Ultimate Spider-Man S02E10-12 Review: More Guest Stars

Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 2, Episodes 10-12:

Episode 10: The Man-Wolf

Yeah, these three episodes are pretty uneventful. Episode ten, "Man-Wolf", is another one of the whole classic Spider-Man villain episode, but it's, again, nowhere as exciting or funny as the show wants to be. The idea of Peter Parker getting along with JJJ's son, John Jameson, who's actually a nice guy, is interesting enough, and executed well for the brief scene that John is allowed to be on-screen. But when John turns out to be possessed by some alien rocks on the moon and mutated into an extra from Thundercats, it's just a generic "oh no fight the alien via action scenes" segment. Seriously, though, I get that comic book logic turns him into a werewolf because lunar rocks blah blah, but where does the sword and wacky D&D ripoff armour come from?

I don't think this episode is as bad as Avengers Assemble's genuinely banal episodes, but the episode doesn't really do anything particularly novel or interesting to make Man-Wolf feel any different other than his origin. It feels more like an obligatory "okay, let's just do a faithful reproduction of this classic villain" more than anything. It's not a horrible episode, but it's not a particularly great one either.

Episode 11: Swarm

Another Iron Man crossover episode, and it's kind of... it's kind of another solid, if unimpressive, episode. Spider-Man and Iron Man team up to fight the Juggernaut, but his blind faith in his home-built tracker and ignoring Iron Man's orders to track the villain himself causes them to lose Juggernaut. So he ends up basically stealing Iron Man's tech without permission to upgrade his spider-tracker, unaware that he's allowing Michael Tan, a recently-vaporized disgruntled enemy of Iron Man, to hijack his spider-tracker. And... and cause it to gain replication abilities for some reason? Soon Spider-Man and Iron Man team up against the combined creature, the Swarm, and while we do get some decent CGI fights, the whole episode does sort of feel kind of underwhelming, especially how spider-Man basically defeats it with a simple off switch.

That scene where Iron Man cobbles together his various old armours into a Frankensteined version is pretty badass, though, and at least Spider-Man gets punished for his irresponsibility here. Again, it's an episode that I do feel could've done a bit more with its characters.

Episode 12: Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man

Here's a weird one. Loki turns Spider-Man and company into the chibi versions often seen in this show's imaginary sequences. And... and that's really it. Everyone insists they're babies, but they're still capable of most of what they're basically able to do. We get very, very poorly delivered daycare jokes, a toy store with ridiculously potent toys, and a whole ton of jokes that just fail to land. I'll give props for the show makers trying to at least go a bit overboard with the zaniness, but an F in execution. The entire episode just feels like a drawn-out concept and the thing is that chibi Spider-Man alone just isn't that funny, nor is it enough to carry the entire episode. Comparing this to previous wacky Loki escapades -- the Spider-Ham or Frog Thor episode --  it's just kind of embarrassing. Easily another one that I count as one of the weakest episodes in the season.