Last year, I took a look at the first half of episodes of the latest animated Spider-Man series. Overall, I found it to be a good modern take on the character and his mythos. The first season has just wrapped up, and I figured I'd do the same by sharing my thoughts on the remaining episodes. What's really unique about these episodes is that they're done as multi-parters: the 4 part "Rise of Doc Ock", the 5 part "Spider-Island", and 2 part "Hobgoblin". Though to be honest, all three connect in a way that all 11 episodes feel like it's one long story arc. So let's get started, and unlike my first analysis, this one's going to be spoiler heavy.
"Rise of Doc Ock", as the title suggests, is about Otto Octavius' progression from young teacher at Horizon High to the villainous Doctor Octopus. However, I don't think this set of episodes warranted a four parter, as the last half of episodes don't have as much focus on Ock.
In the first part, Otto is involved in an accident that bonds his robotic arms to his body. That's basic, for the character, but the show goes against the norm by first having Otto take a heroic path, working with both Peter and Miles (without actually learning their identities). This works out for them up until the second part, where due to Otto's superiority complex and Norman Osborn's manipulations, he ends his partnership with Spider-Man and quits Horizon High for Osborn Academy. The third part focuses more on Peter trying to convince Harry about the shady activities his father has been involved in (including orchestrating Harry's suspension from Horizon High at the beginning of the series). In the process, the Jackal attacks Osborn Academy with a mind controlled Rhino, who is stopped by the combined efforts of Spider-Man, Octavius, and other students and teachers at the Academy. In this encounter, Otto learns that Norman was attempting to recreate his robotic arms, and grows furious when he learns that since he signed with Osborn, anything he creates is OsCorp property.
I didn't mention the Jackal in my previous analysis because his impact was minor, but was left open for major development in the second half. The series makes quite a change from the comics version by making the Jackal Raymond Warren, and is also Gwen Stacy's uncle, and considering the connection Gwen and Warren had in the comics, this change makes it a lot less icky. But one thing that does remain the same with the character is he likes to make clones, if only of himself at the moment. While Spider-Man caught him very early in the season, another Warren was seen working with Spencer Smythe, who was surprised to see the first Warren in prison once he was caught himself. Both versions were revealed to be clones and self-destructed.
This leads to the conclusion of this arc, which involves Peter, Gwen, and Harry trying to discover Warren's secrets, eventually finding a secret lab he built under Midtown High, full of Jackal clones and the genetically engineered spiders he created (two of which were lost and bit both Peter and Miles, giving them their powers). This all comes to ahead when Norman arrives and confronts Jackal. In Norman's company is Octavius, Rhino, Vulture, Spider-Slayer (Alistair Smythe), and Steel Spider. Things don't go well for Norman though as Octavius betrays him, making a deal with Jackal to give him Osborn in exchange for Jackal's mind control technology. Otto finally rechristens himself Doctor Octopus and uses the Jackal's mind control tech to make his aforementioned teammates part of his Sinister Five.
On one hand, this introduction of the usually named Sinister Six kind of works with this version of Otto. He already showed he has trouble working with others in Peter and Miles, so using mind control takes out the middle man in using others to reach his goals. As for the combined group, it's okay. Classics like Rhino and Vulture makes sense, though it's redundant to have both Spider-Slayer and Steel Spider on the same team. If anything, they should have had Shocker fill Steel Spider's slot since he's more well known. And on another, mostly nit-picky note, Ock's final suit is blue, whereas I would have made it green, since that's his usual color.
The end of the episode leads to the lab being destroyed. As the villains make their escape, Spider-Man tries to keep Norman from being crushed by debris while Harry and Gwen are trapped. This leads to a surprising act of fatherly love from Norman as he pleads Spider-Man to save his son. Spidey saves Harry and Gwen, leaving Norman behind in a huge explosion. Given Harry's already established hatred for Spider-Man, this doesn't help things as he blames Spider-Man for his dad's death, despite Norman's self sacrifice. It's actually a really emotional scene, a far cry from the near lack of which was in Ultimate.
Now's a good time to talk about Norman's motivations in this series. All his actions thus far had been to prevent Raymond Warren from creating an army with spider powers, which he could use for his own goals of domination. Believing Spider-Man to be part of Jackal's army, Norman's distrust would seem warranted and he may be placed on a morality chart as a "chaotic good". At least that's how I felt about his character until the finale, but we'll get to that.
