and find a cure for it to help her boyfriend return to normal.
The ending is kinda similar to that of Amazing Spider-Man 015 from 1964, but instead of a happy ending of deporting him back to Russian with his comrade Dimitri Smerkyadof (the Chameleon), Kraven is happy with his girlfriend on a boat.
Kraven is voiced by Greg Berger, the voice actor for Mysterio in this show. And that was 14 years before he voiced Kingpin in the well known game infamous for unpopular voice acting; Web of Shadows.
I have no attachments to share for this episode, so I'll guess I'll have to stop with those.
..................................................
Though it has some quirks and missteps, it's a solid episode.
4/5 webheads.
You ever wondered what happened in the very short time between deporting Kraven and Chameleon and Kraven joining the Sinister Six to fill in the gaps?
This happened.
Written by John Smeper jr and Jan Stranad. I know one of them, not familiar with the work of the other one, or the name.
I skip naming the teleplay writers, cause I don't know how much of their work changed the episode script they worked on, and whether they improved it or not. Whatever the case I shouldn't be unfair to them, and I'm not in the mood to do a thorough research of their work while binge watching this show.
This is one episode simply named after the antagonist of the story, no enter this or day of that, or certain qualities to the character. I think there might be a handful of episodes titled like that through the series, not counting parts 2 and more of the story of each one.
I'll try to make a list counting these episodes as I watch the show.
This is the only animated show to make Kraven something other than 'I HUUNNNNNT', and stop at that without trying to give him more personality. This might even be the best take on the character ever made.
Second best take is the one from the Amazing Spider-Man 2 video game tie-in, but that's not hard to do, cause even comics didn't give him much personality before J.M. DeMatteis. Most adaptions gave him less personality than the issue introducing the character.
I can say the same thing about Calypso, the girlfriend who was introduced in the 80s merely as a lover as Kraven to be brought back less than a decade later to be eaten by the mindless Lizard she tried to control. I really dig the story of Dr. Mariah Crawford.
This episode has some rough animation, starting with the moment of Dr. Crawford exiting the window of her lab to escape Kraven.
Fun fact to notice: Peter heads to Dr. Crawford in Hardy Foundation labs to interview for a job, guess this is how pleased Mrs. Hardy with Peter for all he did to her daughter in and before Doc Ock's episode.
A doctor gave Mariah his last vile of serum of his wonder drug in the past after she spent so much time looking for him before finding him in a feral state after taking the medicine. It's a wonder that vile wasn't broken when she found him.
Stock footage of the sewers, in a scene where the background behind Spider-Man should be clear blue night sky.
Ok, maybe not clear, it's cloudy... no chance of meatballs.
You can wonder why Kraven came through the apartment door instead of following scents on roofs and entering through the skylight to Robbie's apartment, but then your guess would be as good as mine, so don't mind wondering.
Is there any other media where we hear or read Peter himself describes how horny he feels? Hopefully we focus more on good stories.
This brings me back to Spider-Man 3, where innocent dorky Peter is giddy to see hi girlfriend on stage and hear her sing, without much of a sensual subtext.
In a few seconds we had a jump scare, a friend's request that Peter Parker dodged, an antagonist entering the scene, and a revelation that Mary Jane has a sixth sense of her own telling her when Peter is leaving without much of a notice. It's an exercise in breakneck speed motion this series has in some episodes, and then there are episodes that move in such motion from start to end. YIIIIKES.
Twice, I counted two times of Kraven moving and disappearing more mysteriously than Batman does once Commissioner Gordon turns his back on him. Kraven did it while falling, without tools at his disposal that we know of.
You have to wonder how much of the magical cure did Mariah use on Kraven that she kept enough of it to make tests and find a cure for it to help her boyfriend return to normal.
The ending is kinda similar to that of Amazing Spider-Man 015 from 1964, but instead of a happy ending of deporting him back to Russian with his comrade Dimitri Smerkyadof (the Chameleon), Kraven is happy with his girlfriend on a boat.
Kraven is voiced by Greg Berger, the voice actor for Mysterio in this show. And that was 14 years before he voiced Kingpin in the well known game infamous for unpopular voice acting; Web of Shadows.
I have no attachments to share for this episode, so I'll guess I'll have to stop with those.
..................................................
Though it has some quirks and missteps, it's a solid episode.
4/5 webheads.
You ever wondered what happened in the very short time between deporting Kraven and Chameleon and Kraven joining the Sinister Six to fill in the gaps?
This happened.
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 08: The Alien Costume:
Written by Avi Arad and Stan Lee. The duo wrote the best episode of the season, and they also wrote this one, which might be worse than the Scorpion debut episode. It's a shame to say that Scorpion's episode is the worst one so far, cause it's a shame as he's my favorite Spider-Man villain, but it's also funny that in the comics they made Gargan's Scorpion put on the symbiote and become Venom III whose design is used for Web of Shadows, who later became Dark Avengers's Spider-Man.
This is one of the episodes with the better animation cause they have that specific design for the lenses, and some moments of Peter's eyes looking like they belong to a DCAU series.
We get to see astronaut colonel John Jameson on the moon as the episode opens, he takes that strange rock that stands out for having a different color that no astronaut going to the moon ever heard of before. The rock is bleeding as colonel Jameson uses his hoe (that tool used to break rocks and the seven dwarves sing in appreciation for) to perfectly dislodge the black heart from the rest of the moon, and it covers black goo that has a heart that causes a lunar seismic disturbance, but no tidal waves to be reported on Earth as a result, and this event is to never be mentioned or referenced to again.
Fun trivia; John Jameson in this episode was voiced by Michael Holt, the voice of Rick Jones in the 1982 Incredible Hulk cartoon. That makes him one of four actors so far from 80s Marvel animated projects to come to this show.
The other three are Neil Ross (as Green Goblin again), Linda Gary (as May Parker again), and Michael Rye (Harley Stilwell). Michael Holt is the only voice to not be heard in a Spider-Man animated series from that decade though.
Cut to the Daily Bugle, a nice scene showing a proud father in Jonah Jameson, and happy employees. Peter thinks to himself how different John is from his father, but there is no play on the dynamic of different views on Spider-Man into play in this show, so this was a waste of a voice line.
Cut to Kingpin in his Technodrome version of the Chrysler Building (credit for this name goes to @Sarcastic Fan ), and for real; why is he important in every arc of season 1? There are three arcs in total, and commander tubby is a main focus in one of them, 2/3 of another, and is there to remind you he's important in another arc.
Scene shifts to Eddie Brock, who is mad for losing too jobs and is one of the many people stranded in rush hour on the George Washington bridge. You think the Venom movie is questionable when it comes to him managing budget being unemployed for months? Think about this show.
Since I mentioned how a few characters have designs based on characters from other comic series, I have to mention that Eddie Brock in this show is designed after that detective from the Mask.
Is this storytelling for real? Why is this episode praised so much? WHY????
The living goo crawls in one suit and some control devices, everything goes bonkers and the astronauts are completely exhausted from that. The more you learn about the symbiote in the series, the less sense this makes.
"Mission control has lost communication with the shuttle, there's no explanation yet"
There no explanation for a lot of things in these first three minutes, explanations will only confuse you more reporter dude.
A call from Kingpin to Rhino to remind us that almost every super villain in this show at one point or another starts working for Kingpin, if they don't start working for him. I can tell you that crime bosses -aside from Hammerhead- Morbius, Venom, and Carnage are the only Spider-Man villains in this show to NEVER work under Kingpin's rule.
Astronauts are out of the shuttle and placed parallel to one another while very very exhausted, not only that, but the shuttle is gone before Jonah Jameson arrives, and there is nobody else on the scene. Reporter Jameson doesn't trust tells him Spider-Man stole something after his son said his name, and Jonah takes words from the guy he trusts less (Eddie Brock) than the guy he doesn't trust although he knows that guy saved the city from his mistake with Scorpion that could have lead to a nuclear disaster destroying the whole city.
This may be true to Jameson holding Spider-Man who saved both him and Robbie from the Vulture so that Vulture can take a swing at him, but I expected this animated version of Jonah Jameson to be a better judge of character than the cartoony version presented in old Stan Lee written comics.
Sure, tell me that Stan Lee is one of the co-writers of this episode. But remember that this has teleplay by Len Wein (who almost made Jonah Jameson start being nice to Spider-Man when he was still wanted for a couple of murder cases) and John Semper jr, both of them could have made a better take on why Jameson would accept Spider-Man as a thief, or give Spider-Man a different but more acceptable reason to be possessed by the alien parasite.
Time for some of my favorite quotes in an episode.
"It's the Spider-Man justice system; guilty until proven innocent"
And
May: "Now there's no way Spider-Man can run. At last.. he'll get what he deserves"
Peter's inner monologue: "Thanks aunt May, I needed that"
And then we have that impressive looking dream that looks really good in animation, followed by the iconic pose of Spider-Man waking upside down in the middle of Manhattan, in a costume he's never seen before.
Police copters come after him, and one of the most impressive scenes in the entire series start. Too bad this is one of the less impressive episodes.
Felicia called Parker on campus the following day, Felicia calls him by his last name and it sounds like she said "Harker". Watch the episode and tell me if you hear it too.
Peter annoyed by May's advice.
Memorable action scene with Rhino in what looks like a prison, but is not a prison.
Iconic reflection moment showing Venom, that serves no valuable purpose other than showing that face the intro ends with is coming to appear soon.
The comics adapting the show skipped the reflection bit with the end, they just made a quick jump showing that events part II start with happen immediately after Spider-Man gets out of the facility.
Those comics were so poorly told that even poor Alex Saviuk felt pretty lazy and did not draw 8 legs for the spider on his suit, he instead stuck to six and no one told him to fix that.
Cash grab comics can be so lazy and uninspired.
..................................................
One of the weaker episodes in this season with no stock footage.
2.5/5 webheads.
It sucks that the writers of the best episode also made the worst episode.
I appreciate that the story took a different route from merely being adrenaline sucking suit to something that adds power but also makes the wearer angrier and more aggressive, they way this take was used for incarnations out of the mainline comics made them more entertaining.
Reference point to what adapted this "Symbiote makes you more efficient" plot thread:
Thankfully, it didn't take over every other adaption.
Written by Avi Arad and Stan Lee. The duo wrote the best episode of the season, and they also wrote this one, which might be worse than the Scorpion debut episode. It's a shame to say that Scorpion's episode is the worst one so far, cause it's a shame as he's my favorite Spider-Man villain, but it's also funny that in the comics they made Gargan's Scorpion put on the symbiote and become Venom III whose design is used for Web of Shadows, who later became Dark Avengers's Spider-Man.
This is one of the episodes with the better animation cause they have that specific design for the lenses, and some moments of Peter's eyes looking like they belong to a DCAU series.
We get to see astronaut colonel John Jameson on the moon as the episode opens, he takes that strange rock that stands out for having a different color that no astronaut going to the moon ever heard of before. The rock is bleeding as colonel Jameson uses his hoe (that tool used to break rocks and the seven dwarves sing in appreciation for) to perfectly dislodge the black heart from the rest of the moon, and it covers black goo that has a heart that causes a lunar seismic disturbance, but no tidal waves to be reported on Earth as a result, and this event is to never be mentioned or referenced to again.
