Ultimate Spider-Man S01E09-10 Review: FROG THOR

Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 9: Field Trip; Episode 10: Freaky

Huh, two guest-star episodes in a row! I guess that pattern I noticed with my previous review isn't what they were going for, then. Okay! I really kind of wish that these guest star episodes didn't happen until after they've really established the main characters, because honestly, other than Spider-Man, Harry Osborn and maybe White Tiger, everyone else in the cast feels like a one-note personality. Nova is the ass, Iron Fist is the koan one, Luke Cage is the everyman and Nick Fury gives orders and alternates between being fatherly and manipulative.

Anyway, the episodes. Episode 9, "Field Trip", actually starts off pretty piss-poor. We get the worst of the worst, so far, of Spider-Man's cutaway animated monologues. We spend nearly a full minute of Spider-Man describing why he hates field trips with a fucking montage, and when when Danny Rand unleashes a frost giant upon the museum (because apparently K'un-Lun has an ancient Norse language class) we get an unfunny long joke of Nova flying backwards in slow motion. And the very, very long bickering that happens when the Junior Avenger Squad tries to show off in front of the Mighty Thor. You know what's worse than bad jokes? Extended bad jokes, because at least with most of the other jokes that didn't land lasted quickly.

Of course, though, one joke that works amazingly well? Thor gets turned into a frog by the weird booby-trapped rune necklace on the frost giant's neck.

This is a thing that happened in the comics multiple times, apparently.

And it's... it's honestly pretty hilarious. Frog Thor, inherently, is hilarious. Most of the lines that Frog Thor says is funny, and most of the lines that Spider-Man says to Frog Thor are hilarious. Frog Thor even gets a character arc where he ends up learning humility, having to acknowledge the Junior Avengers as fellow warriors instead of mere children, and to apologize to the dwarf Eitri and beg for his help.

And it is a shame that the rest of the episode sort of just.... fizzles out. Apparently, in the very, very short while that Thor was on Earth, Loki has arrived with an army of frost giants and conquered Asgard. And Loki claims that he's apparently planned it all like a mastermind... so, um... he was counting that the field trip that was visiting the museum where he placed a booby-trapped Nordic stone was going to have, among them, Danny Rand, who can specifically read the runes despite being trained halfway across the world in K'un Lun, and read it out loud, and that the field trip also has someone who has Thor on speed dial? Okay then.

After the obligatory "heroes fail to take down the villains because it's only halfway through the episode" bit, the heroes go to Eitri, come back with weapons that are supposed to "turn their weaknesses into strengths", but other than Nova being a dunderhead and a throwaway line from Iron Fist, none of the Junior Avengers really show off any sort of weaknesses. If we had cut away half of the random jokes and actually tried to make this theme work, it'd be a far better episode. Instead, the climax of the episode ends up stretching for any sort of "deep" sounding theme. Also, giving the heroes weapons that are not practical isn't "deep", it's reckless endangerment. Oh, and Spider-Man doesn't need anything because he's special and the main character, which is just eyeball-rolling. That whole climax ended up being a huge "um what" moment from me. 

Still, Frog Thor was funny enough and comes with a character arc, while Spider-Man gets to befuddle Loki and use Loki's own pride against him. Not the best episode in the season, I reckon, once you get over the sheer ridiculousness of Frog Thor, but not a horrible one either. 

Anyway, on to episode 10, "Freaky", which co-stars Wolverine, everyone's favourite mutant and Marvel's poster boy for the past couple of decades until Fox/Sony/Marvel rights issues and marketing and Robert Downeys. And after Wolverine hilariously tears apart the fourth-wall-breaking intro, we get to see Spider-Man and Wolverine take down the hypnotist mutant villain called Mesmero. 

And then apparently because of some hypnotism magic, Mesmero somehow... switches their souls into their bodies?

Wait. That's not how hypnotism works. That's... what? Marvel comics has literally hundreds of villains, and you can't pick one who has ambiguous magical powers to actually give this Freaky Friday ripoff plot a sensible hook? Huh. 

Although I admit, the fact that they didn't do the easy way and have them switch voices is definitely my preferred method of doing Freaky Friday slips, so points to the show about that. So we have Steve Blum, Wolverine's voice actor, voicing Spider-Man-in-Wolverine, whereas Drake Bell, Spider-Man's voice actor, voices Wolverine-in-Peter. The actual hijinks they come up with end up being a wee bit more hilarious than the Frog Thor episode, I think, and I'm pretty sure it's because the episode has the opportunity to focus on Wolverine and Spider-Man, instead of having to divide the screentime and dialogue up between five protagonists, four of which... don't honestly mean anything. In a better-managed show or one that isn't too eager to introduce all these guest stars, we'd have episodes exploring the Junior Quartet, but we're ten episodes in and they barely qualify as characters. 

Anyway, Spider-Man-in-Wolverine ends up spending a good chunk of the episode just running the fuck away from Sabretooth while accidentally stabbing himself several times, while Wovlerine-in-Spider-Man ends up looking hilariously ridiculous as he does all the growly animal-man Wolverine mannerisms while having the body of a high school kid. 

Also he Judo-tosses Flash Thompson and beats him off, brushes off the unusually-assholish Junior Avengers Quartet... and tries to hit on teenage Mary Jane. That's... okay, I'm not going to touch that one. That's just wrong. 

At least this episode doesn't try to pretend like it has some profound moral lesson or anything like the painfully dumb "weapons tailored to your weakness but not really the dwarf is speaking nonsense" previous episode. Wolverine and Spider-Man just catch up to each other, and just double-team Wolverine before forcing Mesmero to switch them back. This is definitely a fun, solid episode even if it doesn't do anything particularly novel.