Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 3: Doomed; Episode 4: Venom
(Happy new year! We're still in my buffer set of reviews, but expect proper new reviews starting tomorrow)
One of my biggest quibbles about this show's love of cut-away monologue-slash-gags is that they seem to treat it as an excuse to recap. You don't need to recap -- even children aren't that dumb. You don't have to spend every first appearance of the civilian superhero quartet having Spider-Man cut away and then quickly rattle off the superhero names of the four. That's not funny or helpful -- that's just flat-out insulting. Again, a lot of the comedy are hit-and-miss, which is a shame. With a significant amount of trimming, I can unironically genuinely see this show as a more comedic wacky hijinks take on Spider-Man, but it gets bogged down so much with the awkward pacing. Throw in some gags that just straight-up don't work like the fighting video game cutaways in "Doomed", and it's more of a mixed bag.
Episode 3, "Doomed", tries to finally work with the status quo, pitting Spider-Man against the helmeted, energy-manipulating Nova. Nova/Sam is mosing in on Spider-Man's life both civilian and superhero, although, to be fair, Peter was kind of over-reacting over Sam sitting on the same table with MJ and Harry. The two then basically turn it into a dick-waving contest as Nova and Spider-Man argue about who gets to be the leader of their little Avengers Jr. team. Does the team even have a name? I'm going to keep calling them Avengers Jr until we get an actual name from the show.
It's a typical cliche in any ensemble cast -- members of the team start to argue for leadership, and after a pretty sorry debut episode, at least we're getting some characterization out of these guys. Nova's arrogant and hotheaded, White Tiger is the tired, over-achieving big sister, Iron Fist spouts zen koans and Luke Cage tells the others to ignore Iron Fist's zen koans. And yet I find Iron Fist so, so much more likable than his live-action counterpart. That's not even ironic -- Iron Fist is genuinely my favourite out of the four Avengers Jr.
Anyway, one thing leads to the next, and they basically end up flying straight to Latveria to fight Dr. Doom's robots, and then Dr. Doom himself, all the while Nova and Spider-Man bicker about who gets to get the credit. Turns out... Doom gets all the credit, because he faked being captured in order to blow up the Helicarrier.
Oh, and also, the "Doom" they captured is actually just a Doom-bot, containing a smaller Doom-bot, containing an even smaller Doom-bot, like a hilarious Russian matryoshka doll. Not going to lie, that's genuinely hilarious.
Anyway, episode 3 ends with everyone basically learning teamwork, kinda-sorta, and they manage to take down Doom, and show off a degree of unity as the team refuse to allow Spider-Man take the blame for their collective mistake. It's... it's not a particularly stellar episode, after all is said and done. The comedy is best when it's genuinely unexpected, like the matryoshka Doom, whereas the genuinely forced moments, like Coulson trying to figure out the school budget, feel sub-par. The episode is competent, if not spectacular, I'd say.
Episode 4 is... definitely a lot more interesting! I certainly didn't expect Venom to be introduced so soon, and it's definitely an interesting reinvention of his origin story. Instead of being an alien symbiote, Venom is instead... the distilled anger and hate that Dr. Octavius creates out of Spider-Man's blood? Which... gains... life? It does make Venom's obsession to Spider-Man more plausible without having to go through the whole black-suit arc, but at the same time... kinda like the alien symbiote origin better.
Regardless, though, it's the first real Norman Osborn/Dr. Octopus episode after their cryptic foreshadowing throughout the first two episodes of the season. At least they're being forefront that they want to create Spider-Man-based supersoldiers... at least, well, until the Venom goop goes loose, rampages and hunts down Spider-Man.
And don't get me wrong, the actual Venom parts of this episode is genuinely fun. The symbiote actually jumps from body to body, from Flash Thompson (an actual Venom partner in the comics) to Nova to Luke Cage to Iron Fist to finally Spider-Man himself, it's a pretty interesting take on the character. And the fight scenes are, once more, pretty well animated.
But the setup of this? It's basically Peter, Harry and the Avengers Junior being very possessive friends. Let's take a look at how the little Peter/Harry spat came about. Peter is talking to Harry about going to a private get-together, just three close friends. And then the Avengers Junior quartet show up and basically drag Peter away from a private conversation to... basically laugh at him, and when Peter (rightfully) demands some privacy, they basically go "but you made a deal to work with us!" Throw in some genuinely douchey snide comments from Nova about how Peter "kisses up to moneybags", and, well, can't blame Harry for getting mad about it. And then Harry basically calls in the entire school to party at his house, while Mary Jane manages to convince Peter to make Harry not feel left out by... inviting the very friends Harry is jealous about to movie night? And also, wasn't Sam being a nice buddy to Mary Jane and Harry last episode?
Yeah, suffice to say that this school has a lot of yanderes.
Anyway, the fight happens, and while Harry and Peter seem to make up -- mortal danger will put petty arguments in the school cafeteria into perspective -- Harry keeps the remaining goop of Venom inside a bottle, seemingly for some sinister purpose. Or maybe he just wants to be noticed by his Spider-Man obsessed daddy? It's interesting, connecting Harry to this whole Venom stuff.
Overall, though... these two episodes are definitely by far a lot better than the first two. There are a lot of fun jokes, a lot of great action scenes, and we get a neat little introduction to Venom -- even if it's not the most comic book accurate. I'm still not a big fan of Nova, who's kind of an insufferable twit, while the other three members of the Avengers Junior still revolve around their one-line personality. Still, we do get a great character arc for Spider-Man in episode 3 where he realizes his douchebaggery, while episode 4 has a great bit with Harry Osborn acting on his bitter jealousy before repenting from it. Not the worst set of episodes, for sure.
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