Fun trivia; John Jameson in this episode was voiced by Michael Holt, the voice of Rick Jones in the 1982 Incredible Hulk cartoon. That makes him one of four actors so far from 80s Marvel animated projects to come to this show.
The other three are Neil Ross (as Green Goblin again), Linda Gary (as May Parker again), and Michael Rye (Harley Stilwell). Michael Holt is the only voice to not be heard in a Spider-Man animated series from that decade though.
Cut to the Daily Bugle, a nice scene showing a proud father in Jonah Jameson, and happy employees. Peter thinks to himself how different John is from his father, but there is no play on the dynamic of different views on Spider-Man into play in this show, so this was a waste of a voice line.
Cut to Kingpin in his Technodrome version of the Chrysler Building (credit for this name goes to @Sarcastic Fan ), and for real; why is he important in every arc of season 1? There are three arcs in total, and commander tubby is a main focus in one of them, 2/3 of another, and is there to remind you he's important in another arc.
Scene shifts to Eddie Brock, who is mad for losing too jobs and is one of the many people stranded in rush hour on the George Washington bridge. You think the Venom movie is questionable when it comes to him managing budget being unemployed for months? Think about this show.
Since I mentioned how a few characters have designs based on characters from other comic series, I have to mention that Eddie Brock in this show is designed after that detective from the Mask.
Is this storytelling for real? Why is this episode praised so much? WHY????
The living goo crawls in one suit and some control devices, everything goes bonkers and the astronauts are completely exhausted from that. The more you learn about the symbiote in the series, the less sense this makes.
"Mission control has lost communication with the shuttle, there's no explanation yet"
There no explanation for a lot of things in these first three minutes, explanations will only confuse you more reporter dude.
A call from Kingpin to Rhino to remind us that almost every super villain in this show at one point or another starts working for Kingpin, if they don't start working for him. I can tell you that crime bosses -aside from Hammerhead- Morbius, Venom, and Carnage are the only Spider-Man villains in this show to NEVER work under Kingpin's rule.
Astronauts are out of the shuttle and placed parallel to one another while very very exhausted, not only that, but the shuttle is gone before Jonah Jameson arrives, and there is nobody else on the scene. Reporter Jameson doesn't trust tells him Spider-Man stole something after his son said his name, and Jonah takes words from the guy he trusts less (Eddie Brock) than the guy he doesn't trust although he knows that guy saved the city from his mistake with Scorpion that could have lead to a nuclear disaster destroying the whole city.
This may be true to Jameson holding Spider-Man who saved both him and Robbie from the Vulture so that Vulture can take a swing at him, but I expected this animated version of Jonah Jameson to be a better judge of character than the cartoony version presented in old Stan Lee written comics.
Sure, tell me that Stan Lee is one of the co-writers of this episode. But remember that this has teleplay by Len Wein (who almost made Jonah Jameson start being nice to Spider-Man when he was still wanted for a couple of murder cases) and John Semper jr, both of them could have made a better take on why Jameson would accept Spider-Man as a thief, or give Spider-Man a different but more acceptable reason to be possessed by the alien parasite.
Time for some of my favorite quotes in an episode.
"It's the Spider-Man justice system; guilty until proven innocent"
And
May: "Now there's no way Spider-Man can run. At last.. he'll get what he deserves"
Peter's inner monologue: "Thanks aunt May, I needed that"
And then we have that impressive looking dream that looks really good in animation, followed by the iconic pose of Spider-Man waking upside down in the middle of Manhattan, in a costume he's never seen before.
Police copters come after him, and one of the most impressive scenes in the entire series start. Too bad this is one of the less impressive episodes.
Felicia called Parker on campus the following day, Felicia calls him by his last name and it sounds like she said "Harker". Watch the episode and tell me if you hear it too.
Peter annoyed by May's advice.
Memorable action scene with Rhino in what looks like a prison, but is not a prison.
Iconic reflection moment showing Venom, that serves no valuable purpose other than showing that face the intro ends with is coming to appear soon.
The comics adapting the show skipped the reflection bit with the end, they just made a quick jump showing that events part II start with happen immediately after Spider-Man gets out of the facility.
Those comics were so poorly told that even poor Alex Saviuk felt pretty lazy and did not draw 8 legs for the spider on his suit, he instead stuck to six and no one told him to fix that.
Cash grab comics can be so lazy and uninspired.
..................................................
One of the weaker episodes in this season with no stock footage.
2.5/5 webheads.
It sucks that the writers of the best episode also made the worst episode.
I appreciate that the story took a different route from merely being adrenaline sucking suit to something that adds power but also makes the wearer angrier and more aggressive, they way this take was used for incarnations out of the mainline comics made them more entertaining.
Reference point to what adapted this "Symbiote makes you more efficient" plot thread:
- Ultimate Spider-Man comics and the game tie-in, but the game only showed that in the opening cinematic and refused to make the 100% in Spidey's campaign suit make you stronger. That last race against Human Torch is a complete waste of time and energy, same goes for all the maddening insane difficulty races.
- Marvel Adventures comic line
- Spider-Man 3 movie and game tie-ins.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man animated.
- The most recent animated adaption that is so bland and uninspired
Thankfully, it didn't take over every other adaption.
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 09: The Alien Costume, Part 2:
Poor CGI shot followed by a nice looking hand drawn landscape that doesn't match with what came before it as either aesthetically, day time, or location, we get to see the title and story credits.
Written by: John Semper jr. (credits in this show doesn't call him jr., but you get to know that his father shares the same first name) and Brynne Stephens (did nothing that I'm familiar with).
We get to see a cool fight ruined by poorly colored visuals, and the first exposure to one of the symbiote's prime weaknesses used by a gun soldiers know would scramble their ears as well.
As the alien moves Spider-Man away from the mercenaries, his motion works in a flat area movement to pick up a flagpole and toss it at a fire hydrant by the mercenaries. Next shot has Spider-Man around a corner moving down closer to them, a corner that shouldn't be there based on previous shots.
This episode has too many quotes I love, so I won't be sharing any of them.
You all know you should watch the memeable moment video.
Cut to the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man complains to Jonah Jameson about his predicament while sticking to his office ceiling, and Jameson's response is:
"Think you can hide in some *word I cannot spell* new costume?"
Jameson is pretty stupid and unreasonable in this arc. Aside from worrying for his son and caring for his word he's STUPID.
Cut to Kingpin (who is rather stupid himself in his arc in this arc) and his buyers witnessing a display of Prometheum X's power, and I share the concern of that guy in shades, maybe not to his exaggerated levels.
How does Smythe know much about this rock's explosive powers without having a chance to test it?
Scene shifts to Curt Connors in ESU, who is instinctively afraid of Spider-Man cause he stole a rock. Not the most reasonable of instincts in this case, cause Spider-Man explains why.
"I helped you once when you were desperate, I could have turned you in but I didn't"
I think the Amazing Spider-Man 1 movie found a decent way to change Peter's attitude in this situation for that story, but this is a better take so I'll say "You could have took this much from the pilot that inspired your plot, TASM1"
I'd like to see the creature doc Connors tested the symbiote piece on.
I kinda wish we could get tests conducted by Reed Richards, and see them animated whenever a future adaption takes place.
Spider-Man leaves through the window and we get homage to this corner image.
Did you know the first issue of volume 2 is a decade old .at this point?
Cut to a shot of J.J.J. visiting his son in the hospital who is still tired from nothing..... and he knew what a guy he probably didn't see while he was tired on his seat looks like and was dressed in.
Brock is fired, Jameson announces it while withdrawing his reward, Kingpin is afraid that pictures of a guy dressed as a rhino carrying a plain white briefcase can link to him, and nothing will be explained about rhino to explain why Fisk is concerned.
Smythe: "I've got the perfect device, and the perfect man to use it"
Can I ask some questions? This raises a number of questions
Spider-Man searches Brock's apartment for the film of that day on the bridge, a film that is probably wasted cause.... "Barely an inconvenience"
Shocker comes to assault Brock, Spider-Man fights, rubble falls, Shocker leaves, Spider-Man tracks him, and he gets the old stone to test it at home.
Why was that stone placed in a lab far away from the main lab? Maybe that was the test lab and I thought it was in the Chrysler building all these years.
Why is that secret lab in an open place where anyone can see shady figures following the fat gentleman in a residential area?
And seriously, what are the blithering objects in the spider-sense background? Why does it look like there is a giant worm in there? What does anything in that design has to do with whatever it is he senses anytime the sense is displayed?
WHY DID THEY ALL DECIDE ON THAT CHAOS?
Why did Smythe make Shocker items? When did he have the time for that? Why did he do that? What's his purpose?
Shocker kidnaps John Jameson from the hospital to stash him somewhere and goes up to the penthouse of twirling mustache. How and why did Shocker go up there with nothing reported or passing through security?
Jameson: "Webhead, I've put your life in risk, but now I need your help, I'm calling you on TV"
Peter's face finally appears. This is an episode where his face rarely appears.
Smythe is a magician here.
Spider-Man can easily pull up the rear of a fire engine with the symbiote one him, but he has trouble against parts of two pillars on top of him before terrifying Shocker. Cartoon Batman is stronger than Spider-Man in this cartoon.
Shocker terrified by Spidey is gold, but Brock should have been cut loose and fell from that great height after that shock blast shot the web sticking him to survival.
And with nothing attached to it, the church bell rings signaling the time for Spider-Man to leave the symbiote behind.
This is a cartoon that is taken seriously by its fans, and it made a mistake accepted here, but made fun of in the game adaption of Spider-Man 3.
Too bad the game version guy didn't remember a moment of experience with the alien almost coming off before the bell tower.
Kingpin's arc in this arc ends with a revelation that the Prometheum X has no purpose of being mentioned again, but it should.
The symbiote drops from one spot, and goes on Eddie from another.
..................................................
This episode is weaker than the one from before.
1.5/5 webheads.
This arc... is weaker than Spider-Man 3. Some people call that one of the worst CBMs (which is wrong), and think that movie should have used the plot of this arc instead.
Nope, nu-uh. This is a really weak arc, and I did not even talk about part 3 of it yet.
Poor CGI shot followed by a nice looking hand drawn landscape that doesn't match with what came before it as either aesthetically, day time, or location, we get to see the title and story credits.
Written by: John Semper jr. (credits in this show doesn't call him jr., but you get to know that his father shares the same first name) and Brynne Stephens (did nothing that I'm familiar with).
We get to see a cool fight ruined by poorly colored visuals, and the first exposure to one of the symbiote's prime weaknesses used by a gun soldiers know would scramble their ears as well.
As the alien moves Spider-Man away from the mercenaries, his motion works in a flat area movement to pick up a flagpole and toss it at a fire hydrant by the mercenaries. Next shot has Spider-Man around a corner moving down closer to them, a corner that shouldn't be there based on previous shots.
This episode has too many quotes I love, so I won't be sharing any of them.
You all know you should watch the memeable moment video.
Cut to the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man complains to Jonah Jameson about his predicament while sticking to his office ceiling, and Jameson's response is:
"Think you can hide in some *word I cannot spell* new costume?"
Jameson is pretty stupid and unreasonable in this arc. Aside from worrying for his son and caring for his word he's STUPID.