On to "Spider-Island", an adaptation of the 2011 comic book story with considerable differences. Due to the explosion of Jackal's lab at Midtown, it actually releases a spider virus, which grants virtually everybody in New York spider powers. Among those is Gwen Stacy, who adopts the Spider-Gwen identity, with the costume sans the mask and elects to have her identity public. Those who remember my "Ultimate Spider-Man: Return to the Spider-Verse" review know how I felt they ruined the character of Spider-Gwen. This series though actually makes it work despite still being different from the original Spider-Gwen premise. Since we've known this version of Gwen since the start of the show, seeing her intellect and ability to help out Spider-Man, we've grown to know this character. She wasn't just haphazardly thrown in due to the character's popularity. Besides that, it was clear it wasn't going to be permanent. When this show started though, I was worried they were going to give Miles, Gwen, and Anya spider powers straight away, creating a team of spiders like Ultimate did and making Peter less significant, but seeing how it was executed, I actually wouldn't have minded if Gwen kept her powers through this.
The first part is basic set-up, the second part is a bit of a detour involving Black Widow and HYDRA, but the third part is when the arc really takes off. Much like the comic storyline, everyone infected with the spider-virus begins transforming into, for lack of a better term, Man-Spiders. This includes Gwen and as we later learn, Norman Osborn, who survived the lab explosion. This leaves Peter, Anya, and Harry the only ones left to find a cure to save the city. Harry is the only one without spider-powers, as he's taken precautions not to be affected, using a glider to get around. Peter has been pretending to have been affected by the virus, as not to expose his identity, which gives the show opportunity to show Peter himself in action and not just in his Spider-Man costume; it's a nice change of pace considering we barely saw Peter out of costume in Ultimate. They learn that the Man-Spiders are being controlled with their leader hiding out in OsCorp. While they believe the leader to be Norman at first, it's actually the Jackal. While Anya develops a serum that prevents her from turning into a Man-Spider, it only half works when they inject Norman, giving him back some of his humanity but retaining a monstrous form. They later theorize they need the DNA of the first spider soldier, i.e. Spider-Man, to create a full cure. Realizing he has no choice, Peter reveals that he's Spider-Man to Harry (in another emotional scene I might add), mixes his blood with Anya's cure, reverting Norman back to human form. They return to Horizon to siphon more of the cure, where they realize they'll need a wide-dispersal device to reach everyone in the city, heading back to OsCorp to get one. Another battle with Jackal thwarts these plans, as he damages the device and activates a timer on a bomb to destroy them. He escapes leaving them to the bomb. While Harry wants to disarm it despite the little time they have, Peter theorizes that much like how an explosion spread the spider-virus in the first place, another explosion can do the same for the cure. Considering the bomb would destroy the Osborn Academy section of the building, he doesn't want to see what his father built destroyed. Realizing there's no other way, Peter places the cure on the bomb and forcibly carries Harry our of the building before it goes off. The explosion causes the cure to disperse, curing everyone and turning back into powerless humans. And before anyone gets technical, Peter and Miles got their powers from spider bites, which makes them immune to the cure since they didn't get it from the virus. Although I wonder about Anya though. While her initial cure kept her from mutating further, still retaining her spider-powers, I have to wonder if it kept the full cure from affecting her. The rest of the season doesn't show anything that would indicate she still has powers, but I think this is an issue to return to next season.
As this story wraps up, while they're successful, Harry is once again angry with Peter for allowing Osborn Academy to be destroyed.
In my first analysis, I didn't have much to say about Harry's hatred for Spider-Man other than it's kind of cliché at this point, and it didn't really bother me that much. But beginning with this stretch of episodes, I started to become annoyed with Harry's hatred, seeing it rise to idiotic and sometimes straight-up asshole levels. But then I realized something about Harry, not just in this series, but pretty much every version of the character: he is not a rational person. In various comics, movies, and cartoons, Harry always finds out about his father's villainous ways and follows in his footsteps for misguided revenge on his best friend. So if you think about it, how Harry's portrayed here does fit with his character, especially considering how he can be easily manipulated by his father. And I was even right in that when he found out Peter was Spider-Man, it would hit him hard. Imagine hating someone you didn't really know, only to find out it was your best friend who kept it secret from you the entire time. Throw in the fact that he kind of let your dad's school blow up right after that, and it certainly doesn't help things.
