Ultimate Spider-Man S01E13-14 Review: Zen Koan

Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 13: Strange Days; Episode 14: Awesome

Okay, we're back to two-episodes-in-a-single-review format. I just thought that the past two episodes were particularly appropriate for the rants I've sort of bottled up inside myself towards this show. And these two episodes are... pretty simple, honestly. Episode 13, "Strange Days", is easily my favourite episode out of the entire series so far. Episode 14 is utterly forgettable.

And episode 13 is everything that I've always clamoured for in this series. Focus on the side-cast. The writers made a great move by basically wiping away the slate and just having this be the Spider-Man and Iron Fist hour, co-starring Dr. Strange. It's a pretty damn well-packed episode. So, basically, the villain-of-the-week, some dream demon man called Nightmare, is battling against our guest star Dr. Strange (who's less Benedict Cumberbatch and more stringy-haired metalhead here, but okay), and in the process has caused every single person in the world to fall asleep.

Iron Fist is the only one that's able to wake up, and manages to reach into Spider-Man's dream with his "dreamwalking" and find that he's the only one who he manages to wake up, which Dr. Strange later handwaves as being part of his spider-sense abilities (which is a bit of blatant main character favouritism, but I'll let it slide). After a bit of obligatory "haha magic is not real" tomfoolery, the team-up begins in motion as they fight against Nightmare and his Dreamons (ha!) in a suitably wacky plane.

And while Dr. Strange does manage to pull off his best anime protagonist impression and call out his magic spells like he's a cheap extra in Dragon Ball Z "CHAINS OF SHITAKE! SHIELD OF ANNIHILATION!" I really do feel that it plays into his charm as this magician-man, and I honestly can't say that I really mind. I mean, I'd be a hypocrite if I said that it's silly.


Yeah, sure, the episode's way to finish off the threat of Nightmare is pretty simple. Peter basically finds his balls and fights back. But the way that they go through this otherwise simple guest star episode is way, way better writing than the main character stories of the previous two episodes.

See, Nightmare is obviously a fear-based villains that feeds you your worst nightmares. We get a brief cutaway to see what the other Junior Avengers are in a slight gag (White Tiger's afraid of bad grades, Nova's afraid of spiders, and Luke Cage... is afraid of his strength failing him and being unable to protect his friends, which is unexpectedly fucking deep). Iron Fist falls into his own fear (which we'll cover later on) while Dr. Strange is caught up in the main fight against Nightmare, with a pretty badass "the Sorcerer Supreme has no such time for fear!"

Spider-Man's greatest fear, however, is being brought back to his old home, and meeting Uncle Ben. It's a surprising theme that I didn't think this show was ever going to touch, considering its far more light-hearted tone, but instead of reliving the nightmare of Uncle Ben's death over and over again, or do something trite like, oh, fighting Uncle-Ben-turned-into-a-monster, interestingly, we find that underneath all that veneer of tomfoolery, Spider-man is strong enough mentally to face this specter of his dead uncle, and tells Nightmare that he can fuck off with his nightmares, because while Uncle Ben's death might be the worst moment of his life, he "lives with that" every day, but not in the way that Nightmare was trying to capitalize in. Instead, Spider-Man's used Uncle Ben's death and memory as something to honour, as an inspiration to be better. Also the fact that Ben has helped Peter to fight through nightmares by facing them.

Cheesy? You fucking bet. But it's also a pretty damn awesome moment of quiet anger and badassery from a character that's spent most of the series dicking around and cracking jokes, and you know what? I won't lie, it's a pretty damn powerful scene. There's this great sense of familiarity and warmth between Ben and Peter that is delivered pretty powerfully with body language and like the half-dozen lines they exchange. Good stuff.


And now let's discuss Iron Fist, a character that I've gone on record many times on this very blog as someone I'm not the fondest of.

And you know what? This episode, in its B-plot, did what two seasons of high-budget Netflix live-action series couldn't. It made me root for Danny Rand and feel that he's a genuinely badass kung fu master instead of a dim twit. Danny's already pretty damn hilarious whenever he has a chancce to shine, and his talent towards mysticism proves a pretty great hook to get Spider-Man into Dr. Strange's mansion.

See, Iron Fist's whole fear is being unworthy of the Iron Fist, and that Shou-Lao the Undying Dragon would deem him unworthy of the Fist and actually take it away from him, berating him for using his powers so frivolously with "unbelievers and outsiders". This, in a nutshell, is every single damn plot point from the Neftlix Iron Fist's first two seasons, and in a couple of short scenes, of Danny being forced with the fact that he's unworthy against a literal personification of a goddamn dragon...

Decides that he's at least trying to do his best and fight for good (helps that this Danny probably doesn't have the same gigantic baggage and douchebaggery that his live-action counterpart has), and punches nightmare Shou-Lao into dust. Not going to lie, that's pretty fucking badass. It's a great little bit of throwing in hints of Iron Fist's history and origin, the first instance of any of the Junior Avengers having any sort of depth, and honestly? It's a huge, huge leap. I really wished that this depth was like, done in the first five or six episodes or something, but I'm not complaining.

Overall, probably my favourite episode of the season. 

And then, episode 14, "Awesome", should've been to Power Man what episode 13 was to Iron Fist. But it's... it's so forgettable. Let's recap the plot really quickly, yeah? Spider-Man forgot to do his science project, much to the chagrin of Luke Cage. Instead of using his science whiz to brew up something new, Spider-Man somehow spends the time sneaking into the SHIELD helicarrier, stealing a goobly brick from Dr. Connors' lab, which turns out is this... inanimate-material-eating-golem-android-thing that transforms into a gigantic kaiju. Oh, and fan favourite Juggernaut is involved in a pretty piss-poor showing and is basically the butt of a joke, Coulson is also the butt of jokes, and somehow, despite his flagrant irresponsibility, Luke Cage ends up... respecting him a bit more?

It's a pretty damn insipid episode, is all I'm saying. I don't mind the zaniness of comic book shows and definitely adore it when cartoon shows embrace it more (Frog Thor anyone?) but this isn't even fun or zany. It's just so boring, the Awesome Android is boring, the way the conflict is resolved is boring, and neither Peter nor Luke really end up feeling like they actually earned their supposed character development. Luke is 100% innocent in this entire affair, yet their conversation at the end of the episode makes it look as if Luke is owning up and sharing the blame, when... when it's Peter that does the dual fuck-ups of not doing the science project and stealing something from SHIELD.

Overall, episode 14 is utterly boring. I can't really even think of anything, really, to say. There's no attempt at depth with Power Man, there's nothing that's genuinely interesting in terms of action and zaniness, and it's just an episode that, while I wouldn't call unwatchable, just gets nothing but a shrug from me.