Cut to Kingpin (who is rather stupid himself in his arc in this arc) and his buyers witnessing a display of Prometheum X's power, and I share the concern of that guy in shades, maybe not to his exaggerated levels.
How does Smythe know much about this rock's explosive powers without having a chance to test it?
Scene shifts to Curt Connors in ESU, who is instinctively afraid of Spider-Man cause he stole a rock. Not the most reasonable of instincts in this case, cause Spider-Man explains why.
"I helped you once when you were desperate, I could have turned you in but I didn't"
I think the Amazing Spider-Man 1 movie found a decent way to change Peter's attitude in this situation for that story, but this is a better take so I'll say "You could have took this much from the pilot that inspired your plot, TASM1"
I'd like to see the creature doc Connors tested the symbiote piece on.
I kinda wish we could get tests conducted by Reed Richards, and see them animated whenever a future adaption takes place.
Spider-Man leaves through the window and we get homage to this corner image.
Did you know the first issue of volume 2 is a decade old .at this point?
Cut to a shot of J.J.J. visiting his son in the hospital who is still tired from nothing..... and he knew what a guy he probably didn't see while he was tired on his seat looks like and was dressed in.
Brock is fired, Jameson announces it while withdrawing his reward, Kingpin is afraid that pictures of a guy dressed as a rhino carrying a plain white briefcase can link to him, and nothing will be explained about rhino to explain why Fisk is concerned.
Smythe: "I've got the perfect device, and the perfect man to use it"
Can I ask some questions? This raises a number of questions
Spider-Man searches Brock's apartment for the film of that day on the bridge, a film that is probably wasted cause.... "Barely an inconvenience"
Shocker comes to assault Brock, Spider-Man fights, rubble falls, Shocker leaves, Spider-Man tracks him, and he gets the old stone to test it at home.
Why was that stone placed in a lab far away from the main lab? Maybe that was the test lab and I thought it was in the Chrysler building all these years.
Why is that secret lab in an open place where anyone can see shady figures following the fat gentleman in a residential area?
And seriously, what are the blithering objects in the spider-sense background? Why does it look like there is a giant worm in there? What does anything in that design has to do with whatever it is he senses anytime the sense is displayed?
WHY DID THEY ALL DECIDE ON THAT CHAOS?
Why did Smythe make Shocker items? When did he have the time for that? Why did he do that? What's his purpose?
Shocker kidnaps John Jameson from the hospital to stash him somewhere and goes up to the penthouse of twirling mustache. How and why did Shocker go up there with nothing reported or passing through security?
Jameson: "Webhead, I've put your life in risk, but now I need your help, I'm calling you on TV"
Peter's face finally appears. This is an episode where his face rarely appears.
Smythe is a magician here.
Spider-Man can easily pull up the rear of a fire engine with the symbiote one him, but he has trouble against parts of two pillars on top of him before terrifying Shocker. Cartoon Batman is stronger than Spider-Man in this cartoon.
Shocker terrified by Spidey is gold, but Brock should have been cut loose and fell from that great height after that shock blast shot the web sticking him to survival.
And with nothing attached to it, the church bell rings signaling the time for Spider-Man to leave the symbiote behind.
This is a cartoon that is taken seriously by its fans, and it made a mistake accepted here, but made fun of in the game adaption of Spider-Man 3.
Too bad the game version guy didn't remember a moment of experience with the alien almost coming off before the bell tower.
Kingpin's arc in this arc ends with a revelation that the Prometheum X has no purpose of being mentioned again, but it should.
The symbiote drops from one spot, and goes on Eddie from another.
..................................................
This episode is weaker than the one from before.
1.5/5 webheads.
This arc... is weaker than Spider-Man 3. Some people call that one of the worst CBMs (which is wrong), and think that movie should have used the plot of this arc instead.
Nope, nu-uh. This is a really weak arc, and I did not even talk about part 3 of it yet.
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 10: The Alien Costume, Part 3:
I'll try to be a poet with this episode's review.
Pumping up iron, flashback on his biceps
We see Brock's back suddenly get deflated
Next shot almost shows, his seating almost exposed
Spider-Man swings, and it's daytime the first shot
Next thing we see, nighttime and moonlight
Sees Rhino on roof, goes down to attack him
Shocker shocks him, and Spidey can't lift a billboard
Venom comes to the scene, takes down Rhino and Shocker
Spider-Man whines, but sees some webbing
Brock gives him a hand, we see him as Venom
Take a look at Venom, there's seating on his head
Jolly old dude can't focus a lens
Young dude shakes, and lens doesn't focus
This camera's logic is messing with some physics
Unmasked costumed dude, cuts a flag to hide
He runs away swinging, cause he can't keep fighting
Dude sees his girlfriend
beast knew this appointment
Beast is there, to greet his costumed rival
Dude and his lady leave
They see to a subway train
The man goes home, where beast has more fun and follows
Aunt thinks he's nice, beast drops a tree
Beast leave the place, dude decides to follow
Attack one home, another home attacked
Cornice is shattered, dude is falling
To a train they go, in steam they're hiding
Train not caught, when beast jumped to catch it
A truck is stolen, the beast is driving
The horn sounds honking, the beast is staring
How did that truck, find its way to a train?
Who gives a care? All that matters is being there
Rocket engine goes boom, beast is a man
The alien forced up, with the rocket it's crying
Dude leaves with buffer dude, buffer dude is captured
Dude looks to the moon, he and his lady are sitting
He barely says a word, these events were scary
Don't looks at the moon, it's not the dark side of it
There is no spoon, this nonsense is chiming
..................................................
This episode is cool, better than before
Rating goes up, cause Kingpin is away doozing
4.25/5 webheads.
There are still moments of crappy CGI due to unmatching scenery
I'll try to be a poet with this episode's review.
Pumping up iron, flashback on his biceps
We see Brock's back suddenly get deflated
Next shot almost shows, his seating almost exposed
Spider-Man swings, and it's daytime the first shot
Next thing we see, nighttime and moonlight
Sees Rhino on roof, goes down to attack him
Shocker shocks him, and Spidey can't lift a billboard
Venom comes to the scene, takes down Rhino and Shocker
Spider-Man whines, but sees some webbing
Brock gives him a hand, we see him as Venom
Take a look at Venom, there's seating on his head
Jolly old dude can't focus a lens
Young dude shakes, and lens doesn't focus
This camera's logic is messing with some physics
Unmasked costumed dude, cuts a flag to hide
He runs away swinging, cause he can't keep fighting
Dude sees his girlfriend
beast knew this appointment
Beast is there, to greet his costumed rival
Dude and his lady leave
They see to a subway train
The man goes home, where beast has more fun and follows
Aunt thinks he's nice, beast drops a tree
Beast leave the place, dude decides to follow
Attack one home, another home attacked
Cornice is shattered, dude is falling
To a train they go, in steam they're hiding
Train not caught, when beast jumped to catch it
A truck is stolen, the beast is driving
The horn sounds honking, the beast is staring
How did that truck, find its way to a train?
Who gives a care? All that matters is being there
Rocket engine goes boom, beast is a man
The alien forced up, with the rocket it's crying
Dude leaves with buffer dude, buffer dude is captured
Dude looks to the moon, he and his lady are sitting
He barely says a word, these events were scary
Don't looks at the moon, it's not the dark side of it
There is no spoon, this nonsense is chiming
..................................................
This episode is cool, better than before
Rating goes up, cause Kingpin is away doozing
4.25/5 webheads.
There are still moments of crappy CGI due to unmatching scenery
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 11: The Hobgoblin, Part 1:
Two arcs in a row? What an ok thing to do.
Like Kraven the Hunter, this is simply titled after the story's antagonist.
Story by John Semper jr, so one writer will not have a more conflicting vision on this one.
Episode opens with a bald brown toned skin guy in an orange cape wearing his yellow pointy eared mask, preparing himself. Lift off, we see the full frontal head and we hear the laugh of the Joker in a low voice.
Cut to Kingpin in his car talking about public image, a look out of the car showing the shadow of Hobgoblin flying over his car, and no sooner does it cut to Peter Parker's face saying "I don't believe it", which should express opinions on that pacing of showing all these images with all that info dump in 31 seconds. Crieckey, slow down, breathe.
Peter is communicating with Harry Osborn about the importance of having a serious person as a roommate so Norman would be convinced to let Harry have his own place.
And we get some nice backstory about the Osborn family, that does not go to the usual "My mom died" trope overused in Disney TV and film stories, and this season aired a decade and a half before the buyout took place.
You ever wonder how in cartoon physics in general there is always the case of someone pushing a person much stronger than he/she is and this passes by without being questioned by anyone around them? It's just the norm for them.
I'm talking about Peter pushing Fisk out of harm's way, and the latter is at least three times the size of the former.
Here's another look at cartoon physics; Hobgoblin was too high up and all he could see is a small look at head & shoulders when the rescue happened, and the next day he knew exactly who foiled his assassination attempt by quickly pushing his target out of harm's way.
Favorite quote time:
Hobgoblin: "Enjoying the flight?"
Spidey: "Some flight. No peanuts, no Stallone movie. I'm out of here."
*Cue Judge Dredd theme as Spidey drops to an almost certain doom*
Spider-Man has trouble performing a stunt he's never tried before, but Hobgoblin mastered the glider he probably never took lessons for before.
Seems like sheer irony.
That exchange between Norman and the Hobgoblin is interesting and entertaining, a start for how much fun Hobgoblin is as a villain in this show.
Problem with that factory scene? Shoddy animation.
That talk between May and Peter about moving out is fine, a good character moment between the two characters.
Then Peter watches TV, and newscaster called the unnamed assailant "Hobgoblin". How did he know the name? Aside from Norman and Spider-Man (being told by the man himself), how would anyone know?
After a house warming party scene for Pete's new digs, we cut to a night on the tow with Hobgoblin heading to Fisk estate to be captured by a security arm in an elevator, only for it to let go of him once the guy on the glider and who is not disarmed is up in the top secret top floor.
Smythe: "WHAT?"
Yes, I'm with you on the attitude of listening to Kingpin telling his men to lower the weapons they have trained on the intruder.
Kingpin wants to teach Norman a lesson for double-crossing him, and Hobgoblin knows not only about the bachelor pad little Goblin jr is at, but the exact same window a day after renting it.
"Your life's work, or your boy's life"
Kingpin is one sly greedy jerk, and is a fun version albeit overused.
There are great character interactions here after Hobgoblin betrays Kingpin, but how did he master the new glider and all its gadgets? The problem with this animated adaption and all the movies is that Goblins can just masterfully fly the glider under their feet in quite a short time. Comics give them time to practice, and they're in short format too.
And the episode ends with a cliffhanger showing bombs exploding after Spider-Man.
..................................................
Not one of the better episodes, might be about the same level as Sting of the Scorpion, or slightly better.
3.25/5 Joking Goblin
Two arcs in a row? What an ok thing to do.
Like Kraven the Hunter, this is simply titled after the story's antagonist.
Story by John Semper jr, so one writer will not have a more conflicting vision on this one.
Episode opens with a bald brown toned skin guy in an orange cape wearing his yellow pointy eared mask, preparing himself. Lift off, we see the full frontal head and we hear the laugh of the Joker in a low voice.
