Ultimate Spider-Man S01E11 Review: Venom Redux

Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 11: Venomous

A while back I did Ultimate Spider-Man reviews, but just sort of... petered out. Just got distracted by other things, even if I did finish up the drafts for the entire first season. Well, I guess I'd just get these off my plate, and it's back! I do intend on finishing the first season, if nothing else.

I'm going to split these two episodes apart into individual episode reviews because I think that at around halfway through this series and at a pretty eventful episode at that, it's about time that I discuss one of my biggest problems with Ultimate Spider-Man. It's the show's supporting cast and general premise of having Spider-Man be this SHIELD superhero trainee.

Now, I get the appeal of the concept. It definitely felt pretty promising, and I said as much myself. The idea of a slightly more experienced Spider-Man that's involved with SHIELD and the training of other young heroes that are his peers is not an uninteresting concept. Likewise, I can't fault the series for wanting to take a break every now and then and have standalone Spider-Man stories that revolve around him and a single guest star (be it a big-name Marvel hero or a big-name villain). It's just that... it's just that we're eleven episodes in, and we really don't have anything to show for it.

I know cartoons operate on a different sort of wavelength and have a far lighter tone. As such, I'm not really going to gloss over just how horrifyingly horrible Nick Fury's deal is to Spider-Man (no, that's for the next review, where it's actually relevant to that episode), but let's just discuss the side cast for a bit. Nick Fury is just a flat mission control that the show doesn't quite want to make into a full-blown antihero that's going to do what it takes to protect the world -- they want to make Nick this "safe" medium ground between being a fatherly mentor and a slight jerk, and I definitely feel like it doesn't  really work. He's just kind of boring, and feels like the sort of character that'll vacillate between two extremes depending on what's required of the plot.

The rest of the Avengers Junior, though? To some extent, I can forgive a wee bit of "status quo resetting" like Spider-Man earning White Tiger or Nova's respect in one episode, and then having them revert back into being catty rivals in the next. It annoys me, but it doesn't break the show for me. No, what breaks me is just how they really, really have no personality to them, and are just this huge clump that jump between "supportive friends" to "angry rivals that are SHIELD sticklers". The only ones out of the four that has really had any sort of focus is White Tiger in that Taskmaster episode, and all we got from her is that she's... sarcastic and kinda smart. Not much to go on. And that's a problem all the other three have. Nova's a dick and a hothead. Danny's calm and spouts zen koans. Luke's the big, cool-headed guy.

And I don't expect them to immediately become fully-fledged characters right off the bat. Highly-beloved ensemble shows like Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Justice League or Young Justice don't get into their groove until a while, and sometimes the characters remain static for a good chunk. But at around the halfway point in the first season and eleven episodes into this thing, I kind of have to put my foot down. I've given them a chance, and there isn't a single person from the supporting cast that really feels like a person and not a couple of personality traits stapled into a superpower.

And I'm going to put a bit of a kibosh on my own rant so we can actually talk about the episode, which is actually fantastic.

The episode starts off immensely strong, and it feels genuinely different. It's like one of those Teen Titans episodes when they decide to go from a jokey episode into a serious Slade or Trigon episode. Sure, it starts off silly enough, with the equally silly (and just a tad racist) Batroc the Leaper jumping around while saying "leap!" as he's chased by the black-suited Spider-Man. And after a bit of a scuffle, Batroc graciously surrenders -- he clearly sees this as some jolly good fun, a game that he's beaten. But then instead of taking him to the authorities, the monstrous Venom/Black-Suit thing just stalks Batroc and attacks him in a scene that's worthy of a horror movie.

Smash cut to the opening, and it's a pretty damn awesome cold open. Sure, Batroc isn't actually dead, and I really wished the news reports showed him actually injured instead of scuffled (surely a Looney Tunes-style "wrapped up from head to toe in bandages" would get past the censors?) but the scene and the tone of this episode is set pretty well.

Sure, it cuts away to Peter Parker's civilian life and we do get a couple of "wait what?" gags combined with some "as-you-know" recaps, but it's still a damn effective opening. And I do appreciate the episode for quickly jumping to Peter confronting Harry, who claims to have destroyed the Venom watch since his last appearance. And then we cut away again to Harry, who confronts the ever-dismissive Norman Osborn who really wants that Venom symbiote.

And then Harry finally snaps and transforms into Venom in front of Norman. Norman is proud of his son for the first time in his life, and really selling the fucked-up dynamic between this father and child, but the Venom symbiote has basically taken over Harry's mind and he throws Norman out of the building. Spider-Man's there to rescue Norman, but Venom escapes. And it's a genuinely great sequence that balances the tension and the gags well.


And the subsequent scene -- Spider-Man being brought in front of Nick Fury and the Junior Avengers, who are out for Venom's blood, and quickly realize that Spider-Man's hiding something and likely knows the real identity of Venom due to a bit of a slip-up. Now in a vacuum, the idea of a character who's forced to choose between helping the organization he's a part of hunt down his best friend who's been taken over by a parasitic monster is an amazing idea. And honestly, as stupid as it was, I don't blame Spider-Man for hiding Harry's identity either from the rest of SHIELD considering how insanely bloodthirsty they are.

But the execution kind of falls flat, and this episode basically shows off all my problems with the Junior Avengers in a neat little package. In the meeting room, they take the role of the SHIELD stooges, angry at Spider-Man for not revealing the identity of their target. Later on, when the Junior Avengers attack Venom at Oscorp, they take the role of the Spider-Man's rivals, in opposition to him. And then later on, when confronting Spider-Man in the school, they take the role of the spurned allies, angry at being kept out of the loop. And, again, in a vacuum, I have no real problem with that. The real problem is how utterly bland they are written as, because I really cannot reconcile the same White Tiger and Nova that's ready to flat-out murder Venom from earlier in the episode with the calmer, more understanding ones later on. There's no real character progression between the Junior Avengers hating Venom and wanting to kill him to supporting Peter, and there's also no real organic way that made Peter open up to his allies. They just happen because the plot demands it to happen.

And it'd be different if, say, some of the four superheroes have some sort of different reaction. Maybe White Tiger is more analytical. Maybe Nova's the only brash, out-for-action one. Maybe Iron Fist respects life a bit more than the other three. Maybe you can work in the fact that they have personally felt Venom's rage into their blood-feud. Whatever the case, there are so many ways to make their characterizations work as demanded by the plot without making it play out like, well, how this episode played it out.




Which is a huge shame, because the actual Venom parts of this episode is amazing. The opening with him stalking Batroc, the reveal in front of Norman (who, in the face of his child transforming into a monster, cares more about the monster than the child), the pretty damn brutal fight in Oscorp where Spider-Man is desperately trying to stop the Junior Avengers from murdering Venom, and later on the dramatic 1v1 at the school while it's raining. Even with the eye-rollingly convenient creation of anti-venom in the space of a montage, it's still a damn epic episode from the Venom standpoint. Hell, even the final scene, with Norman Osborn's conversation with Dr. Octavius about if Otto's hiding Venom's identity as Harry from him is a pretty damn awesome cliffhanger that builds up two upcoming villains.  It's just such a shame that shoehorning the half-assed Junior Avengers subplot into the whole thing really ends up causing me to simultaneously hold this episode as my favourite and my least favourite of this season so far.

Hoo. I'm kind of glad I got that out of my system. I've really been wanting to rant about the piss-poor writing behind the Junior Avengers for a while, and I really wish the rest of the season will be better.