This leads up to our two-part finale, "Hobgoblin". As Doc Ock returns with his Sinister Five, he uses them to wear down Spider-Man, allowing him to place the hero under mind control like the rest of the team. Doc Ock leads his new Sinister Six on a crime spree, and Norman, believing Spider-Man to have shown his true colors and wanting Harry to become the hero he wanted him to be, gives his son the glider, gadgets, and suit to become the Hobgoblin. Harry suits up and goes after the six, eventually trying to reason with Spidey when Ock off-handedly remarks that he has him under mind control. As Spidey throws Harry off the edge of a building, seeing his friend in danger gives Peter enough will to break free of Ock's control and save his friend. The two then work together to free the others from Ock's control, who then turn on their former "leader", forcing him to retreat.
In part two, Peter and Harry, having worked out their issues, begin working together to track down both Ock and Rhino (in this version, Rhino is just a mindless beast when not under mind control by Jackal or Ock). After catching Rhino, Peter heads to his last day of school at Horizon High, where Doc Ock attacks. Peter suits up as Spider-Man, and the Hobgoblin appears soon after. After trapping Ock in a force field though, the Hobgoblin then turns on Spider-Man saying he needs to be destroyed. After Miles intervenes, the Hobgoblin retreats.
Much like how the beginning of this series had parallels to how Spectacular Spider-Man started, this season finale is very similar to how that show ended, with a Harry/Norman Goblin twist. In Spectacular, Norman had framed Harry for being the Green Goblin, saying he was blacking out and becoming the Goblin. In this series, Norman had used the Hobgoblin tech to bring down Spider-Man himself and tried to make Harry think he was blacking out and he subconsciously still hated Spider-Man. Seriously, as soon as the Hobgoblin attacked Spidey after taking down Ock, I immediately knew it was Norman. It was so predictable that I couldn't even call it a twist. Hell, even if I had never watched Spectacular, I still probably would have figured out Norman was suiting up as well.
Where it differs from Spectacular though is that Harry isn't as forgiving of his father's actions. Realizing the kind of man his father is, Harry stands by Spider-Man, and as battle begins again, an explosion occurs and Norman apparently dies (again). Soon after, Harry is named head of OsCorp (which makes me question how old he is in this show) and he and Peter are still on good terms. Harry then listens to a voicemail from his father, having faked his death to allow Harry to become his own man, but leaving something behind for Harry in a secret room behind the bookshelf, but they're apparently saving that reveal for next season. While it's very easy to take Harry Osborn down a tragic path like so many version before, I do like that they were able to give him a happier ending (at least for now). As for Norman, let's just say they definitely set up his return as the Green Goblin for next season. And so the season ends with Peter learning that Horizon High has created a statue of Spider-Man to honor him for all he's done for the school.
With season one in the bag, my thoughts on the series remain the same. It definitely does things to differentiate itself from past Spider-Man series, and sometimes those things work and sometimes they don't. Nonetheless, it's still a Spider-Man series worth watching in my opinion.
Season two has been announced and it's been revealed that Doc Ock will return as the main villain throughout the season and that Peter will get a job at the Daily Bugle, which means we'll finally see J. Jonah Jameson on the show. It'll be nice to have old pickle-puss around; having him call Spidey a menace and ordering Peter to get pictures will make this show feel a little more complete.
I have a few hopes for the next season:
1. An adaptation of the Superior Spider-Man. Ock has already proven his potential to be a hero and he can manipulate the mind control technology to allow him to switch bodies with Peter; the seeds are there, they just need to bloom.
2. Peter and Gwen's relationship to further develop. It really took a backseat in the second half of the season, so it would be nice to get back to that.
3. An answer to whether Anya retained her spider-powers. I wouldn't mind if she became Arana or Spider-Girl, depending what codename they want to give her.
4. Eddie Brock as Venom. If they're going to bring in the Bugle, it's a perfect place to introduce the character.
Until then, I will patiently await the further adventures of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (in animated form).