Cut to Kingpin in his car talking about public image, a look out of the car showing the shadow of Hobgoblin flying over his car, and no sooner does it cut to Peter Parker's face saying "I don't believe it", which should express opinions on that pacing of showing all these images with all that info dump in 31 seconds. Crieckey, slow down, breathe.
Peter is communicating with Harry Osborn about the importance of having a serious person as a roommate so Norman would be convinced to let Harry have his own place.
And we get some nice backstory about the Osborn family, that does not go to the usual "My mom died" trope overused in Disney TV and film stories, and this season aired a decade and a half before the buyout took place.
You ever wonder how in cartoon physics in general there is always the case of someone pushing a person much stronger than he/she is and this passes by without being questioned by anyone around them? It's just the norm for them.
I'm talking about Peter pushing Fisk out of harm's way, and the latter is at least three times the size of the former.
Here's another look at cartoon physics; Hobgoblin was too high up and all he could see is a small look at head & shoulders when the rescue happened, and the next day he knew exactly who foiled his assassination attempt by quickly pushing his target out of harm's way.
Favorite quote time:
Hobgoblin: "Enjoying the flight?"
Spidey: "Some flight. No peanuts, no Stallone movie. I'm out of here."
*Cue Judge Dredd theme as Spidey drops to an almost certain doom*
Spider-Man has trouble performing a stunt he's never tried before, but Hobgoblin mastered the glider he probably never took lessons for before.
Seems like sheer irony.
That exchange between Norman and the Hobgoblin is interesting and entertaining, a start for how much fun Hobgoblin is as a villain in this show.
Problem with that factory scene? Shoddy animation.
That talk between May and Peter about moving out is fine, a good character moment between the two characters.
Then Peter watches TV, and newscaster called the unnamed assailant "Hobgoblin". How did he know the name? Aside from Norman and Spider-Man (being told by the man himself), how would anyone know?
After a house warming party scene for Pete's new digs, we cut to a night on the tow with Hobgoblin heading to Fisk estate to be captured by a security arm in an elevator, only for it to let go of him once the guy on the glider and who is not disarmed is up in the top secret top floor.
Smythe: "WHAT?"
Yes, I'm with you on the attitude of listening to Kingpin telling his men to lower the weapons they have trained on the intruder.
Kingpin wants to teach Norman a lesson for double-crossing him, and Hobgoblin knows not only about the bachelor pad little Goblin jr is at, but the exact same window a day after renting it.
"Your life's work, or your boy's life"
Kingpin is one sly greedy jerk, and is a fun version albeit overused.
There are great character interactions here after Hobgoblin betrays Kingpin, but how did he master the new glider and all its gadgets? The problem with this animated adaption and all the movies is that Goblins can just masterfully fly the glider under their feet in quite a short time. Comics give them time to practice, and they're in short format too.
And the episode ends with a cliffhanger showing bombs exploding after Spider-Man.
..................................................
Not one of the better episodes, might be about the same level as Sting of the Scorpion, or slightly better.
3.25/5 Joking Goblin
Last edited:
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 12: The Hobgoblin, Part 2:
This one opens exactly where the last part opened, and we see Stan Berkowitz credited as the solo writer for this episode. Stuff like this make me wonder why arc on TV shows don't have a more focused vision behind them by keeping the pen guided by a single scribe's hand, even though these shows have editors and captains leading them closer to a unified vision, not everyone is able to capture that feeling.
"Ratman"? Could that be a reference to Vermin? And Cockroachman could be a play on Beetle's name. Or perhaps I'm trying to dig too deep into these names mentioned when Spider-Man tried to find safety away from Hobgoblin's bombs in a garbage truck.
Oscorp, hospital, and then going to Kingpin's office in 1 and a half minute. Slowdown a bit.
Fisk gives Hobgoblin too much freedom here, he's quite an idiot in this arc. His men are stupid too. Smythe is simply the most reasonable villain in this organization in this arc.
Hobgoblin is a fun vile jerk, but Norman is verily mistreated in this show. You don't make the conqueror look bad and let him get easily conquered by every other villain.
I'm not going to use that as a strike on the episode exclusively when it is a canon use for this show.
Goblin fight in Fisk tower is a fun fight with proper tension, and a bit of plot induced stupidity in one shot of Spider-Man dodging Hobgoblin when he had the chance to step on him without the risk of being hit by a razor sharp disc.
That moment of Norman talking about how much he cares for his son is one of the greater moments with the character in this show. Sure he's a slimey monster who acts weird toward his son in most incarnations of the character, but he's a father who care for his son, even in an awkward and twisted way.
When the Hobgoblin came to attack Oscorp, there was a good display of Spidey strength for this show, and it's possibly the strongest he's been shown in this show with how he holds the beam from falling on Osborn duo and shoving it aside, most other times this Spidey would struggle for a minute with this much weight.
The aerial maneuver bit is entertaining, but undermines the abilities of one character in the party, and overestimates the other one. Can't say I blame Stan Berkowitz given the hand he was dealt.
That ending is kinda similar to one from an 80s cartoon, and I have nothing against that.
..................................................
Better than part 1
3.75/5 Derpy Goblin Faces
This one opens exactly where the last part opened, and we see Stan Berkowitz credited as the solo writer for this episode. Stuff like this make me wonder why arc on TV shows don't have a more focused vision behind them by keeping the pen guided by a single scribe's hand, even though these shows have editors and captains leading them closer to a unified vision, not everyone is able to capture that feeling.
"Ratman"? Could that be a reference to Vermin? And Cockroachman could be a play on Beetle's name. Or perhaps I'm trying to dig too deep into these names mentioned when Spider-Man tried to find safety away from Hobgoblin's bombs in a garbage truck.
Oscorp, hospital, and then going to Kingpin's office in 1 and a half minute. Slowdown a bit.
Fisk gives Hobgoblin too much freedom here, he's quite an idiot in this arc. His men are stupid too. Smythe is simply the most reasonable villain in this organization in this arc.
Hobgoblin is a fun vile jerk, but Norman is verily mistreated in this show. You don't make the conqueror look bad and let him get easily conquered by every other villain.
I'm not going to use that as a strike on the episode exclusively when it is a canon use for this show.
Goblin fight in Fisk tower is a fun fight with proper tension, and a bit of plot induced stupidity in one shot of Spider-Man dodging Hobgoblin when he had the chance to step on him without the risk of being hit by a razor sharp disc.
That moment of Norman talking about how much he cares for his son is one of the greater moments with the character in this show. Sure he's a slimey monster who acts weird toward his son in most incarnations of the character, but he's a father who care for his son, even in an awkward and twisted way.
When the Hobgoblin came to attack Oscorp, there was a good display of Spidey strength for this show, and it's possibly the strongest he's been shown in this show with how he holds the beam from falling on Osborn duo and shoving it aside, most other times this Spidey would struggle for a minute with this much weight.
The aerial maneuver bit is entertaining, but undermines the abilities of one character in the party, and overestimates the other one. Can't say I blame Stan Berkowitz given the hand he was dealt.
That ending is kinda similar to one from an 80s cartoon, and I have nothing against that.
..................................................
Better than part 1
3.75/5 Derpy Goblin Faces
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 01 - EPISODE 13: Day of the Chameleon:
Because I shared this in the 'Cinematic Civil War' discussion before watching the episode from start to finish for this review, I'll open the review with this.
Here's what the acronym SHIELD stands for in this cartoon
Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law enforcement Division
And here's what Phil Coulson told Pepper Potts
Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division
This episode was written by John Smeper jr, and I think I read him once say that it's his favorite? I hope it lives up to that sentiment.
Action scene starting in the airport and passing into the streets of Manhattan in a high rising helicopter chase, that leads to what may be the highest jump Spider-Man performed in a cartoon.
Helicopter pilot Spider-Man saved is moving away from the scene of the incident, Spider-Man wants him to stop, but the helicopter blows up endangering more people so Spider-Man had to stick around and save the one person who was unable to choose to move away like the rest did.
Peter Parker rushes into the offices of the Daily Bugle to secure his chance at the task of taking pictures of the peace treaty, or at least one of them together in Jameson's party gathering the two important figures in his house. It's been established before that this publisher does not think of Peter Parker as the kind of photographer he could depend on for a charity ball, so it shouldn't be a shock that he's not that supportive of the idea of Peter wanting to take pictures of such an important historical and political event.
Peter cracks a one liner when the two are chained to their seats after Jonah gave him a chance to explain why he should be the photographer for the job, and unlike what Tobey was given about stuttering and not being confident to crack oneliners out of costume.. this is actually a natural thing for Peter Parker. I like Tobey's Peter, but I don't like that they drained confidence and charisma out of him like that in the Raimi movies, especially part 2.
Up in SHIELD helicarrier, Peter is shoved aside in a cage cause they don't want him in on classified information that he gets anyway. On his way to getting the info he seeks walking through the air vents, Peter finds a shooting practice arena where SHIELD agents are dressed like Kingpin's security officers (could it be that Wilson hired rogue SHIELD agents instead of thugs and possibly a few mercenaries? They shouldn't dress the same way ass SHIELD agents tho), and a door in the air vents that sucks him out into the grounds below. Yikes, security in that place is extreme.
"You printed the negatives on the flipside, my eyepatch is on the wrong eye"
That will be weirdly an important plot point, and it should be weird, I'll explain why later.
Favorite quote.
"If we shut down everytime someone threats us the whole world would stop"
I admit that treating Chameleon as an international threat is one of the best decisions made in putting him in an adaption, he's always been a dangerous spy.
Taking head shots into his energy built gives Chameleon detailed description of every part size, what they currently wear at the time of the scene, and more is something to ponder.
WOW, to think that this kids show has a form of sexual harassment is kind of scary. Chameleon kissed MJ in the Daily Bugle's ground floor lobby out of the blue to hide himself.
Party time. This episode is the first to have Spider-Man call a gargoyle Bruce, and this animated series made me look at comics more thoroughly when I started reading them regularly, I expected to find him chat with a gargoyle.
Though in recent years I preferred seeing him not do that, I'm glad this is made up for this cartoon and hasn't found its way to the comics.
Chopper with guns passes by intruder high on the outside of the building, did not shoot him with their cartoon censorship no killing laser guns.
Spider-Man had a chance to capture the real Chameleon as he's pretending to be Agent 1, but he wastes that chance.
Chameleon took a shot of reverse negative picture of Nick Fury's head, disguised himself as the colonel with his tux on. And Nick's aid did not notice the patch is on the wrong eye.
Spider-Man shouts obvious thing, nobody familiar with the Colonel in person listens to him as they keep doing what they're doing, and no one wonders how Spider-Man is casually aware and unphased that a dead man is alive and walking, knowing the wrong eye is masked.
Energy belt is broken, andMr. X type tyrant Chameleon is captured.
Then there is the play of MJ. She's mad at Peter for not showing to her play as he promised, and for kissing her in this show. This one is the first of two cartoons before Spider-Man 2 where she doesn't go overboard in being mad at Pete for not showing to her play.
MJ is terrible in Spider-Man 2.
..................................................
On the same level the previous episode is on.
3.75/5 Chameleon talks too much
Because I shared this in the 'Cinematic Civil War' discussion before watching the episode from start to finish for this review, I'll open the review with this.
Here's what the acronym SHIELD stands for in this cartoon
Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law enforcement Division
And here's what Phil Coulson told Pepper Potts
Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division
This episode was written by John Smeper jr, and I think I read him once say that it's his favorite? I hope it lives up to that sentiment.
Action scene starting in the airport and passing into the streets of Manhattan in a high rising helicopter chase, that leads to what may be the highest jump Spider-Man performed in a cartoon.
Helicopter pilot Spider-Man saved is moving away from the scene of the incident, Spider-Man wants him to stop, but the helicopter blows up endangering more people so Spider-Man had to stick around and save the one person who was unable to choose to move away like the rest did.
Peter Parker rushes into the offices of the Daily Bugle to secure his chance at the task of taking pictures of the peace treaty, or at least one of them together in Jameson's party gathering the two important figures in his house. It's been established before that this publisher does not think of Peter Parker as the kind of photographer he could depend on for a charity ball, so it shouldn't be a shock that he's not that supportive of the idea of Peter wanting to take pictures of such an important historical and political event.
Peter cracks a one liner when the two are chained to their seats after Jonah gave him a chance to explain why he should be the photographer for the job, and unlike what Tobey was given about stuttering and not being confident to crack oneliners out of costume.. this is actually a natural thing for Peter Parker. I like Tobey's Peter, but I don't like that they drained confidence and charisma out of him like that in the Raimi movies, especially part 2.
Up in SHIELD helicarrier, Peter is shoved aside in a cage cause they don't want him in on classified information that he gets anyway. On his way to getting the info he seeks walking through the air vents, Peter finds a shooting practice arena where SHIELD agents are dressed like Kingpin's security officers (could it be that Wilson hired rogue SHIELD agents instead of thugs and possibly a few mercenaries? They shouldn't dress the same way ass SHIELD agents tho), and a door in the air vents that sucks him out into the grounds below. Yikes, security in that place is extreme.
"You printed the negatives on the flipside, my eyepatch is on the wrong eye"
That will be weirdly an important plot point, and it should be weird, I'll explain why later.
Favorite quote.
"If we shut down everytime someone threats us the whole world would stop"
I admit that treating Chameleon as an international threat is one of the best decisions made in putting him in an adaption, he's always been a dangerous spy.
Taking head shots into his energy built gives Chameleon detailed description of every part size, what they currently wear at the time of the scene, and more is something to ponder.
WOW, to think that this kids show has a form of sexual harassment is kind of scary. Chameleon kissed MJ in the Daily Bugle's ground floor lobby out of the blue to hide himself.
Party time. This episode is the first to have Spider-Man call a gargoyle Bruce, and this animated series made me look at comics more thoroughly when I started reading them regularly, I expected to find him chat with a gargoyle.
Though in recent years I preferred seeing him not do that, I'm glad this is made up for this cartoon and hasn't found its way to the comics.
Chopper with guns passes by intruder high on the outside of the building, did not shoot him with their cartoon censorship no killing laser guns.
Spider-Man had a chance to capture the real Chameleon as he's pretending to be Agent 1, but he wastes that chance.
Chameleon took a shot of reverse negative picture of Nick Fury's head, disguised himself as the colonel with his tux on. And Nick's aid did not notice the patch is on the wrong eye.
Spider-Man shouts obvious thing, nobody familiar with the Colonel in person listens to him as they keep doing what they're doing, and no one wonders how Spider-Man is casually aware and unphased that a dead man is alive and walking, knowing the wrong eye is masked.
Energy belt is broken, and
Then there is the play of MJ. She's mad at Peter for not showing to her play as he promised, and for kissing her in this show. This one is the first of two cartoons before Spider-Man 2 where she doesn't go overboard in being mad at Pete for not showing to her play.
MJ is terrible in Spider-Man 2.
..................................................
On the same level the previous episode is on.
3.75/5 Chameleon talks too much
Spider-Aziz
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And thus, ends my marathon for season 1 of what is possibly the second best Spider-Man animated show... that has Spider-Man in its title. The better two shows in this order from best to second best:
Average rating for the season
3.46/5
- The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series
- Batman Beyond
Average rating for the season
3.46/5
- Coloring palette in day time is uneven, coloring looks more relaxing for eyes of the audience during nighttime.
- Animation is solid for the most part, this is before going into the more shoddy animation territory of later seasons, especially in season 5.
- Voice acting is solid. This is before going deeper into the more painful voice acting territory following seasons suffer from with some of their cast.
- Size shift didn't occur here as often as it does in later seasons, and that is a positive thing.
- Spider-Man is physically underwhelming. He was one of the strongest characters in the silver age era (those who rank above him are Hulk, Thor, Thing, and Hercules), and is nerfed down a great deal in strength.
- Comic villains aren't represented at their best, and this is probably the best representation most of them had on this shows standards.
- Kingpin doesn't play as prominent a role here as he does in later seasons, but there is still too much of him.
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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First things first; I'll talk about the changes to the intro between season 01 and season 02, and how the intro changes for season 2 stick around until the show ends its run.
They both start with the webline going down opening up as a net, and then spreading all over the screen.
The next shot is a look at buildings and the camera is swirling:
*First Season opens up with CGI buildings, camera moves right to follow Spider-Man's movements, and then we see a close up of him still swinging between buildings until he lands on the first roof, and view shifts to Hobgoblin coming to toss a bomb at him while background is still CGI. Then the scene shifts to the psychotic spider-sense moment from after Spider-Man webbed Brock in the pilot episode.
Spider-Man falls in wooden crates, and then the swing shot from the pilot that feels like a homage to the final swing shot from the 60s cartoon that every segment ends with in season 1.
Spider-Man then swing kicks down and a simple shot with a red background of Peter in pain with his old shirt after the spider bit his hand. None of the convoluted stuff added to season 2 intro.
Then it is a nice intro showing Spider-Man's rogues, Peter holding a camera, J. Jonah Jameson, shots of some of his fights and some villains he faces. The only one who is shown to hurt him is Doctor Octopus in two shots, it is as if they wanted you to know this far ahead that this is supposed to be the arch nemesis, the chief foe, the deadliest of Spider-Man's enemies.
Too bad that didn't happen in later seasons and he was instead relegated to being Kingpin's butt monkey (@Sarcastic Fan how did that expression come to be?)
Kingpin is shown to be the insidious behind the scenes villain, the impression this intro gave is one that didn't stick that well.
Only other foe shown to do harm to Spider-Man is the spider slayer when it pours oils between his fingers and the wall he's crawling upwards, signifying the importance of the inventor of the spider slayer to the over-arching story.
Venom is at the end foreshadows his importance, but you watch the show until the end and you see his importance is exclusive to this season.
And the intro ends with that title card of Spider-Man sitting on his cartoon title, and it's written in that art style I never liked.
*Second Season intro moves from those visuals to a clip of buildings from the opening of the third episode; 'the Spider Slayer'. Spider-Man is not shown swinging, instead we take a look at it in reverse. Scene shifts to a spider getting doused by radiation, rotating on what looks like a tiled floor, then it crawls down normally until it finds its way to Peter's -in the pink T-Shirt that sticks with him to the end of the line- hand and bites him. Pete is all "OOOHHH, OOWWW", and then we see him crawl shirtless up to a ceiling, and it switches to him in his Spidey suit clinging to another ceiling.
The he swing kicks the lizard, is chased by other super villains, completely unimportant in fights. The electric singing part stretches in this intro, and the instrumental part is cut shorter than before.
Music notes that follow the first instrumental part are the same as usual until the song ends with no more electric vocals than saying Spider-Man twice between the second instrumental part and the title card.
Spider-Man is displayed rather weak against villains in this intro.
Why is Venom still the thing the intro ends with? He's no longer part of the equation.
The first season did the intro better than seasons that followed. I don't like the intro changes.
They both start with the webline going down opening up as a net, and then spreading all over the screen.
The next shot is a look at buildings and the camera is swirling:
*First Season opens up with CGI buildings, camera moves right to follow Spider-Man's movements, and then we see a close up of him still swinging between buildings until he lands on the first roof, and view shifts to Hobgoblin coming to toss a bomb at him while background is still CGI. Then the scene shifts to the psychotic spider-sense moment from after Spider-Man webbed Brock in the pilot episode.
Spider-Man falls in wooden crates, and then the swing shot from the pilot that feels like a homage to the final swing shot from the 60s cartoon that every segment ends with in season 1.
Spider-Man then swing kicks down and a simple shot with a red background of Peter in pain with his old shirt after the spider bit his hand. None of the convoluted stuff added to season 2 intro.
Then it is a nice intro showing Spider-Man's rogues, Peter holding a camera, J. Jonah Jameson, shots of some of his fights and some villains he faces. The only one who is shown to hurt him is Doctor Octopus in two shots, it is as if they wanted you to know this far ahead that this is supposed to be the arch nemesis, the chief foe, the deadliest of Spider-Man's enemies.
Too bad that didn't happen in later seasons and he was instead relegated to being Kingpin's butt monkey (@Sarcastic Fan how did that expression come to be?)
Kingpin is shown to be the insidious behind the scenes villain, the impression this intro gave is one that didn't stick that well.
Only other foe shown to do harm to Spider-Man is the spider slayer when it pours oils between his fingers and the wall he's crawling upwards, signifying the importance of the inventor of the spider slayer to the over-arching story.
Venom is at the end foreshadows his importance, but you watch the show until the end and you see his importance is exclusive to this season.
And the intro ends with that title card of Spider-Man sitting on his cartoon title, and it's written in that art style I never liked.
*Second Season intro moves from those visuals to a clip of buildings from the opening of the third episode; 'the Spider Slayer'. Spider-Man is not shown swinging, instead we take a look at it in reverse. Scene shifts to a spider getting doused by radiation, rotating on what looks like a tiled floor, then it crawls down normally until it finds its way to Peter's -in the pink T-Shirt that sticks with him to the end of the line- hand and bites him. Pete is all "OOOHHH, OOWWW", and then we see him crawl shirtless up to a ceiling, and it switches to him in his Spidey suit clinging to another ceiling.
The he swing kicks the lizard, is chased by other super villains, completely unimportant in fights. The electric singing part stretches in this intro, and the instrumental part is cut shorter than before.
Music notes that follow the first instrumental part are the same as usual until the song ends with no more electric vocals than saying Spider-Man twice between the second instrumental part and the title card.
Spider-Man is displayed rather weak against villains in this intro.
Why is Venom still the thing the intro ends with? He's no longer part of the equation.
The first season did the intro better than seasons that followed. I don't like the intro changes.
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 02 - EPISODE 01: The Sinister Six:
Sinister is too scary for a kids show? A replacement word should be used?
Let's go with... Insidious. Yes, a word that means evil that is hidden and shadowy, that will make the title less terrifying although in hindsight it makes less sense cause the villains go out in daylight causing chaos more than they do it in concealment.
Episode starts with Spider-Man sulking about not having a girlfriend to talk to except for gargoyles, but he had two last season so what gives? It's not like MJ decided to dump him after he walked away from their date in Kraven's episode, neither did Felicia.
And then the scene shifts to two flashbacks from previous episodes, one of them kept the dialogue intact while the other one remembers dialogue other than what was really said in the original scene.
Spider-Man hops around, he sticks, he falls, he sticks again, and falls again, and sticks again, and he's in a dumpster with chicken feathers.
The color palette in the morning setting of the city looks fine, but the colors of Spider-Man's costume doesn't lend itself well to the background when it's all glassy blue, there is something a bit appalling about it.
We then move from daytime footage with Spider-Man to night time footage with Kingpin and his roundtable of fellow crimelords.
Silvermane being concerned about the future is more sensible than a certain scene from a certain movie focusing on a certain villain with his board of directors.
Why did Silvermane feel the need to tie Kingpin to his chair to show him their concerns though? It's not like the story needed to go that far to show how much distrust Silvermane and other gang bosses have regarding Kingpin.
"Spider-Man's presence is expensive to us, we won't try to do anything even though it will be established later this season that we all share the same city this guy tours, let's just place all the challenge of removing this pest on your shoulders alone."
Look at Hammerhead sitting on the table like he's a gang boss. Are you a gang boss, Hammer? Are you?
How is there so much well captured continuous footage of Spider-Man keeping him precisely in frame in the Hall of Ganglords monitor?
Kingpin can cuts these metal wires holding him by sheer force of willpower (and muscle) with absolute ease, tells of his plan to end the wallcrawler.
Shot shifts to prison gates, a robot mouser moves in, Alistaire Smythe is like the Baxter Stockman in this show, who seemingly happened to inspire 2003 animated Turtles series Baxter Stockman.
Fun, almost unrelated trivia; Baxter Stockman and Shredder never met in the original Mirage Comics.
That one beetle carries a new energy belt to give it to the Chameleon, Cammy is happy to hear the message from Al Smythe who knew the precise measure of Chameleon's hip to make the new belt a perfect fit, and it has a pre-recorded picture of warden Davis.
Prison guard sees the warden in his night tour, opens the cell door, sees that it's the Chameleon in there and he has more than 50 seconds chance to simply close the door behind him and end the escape attempt.
Sorry, what? Oh yeah, a story needs to happen. Switch shots mate, forget the logic of a well trained prison guard in a facility containing super powered villains can fight back and hold the threat, let's just shift the shot to him being conscious, unhurt, and cage in the Chameleon's stead.
This scene alone being this bonkers and stupid made me lose confidence in this being a good episode. I will still enjoy it, but I won't tell you that it's a good episode.
Sorry John Semper jr. I still love your show, and I appreciate being in the wonderful facebook group you started for us fans of your show, but I'll try to be as fair as possible and still say what parts are done wrong and are not well handled, like this one.
And then fake prison guard moves to other super villain cells, starting with the no longer super extra large, green skinned, yellow eyed, has claws/talons/long sharp nails on the tips of his fingers, we see his face for the second and only other time after his debut... Mc Gargan/Scorpion.
And then these villains in the order that follows:
Mysterio hides the group in fog guards enter to see remains of fog but don't question where the smog that looks like cotton candy came from and they just leave, giving our four heroes the time to get out of their hiding.
Then they get Rhino out, and then Doc Ock, and who built these holding cells for them faster than they could be captured? And everyone happily escapes.
Warehouse rendezvous, sample of show how Spider-Man can lose against six, robot breaks, Chameleon freaks out Kingpin, all clap together. Scene shift back to Spider-Man the next morning who swings until his powers suddenly tap out, and CGI of a building he's falling from does not match with the next shot of hand drawn building.
Spider-Man jogs, his clothes are on a high ledge so he can't reach them now, his webbing dissolves in an hour, but this arc will ignore this established rule.
Peter has breakfast the next morning, one consisting of two slices of bread with no stuffing between them. May is concerned that he's running late without his breakfast that was already in his hand.
Peter enters as soon as the lecture and the announcement of the Toomes Foundation grant ends, and ponders his luck as all students leave the hall.
Time for the best dialogue exchange for the episode
Michael: "I had thought you would be my main competition Parker, but you will be lucky to make it to the starting line."
Peter: "Don't forget Michael; the tortoise beat the hare."
Michael: "In my country, we eat tortoises."
Felicia approaches Pete then, Morbius shows the irksome courtesy of suddenly bowing down and kissing her hand (what's up with that awkward tradition?), and then both her and Peter take turn insulting the dude. Did I mention that Peter is a jerk in the first two seasons of this show? Cause he is, and this is a sample.
Flash takes our his frustration on his role model cause the boss of his role model is insulting that very same role model. It's funny to express what happened with this sentence due to the relationships between Jameson, Peter, and Flash.
And Peter exits the scene just like Batman. Swinging between pointless CGI scenery that is not used often enough to justify wasting budget on making what may be a CGI model of the entire city of Manhattan of the time.
Cool fight scene, but power phase out again. Scorpion follows the train Spider-Man is on, on foot, and catches on to it. I guess Scorpion's pacing speed saved him from meeting the fate of the villain from Speed once he bumped into the iron sign amidst his confusion.
Spider-Man goes to Connors to see what makes his powers fail him repeatedly, and remembers that the radioactive spider did not go through neogenic waves to mutate the effects of his bite the way I remember it happened.
Tests end, and Connors is like "Spider-Man prepare, you won't stay Spider-Man, you will be man."
Villains scour the city for Spider-Man, Peter ponders the loss of his powers, but thinks he can go on dates again, and worries he will keep Felicia hanging.
Felicia wants the date tonight, man, it's still the afternoon for you.
Scorpion and Ock meet in the suburbs, Octavius makes Gargan tell him about his plans, and then he shows him how to do it right. And this is the evening.
May got a call from Felicia, concerned that Peter is late. Call ends and Felicia says she'd worry if Peter ever showed up on time. I won't ask why you called then, but I'll ask why Peter couldn't make it in time when he had too much of it?
A mugger picks her purse, wearing that jersey again
Morbius is in the scene to stop the purse snatcher, he drops the purse as a cop car approaches, and cop car chases the running (insert Arnold joke) man. Morbius and Felicia make googly eyes and they go to the exhibit.
Ock's plane is in effect, Scorpion is nowhere near to be sighted to witness the plan. Peter comes home completely ignoring Felicia and talks about being late, and heads to the kitchen to read Ock's note.
One visit to the clinic, Shocker is suspicious. Spidey drops a visit, and is met with a Wicked Witch of the West homage.
To be continued
..................................................
An ok start to the season, not a bad one. Could have been better
I'll give it: 2.5/5 they are not properly Insidious
EDIT: I originally kept the score 3/5, but I think the current score is more accurate.
Sinister is too scary for a kids show? A replacement word should be used?
Let's go with... Insidious. Yes, a word that means evil that is hidden and shadowy, that will make the title less terrifying although in hindsight it makes less sense cause the villains go out in daylight causing chaos more than they do it in concealment.
Episode starts with Spider-Man sulking about not having a girlfriend to talk to except for gargoyles, but he had two last season so what gives? It's not like MJ decided to dump him after he walked away from their date in Kraven's episode, neither did Felicia.
And then the scene shifts to two flashbacks from previous episodes, one of them kept the dialogue intact while the other one remembers dialogue other than what was really said in the original scene.
Spider-Man hops around, he sticks, he falls, he sticks again, and falls again, and sticks again, and he's in a dumpster with chicken feathers.
The color palette in the morning setting of the city looks fine, but the colors of Spider-Man's costume doesn't lend itself well to the background when it's all glassy blue, there is something a bit appalling about it.
We then move from daytime footage with Spider-Man to night time footage with Kingpin and his roundtable of fellow crimelords.
Silvermane being concerned about the future is more sensible than a certain scene from a certain movie focusing on a certain villain with his board of directors.
Why did Silvermane feel the need to tie Kingpin to his chair to show him their concerns though? It's not like the story needed to go that far to show how much distrust Silvermane and other gang bosses have regarding Kingpin.
"Spider-Man's presence is expensive to us, we won't try to do anything even though it will be established later this season that we all share the same city this guy tours, let's just place all the challenge of removing this pest on your shoulders alone."
Look at Hammerhead sitting on the table like he's a gang boss. Are you a gang boss, Hammer? Are you?
How is there so much well captured continuous footage of Spider-Man keeping him precisely in frame in the Hall of Ganglords monitor?
Kingpin can cuts these metal wires holding him by sheer force of willpower (and muscle) with absolute ease, tells of his plan to end the wallcrawler.
Shot shifts to prison gates, a robot mouser moves in, Alistaire Smythe is like the Baxter Stockman in this show, who seemingly happened to inspire 2003 animated Turtles series Baxter Stockman.
Fun, almost unrelated trivia; Baxter Stockman and Shredder never met in the original Mirage Comics.
That one beetle carries a new energy belt to give it to the Chameleon, Cammy is happy to hear the message from Al Smythe who knew the precise measure of Chameleon's hip to make the new belt a perfect fit, and it has a pre-recorded picture of warden Davis.
Prison guard sees the warden in his night tour, opens the cell door, sees that it's the Chameleon in there and he has more than 50 seconds chance to simply close the door behind him and end the escape attempt.
Sorry, what? Oh yeah, a story needs to happen. Switch shots mate, forget the logic of a well trained prison guard in a facility containing super powered villains can fight back and hold the threat, let's just shift the shot to him being conscious, unhurt, and cage in the Chameleon's stead.
This scene alone being this bonkers and stupid made me lose confidence in this being a good episode. I will still enjoy it, but I won't tell you that it's a good episode.
Sorry John Semper jr. I still love your show, and I appreciate being in the wonderful facebook group you started for us fans of your show, but I'll try to be as fair as possible and still say what parts are done wrong and are not well handled, like this one.
And then fake prison guard moves to other super villain cells, starting with the no longer super extra large, green skinned, yellow eyed, has claws/talons/long sharp nails on the tips of his fingers, we see his face for the second and only other time after his debut... Mc Gargan/Scorpion.
And then these villains in the order that follows:
- Quentin Beck
- Shocker (why the mask? You have nothing to protect from your shock blasts from your broken shock blasters. Artists couldn't think of a face to draw for you? Ok)
Mysterio hides the group in fog guards enter to see remains of fog but don't question where the smog that looks like cotton candy came from and they just leave, giving our four heroes the time to get out of their hiding.
Then they get Rhino out, and then Doc Ock, and who built these holding cells for them faster than they could be captured? And everyone happily escapes.
Warehouse rendezvous, sample of show how Spider-Man can lose against six, robot breaks, Chameleon freaks out Kingpin, all clap together. Scene shift back to Spider-Man the next morning who swings until his powers suddenly tap out, and CGI of a building he's falling from does not match with the next shot of hand drawn building.
Spider-Man jogs, his clothes are on a high ledge so he can't reach them now, his webbing dissolves in an hour, but this arc will ignore this established rule.
Peter has breakfast the next morning, one consisting of two slices of bread with no stuffing between them. May is concerned that he's running late without his breakfast that was already in his hand.
Peter enters as soon as the lecture and the announcement of the Toomes Foundation grant ends, and ponders his luck as all students leave the hall.
Time for the best dialogue exchange for the episode
Michael: "I had thought you would be my main competition Parker, but you will be lucky to make it to the starting line."
Peter: "Don't forget Michael; the tortoise beat the hare."
Michael: "In my country, we eat tortoises."
Felicia approaches Pete then, Morbius shows the irksome courtesy of suddenly bowing down and kissing her hand (what's up with that awkward tradition?), and then both her and Peter take turn insulting the dude. Did I mention that Peter is a jerk in the first two seasons of this show? Cause he is, and this is a sample.
Flash takes our his frustration on his role model cause the boss of his role model is insulting that very same role model. It's funny to express what happened with this sentence due to the relationships between Jameson, Peter, and Flash.
And Peter exits the scene just like Batman. Swinging between pointless CGI scenery that is not used often enough to justify wasting budget on making what may be a CGI model of the entire city of Manhattan of the time.
Cool fight scene, but power phase out again. Scorpion follows the train Spider-Man is on, on foot, and catches on to it. I guess Scorpion's pacing speed saved him from meeting the fate of the villain from Speed once he bumped into the iron sign amidst his confusion.
Spider-Man goes to Connors to see what makes his powers fail him repeatedly, and remembers that the radioactive spider did not go through neogenic waves to mutate the effects of his bite the way I remember it happened.
Tests end, and Connors is like "Spider-Man prepare, you won't stay Spider-Man, you will be man."
Villains scour the city for Spider-Man, Peter ponders the loss of his powers, but thinks he can go on dates again, and worries he will keep Felicia hanging.
Felicia wants the date tonight, man, it's still the afternoon for you.
Scorpion and Ock meet in the suburbs, Octavius makes Gargan tell him about his plans, and then he shows him how to do it right. And this is the evening.
May got a call from Felicia, concerned that Peter is late. Call ends and Felicia says she'd worry if Peter ever showed up on time. I won't ask why you called then, but I'll ask why Peter couldn't make it in time when he had too much of it?
A mugger picks her purse, wearing that jersey again
Morbius is in the scene to stop the purse snatcher, he drops the purse as a cop car approaches, and cop car chases the running (insert Arnold joke) man. Morbius and Felicia make googly eyes and they go to the exhibit.
Ock's plane is in effect, Scorpion is nowhere near to be sighted to witness the plan. Peter comes home completely ignoring Felicia and talks about being late, and heads to the kitchen to read Ock's note.
One visit to the clinic, Shocker is suspicious. Spidey drops a visit, and is met with a Wicked Witch of the West homage.
To be continued
..................................................
An ok start to the season, not a bad one. Could have been better
I'll give it: 2.5/5 they are not properly Insidious
EDIT: I originally kept the score 3/5, but I think the current score is more accurate.
Last edited:
Spider-Aziz
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SEASON 02 - EPISODE 02: Battle of the Sinister Six:
I still refuse to call them insidious.
Episode starts with nurse Chameleon who has a new belt with the same images stored in it? What better way to explain the presence of that nurse from Sarajevo Chameleon disguised as.to be the nurse of Ock's clinic?
An average villains attack and Spider-Man evades action scene ensues, and it is average, nothing special. Mysterio's holocubes box falls to the ground after Ock attacked the crate directly below it, only one of them is activated and it's jungle mode.
Unless Mysterio's holocubes work by releasing hard light like in some of DC comics which was never established in this world, I don't know how hologram grass can be moved and make sounds of real grass while every character in this hub is moving.
Chameleon is back in the basement to witness the end of the fight, and you're probably not wondering one bit how he moves as fast as he does between this set and going up to the ground or the first floor to attend to Mrs. Parker as fast as he does in the middle of this short event. I'm not wondering about that either.
Silvermane and all the other crimelords are jackasses, I will not say more about him in this scene.
Homage to that failed boss fight in Amazing Spider-Man 12 with Doc Ock unmasking him.
There is that gang war plot introduced here that is pretty promising, but it's dropped out so fast and completely ignored for.. for... I have no real clue.
I'm not going to blame censorship for this failing of this cartoon that people take seriously.
They didn't wait long enough for the Taxi to leave the screen before they dropped the 'Octavius Clinic' illusion, and Smythe said this was a real clinic owned by Kingpin in the last episode, but now it's merely a deserted building.
Look at Hammerhead walking those few feet away from Silvermane's main gate security staff members, how did they not notice triangle brain this short distance between him and them?
Chameleon? What a twiiiiiist. That energy belt was so properly concealed nobody could tell the difference between him and Hammerhead.
When did Kingpin have time to show him files of that guy to store it in his belt memory to use it this soon?
Rhino picked up the cover, stood up on the elevator, and broke the suspension cables. He did not faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll with the elevator after this dumb move.
Lucky for him Smythe was there in the helicopter to carry the elevator prison of Silvermane and save his sorry hide.
Silvermane Chameleon told his crew to hold the gang war off? Ok, reasonable explanation why the gang war arc never happened in this action cartoon that has so many gang leaders ready for such an act of treachery.
Meeting with Spider-Man on a roof and public relations talk in the elevator is entertaining.
Hiding in plain sight, by having 6 air conditioner condensers made for split units placed on the roof of a kind of building that relies on central cooling is not one of the brightest plans Mysterio of this show came up with.
"Time for my academy award winning performance" or is it? Your performance was so forced and wooden.
These following minutes of action and tactics to take down the six neanderthals are tactful and well done, and are the only time this Spider-Man was allowed competence against six of his foes without needing to be saved by guest stars of the episodes.
Assaults with tails, tentacles, laser guns, and other weapons and kicks, but punches were not allowed due to censorship?
Weirdos.
Silvermane on the phone "Kingpin must be ERADICATED"
Oh ho, there was enough room to make the gang war happen, Chameleon's words weren't enough to cancel the arc from happening.
How did Shocker get his outfit back after walking in his underwear? They could have given him something like a Hawaiian shirt or something?
And the six quit working for Kingpin, Smythe laughs at his boss although he will fall under the flames of the attacks too, but everything goes fine and dandy later on, and Mr. Octavius is an employee of Mr. Fisk once more next season.
Felicia and Michael are officially dating, MJ was worried for May, nobody is staying in the hospital.
Spider-Man visits Connors for more tests, and it is revealed that Mr. Parker will mutate further after that, explaining the season's header title; 'NEOGENIC NIGHTMARE' by telling him "You won't be human".
Time to bring back that point brought to my attention by @Spidey_62 about the possible results of being this close to the 'Neogenic Recombinator' while curing Doc Connors the first time in the pilot episode, it feels just like the enervator plot from an 80s story that made Spider-Man a lizard man, but this time it further mutates his spider side instead.
At least... it's a sound theory explaining why they chose the risk of a season length arc with this specific plot.
..................................................
Better than part 1, but it's still a bit clunky
I'll give it: 3.25/5 they are more Sinister than Insidious
I still refuse to call them insidious.
Episode starts with nurse Chameleon who has a new belt with the same images stored in it? What better way to explain the presence of that nurse from Sarajevo Chameleon disguised as.to be the nurse of Ock's clinic?
An average villains attack and Spider-Man evades action scene ensues, and it is average, nothing special. Mysterio's holocubes box falls to the ground after Ock attacked the crate directly below it, only one of them is activated and it's jungle mode.
Unless Mysterio's holocubes work by releasing hard light like in some of DC comics which was never established in this world, I don't know how hologram grass can be moved and make sounds of real grass while every character in this hub is moving.
Chameleon is back in the basement to witness the end of the fight, and you're probably not wondering one bit how he moves as fast as he does between this set and going up to the ground or the first floor to attend to Mrs. Parker as fast as he does in the middle of this short event. I'm not wondering about that either.
Silvermane and all the other crimelords are jackasses, I will not say more about him in this scene.
Homage to that failed boss fight in Amazing Spider-Man 12 with Doc Ock unmasking him.
There is that gang war plot introduced here that is pretty promising, but it's dropped out so fast and completely ignored for.. for... I have no real clue.
I'm not going to blame censorship for this failing of this cartoon that people take seriously.
They didn't wait long enough for the Taxi to leave the screen before they dropped the 'Octavius Clinic' illusion, and Smythe said this was a real clinic owned by Kingpin in the last episode, but now it's merely a deserted building.
Look at Hammerhead walking those few feet away from Silvermane's main gate security staff members, how did they not notice triangle brain this short distance between him and them?
Chameleon? What a twiiiiiist. That energy belt was so properly concealed nobody could tell the difference between him and Hammerhead.
When did Kingpin have time to show him files of that guy to store it in his belt memory to use it this soon?
Rhino picked up the cover, stood up on the elevator, and broke the suspension cables. He did not faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllll with the elevator after this dumb move.
Lucky for him Smythe was there in the helicopter to carry the elevator prison of Silvermane and save his sorry hide.
Silvermane Chameleon told his crew to hold the gang war off? Ok, reasonable explanation why the gang war arc never happened in this action cartoon that has so many gang leaders ready for such an act of treachery.
Meeting with Spider-Man on a roof and public relations talk in the elevator is entertaining.
Hiding in plain sight, by having 6 air conditioner condensers made for split units placed on the roof of a kind of building that relies on central cooling is not one of the brightest plans Mysterio of this show came up with.
"Time for my academy award winning performance" or is it? Your performance was so forced and wooden.
These following minutes of action and tactics to take down the six neanderthals are tactful and well done, and are the only time this Spider-Man was allowed competence against six of his foes without needing to be saved by guest stars of the episodes.
Assaults with tails, tentacles, laser guns, and other weapons and kicks, but punches were not allowed due to censorship?
Weirdos.
Silvermane on the phone "Kingpin must be ERADICATED"
Oh ho, there was enough room to make the gang war happen, Chameleon's words weren't enough to cancel the arc from happening.
How did Shocker get his outfit back after walking in his underwear? They could have given him something like a Hawaiian shirt or something?
And the six quit working for Kingpin, Smythe laughs at his boss although he will fall under the flames of the attacks too, but everything goes fine and dandy later on, and Mr. Octavius is an employee of Mr. Fisk once more next season.
Felicia and Michael are officially dating, MJ was worried for May, nobody is staying in the hospital.
Spider-Man visits Connors for more tests, and it is revealed that Mr. Parker will mutate further after that, explaining the season's header title; 'NEOGENIC NIGHTMARE' by telling him "You won't be human".
Time to bring back that point brought to my attention by @Spidey_62 about the possible results of being this close to the 'Neogenic Recombinator' while curing Doc Connors the first time in the pilot episode, it feels just like the enervator plot from an 80s story that made Spider-Man a lizard man, but this time it further mutates his spider side instead.
At least... it's a sound theory explaining why they chose the risk of a season length arc with this specific plot.
..................................................
Better than part 1, but it's still a bit clunky
I'll give it: 3.25/5 they are more Sinister than Insidious
Spider-Aziz
Dummy Dragon Holo
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SEASON 02 - EPISODE 03: Hydro-Man:
Third episode/story titled solely by the antagonist with no other word included.
Kraven the Hunter
Hobgoblin 1&2
Hydro-Man
Also; if you look at post 312 -the one reviewing Ock's debut episode- you'll see this episode referred to as one of those episodes with great animation. Here's hoping I don't find many faults in it.
Hydroman is one of those short list villains, those with limited appeal and hardly much importance to the mainline comics continuity, except for the effect it had on Sandman leading to him being reformed. He also originated in the infamous run of Dennis O'Neil on Amazing Spider-Man. It's a shame that one of the best comic book writers wrote one of the lowest grade Spider-Man runs, it's even more saddening when you think of how great and impactful his Iron Man run really is.
Episode credit goes to John Semper jr., that's his third episode in a row this season.
Spider-Man reads the newspaper in Cony island, it's about a mystery thief who committed eight daring heists that require superpowers to be performed.
A purse snatcher causes a woman to yell, Spider-Man suffocates him by webbing and suspends him upside down the way Joey Z was found. @Big Al , this one's for you.
I always wonder how these fully webbed thugs survive such treatment , and why Spider-Man doesn't worry about spending so much expensive webbing on yoyos like these.
The man is worried after the revelation he heard from Doctor Connors about turning to a mutant not teenage not a ninja not a turtle monster. And then thinks of getting serious in going steady with MJ.
This episode is very focused on MJ, her worries, her concerns, some of her past, etc.... are addressed in this episode.
In an aqua marine exhibit we see two guards discussing the robberies of late, why the boxes they guard are too secure against theft and heavy water pressure for them to be too worried, and then some human figure forms from the water to steal the pearl necklace they were looking at, and one of them sounds the alarm.
You'd think that the thief would be more careful as to not raise their attention by being a visible silhouette in the middle of that body of water, or that he doesn't need to shatter the glass of that display he's in to scare the guards, but he does it anyway. Guess we need to find out what he can do one way or another.
Spider-Man enters the exhibit after the alarms are activated, the guards are gone invisible, Spider-Man slips on water, jumps sticking to water tanks, and returns a flounder (I think) fish in the broken tank.
Thief is visible running away all of a sudden, Spider-Man leaps going after him and he disappears.
Going to the upper floor where the tops of these tanks are, Spider-Man is pushed into the water to fall between electric eels, and now it's time for a dental commercial sponsored by the Amazing Spider-Man 2 (movie):
You got a dental problem? Don't worry, just shock yourself and fall into that tank, eels will solve your problem, they are guaranteed to close gaps between your teeth.
It won't be the movie's problem if that didn't work for you, after all, movies are a work of fiction, especially ones based on fantasy and superheroes and such stuff.
Webshooters are useless under water. I think this episode is the first thing to do that by not making it easy to push a webline forward under this much water pressure, and it's a reasonable idea. I find it interesting that the Amazing Spider-Man (first film) chose to take this bit and use it once. This show and those movies made good use of webshooters.
Spider-Man uses this predicament to his advantage to escape the tank by putting one spare web cartridge in the mouth of one of the eels, the advantageous situation helped him escape one predicament to face the next as the guards go to that place in the upper floor, see him exit one of the tanks, and call him the true thief although they saw something to the contrary of that before hitting the alarm button.
I won't hold this against the episode, cause forgetfulness and errors are humanly realistic.
Favorite line time:
"GREAT. Jameson will probably be selling "Spider-Man REALLY IS THE THIEF" T-shirts by noon tomorrow".
Peter Parker meets MJ in the Coffee Bean to hand her her pictures we've seen printed on bus stop shades in the previous scene after she showed him the newspaper with his pictures on, and it seems funny that every news piece is written by Ned Leeds. I wonder if we'll ever see a name like Jacob Conover in any adaption.
Peter asks MJ why she's afraid to commit to a relationship, Liz Allan -who debuts in this episode- tells MJ about a phone call for her, and is cryptically telling her "Make it fast baby, or my boss will kill me", funny way to run past censorship.
Morris Bench calls her, he freaks her out, she leaves the place in haste and Pete follows her. She doesn't want Pete involved with that weirdo so she tells him to leave her be, and Spider-Man follows her inconspicuously in concern.
Morrie is shallow, he thinks girls want money to be with men and not much else, and he refuses to take no for an answer. He shows her his powers in the park by raising the fountains water level really high to make a bunch of geysers in the park, and this is where Spider-Man properly intervenes.
Morrie is AUQUAMA.. wrong water related character name, sorry.
He is HYDROMAN. He is also voiced by Raphael, the sarcastic ninja turtle.
We got to know some bits about MJ's dad, running away from her, but not being violent toward her and her older sister Gayle.
I'll just cut the review short this time, I don't feel like there is much to say about it.
This episode is clever, lots of clever ways to escape traps and threats. Pacing makes sense, and there aren't many faults to pick apart at the seams or any other way.
Another great thing about this episode is that it shows Peter being good enough with chemistry to mix needed additives to his web formula without making it weaker or useless.
..................................................
Better than the previous arc
I'll give it: 4.5/5 Fire Hydrants
Third episode/story titled solely by the antagonist with no other word included.
Kraven the Hunter
Hobgoblin 1&2
Hydro-Man
Also; if you look at post 312 -the one reviewing Ock's debut episode- you'll see this episode referred to as one of those episodes with great animation. Here's hoping I don't find many faults in it.
Hydroman is one of those short list villains, those with limited appeal and hardly much importance to the mainline comics continuity, except for the effect it had on Sandman leading to him being reformed. He also originated in the infamous run of Dennis O'Neil on Amazing Spider-Man. It's a shame that one of the best comic book writers wrote one of the lowest grade Spider-Man runs, it's even more saddening when you think of how great and impactful his Iron Man run really is.
Episode credit goes to John Semper jr., that's his third episode in a row this season.
Spider-Man reads the newspaper in Cony island, it's about a mystery thief who committed eight daring heists that require superpowers to be performed.
A purse snatcher causes a woman to yell, Spider-Man suffocates him by webbing and suspends him upside down the way Joey Z was found. @Big Al , this one's for you.
I always wonder how these fully webbed thugs survive such treatment , and why Spider-Man doesn't worry about spending so much expensive webbing on yoyos like these.
The man is worried after the revelation he heard from Doctor Connors about turning to a mutant not teenage not a ninja not a turtle monster. And then thinks of getting serious in going steady with MJ.
This episode is very focused on MJ, her worries, her concerns, some of her past, etc.... are addressed in this episode.
In an aqua marine exhibit we see two guards discussing the robberies of late, why the boxes they guard are too secure against theft and heavy water pressure for them to be too worried, and then some human figure forms from the water to steal the pearl necklace they were looking at, and one of them sounds the alarm.
You'd think that the thief would be more careful as to not raise their attention by being a visible silhouette in the middle of that body of water, or that he doesn't need to shatter the glass of that display he's in to scare the guards, but he does it anyway. Guess we need to find out what he can do one way or another.
Spider-Man enters the exhibit after the alarms are activated, the guards are gone invisible, Spider-Man slips on water, jumps sticking to water tanks, and returns a flounder (I think) fish in the broken tank.
Thief is visible running away all of a sudden, Spider-Man leaps going after him and he disappears.
Going to the upper floor where the tops of these tanks are, Spider-Man is pushed into the water to fall between electric eels, and now it's time for a dental commercial sponsored by the Amazing Spider-Man 2 (movie):
You got a dental problem? Don't worry, just shock yourself and fall into that tank, eels will solve your problem, they are guaranteed to close gaps between your teeth.
It won't be the movie's problem if that didn't work for you, after all, movies are a work of fiction, especially ones based on fantasy and superheroes and such stuff.
Webshooters are useless under water. I think this episode is the first thing to do that by not making it easy to push a webline forward under this much water pressure, and it's a reasonable idea. I find it interesting that the Amazing Spider-Man (first film) chose to take this bit and use it once. This show and those movies made good use of webshooters.
Spider-Man uses this predicament to his advantage to escape the tank by putting one spare web cartridge in the mouth of one of the eels, the advantageous situation helped him escape one predicament to face the next as the guards go to that place in the upper floor, see him exit one of the tanks, and call him the true thief although they saw something to the contrary of that before hitting the alarm button.
I won't hold this against the episode, cause forgetfulness and errors are humanly realistic.
Favorite line time:
"GREAT. Jameson will probably be selling "Spider-Man REALLY IS THE THIEF" T-shirts by noon tomorrow".
Peter Parker meets MJ in the Coffee Bean to hand her her pictures we've seen printed on bus stop shades in the previous scene after she showed him the newspaper with his pictures on, and it seems funny that every news piece is written by Ned Leeds. I wonder if we'll ever see a name like Jacob Conover in any adaption.
Peter asks MJ why she's afraid to commit to a relationship, Liz Allan -who debuts in this episode- tells MJ about a phone call for her, and is cryptically telling her "Make it fast baby, or my boss will kill me", funny way to run past censorship.
Morris Bench calls her, he freaks her out, she leaves the place in haste and Pete follows her. She doesn't want Pete involved with that weirdo so she tells him to leave her be, and Spider-Man follows her inconspicuously in concern.
Morrie is shallow, he thinks girls want money to be with men and not much else, and he refuses to take no for an answer. He shows her his powers in the park by raising the fountains water level really high to make a bunch of geysers in the park, and this is where Spider-Man properly intervenes.
Morrie is AUQUAMA.. wrong water related character name, sorry.
He is HYDROMAN. He is also voiced by Raphael, the sarcastic ninja turtle.
We got to know some bits about MJ's dad, running away from her, but not being violent toward her and her older sister Gayle.
I'll just cut the review short this time, I don't feel like there is much to say about it.
This episode is clever, lots of clever ways to escape traps and threats. Pacing makes sense, and there aren't many faults to pick apart at the seams or any other way.
Another great thing about this episode is that it shows Peter being good enough with chemistry to mix needed additives to his web formula without making it weaker or useless.
..................................................
Better than the previous arc
I'll give it: 4.5/5 Fire Hydrants
Spidey_62
You just don't get it!
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- Aug 6, 2009
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Dang, Aziz! You've been busy! I never noticed that error in the Mysterio episode, I like your revisions on the Insidious Six episodes just calling them the Sinister Six episodes. I've gotta do a rewatch of the first season again soon, I don't know if you can tell but I've just been putting on a lot of the MTV cartoon on in the background lately as I have it easily accessible on DVD. I kinda like that show a lot again like I did back in 2003 lol.
Among my favorites from the first season are Night of The Lizard, The Alien Costume, Hobgoblin, and Menace of Mysterio. I really like the whole big season spanning arc in season 2 because I was just getting into reading the comics as I was also digging into this show it felt like it was really replicating the feeling of finding out about all these big sprawling story arcs throughout decades of comics history on the internet Spidey resources (Samruby.com anybody? Remember that Spidey site?).
I always give the show props for its ambitiousness that I can forgive some of the sloppiness. The ridiculous breakneck pace of some later seasons just makes me laugh because everybody talks at a mile a minute and it jumps all over the place and I find it hilarious. That moment with Silvermane telling Smythe to change his diaper comes to mind because it's quickly cut and chopped up flashbacks being narrated and it's punctuated by that exchange at the end and quickly moves on from it lol.
Among my favorites from the first season are Night of The Lizard, The Alien Costume, Hobgoblin, and Menace of Mysterio. I really like the whole big season spanning arc in season 2 because I was just getting into reading the comics as I was also digging into this show it felt like it was really replicating the feeling of finding out about all these big sprawling story arcs throughout decades of comics history on the internet Spidey resources (Samruby.com anybody? Remember that Spidey site?).
I always give the show props for its ambitiousness that I can forgive some of the sloppiness. The ridiculous breakneck pace of some later seasons just makes me laugh because everybody talks at a mile a minute and it jumps all over the place and I find it hilarious. That moment with Silvermane telling Smythe to change his diaper comes to mind because it's quickly cut and chopped up flashbacks being narrated and it's punctuated by that exchange at the end and quickly moves on from it lol.
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