Ultimate Spider-Man S02E25-26 Review: And Everyone's A Goblin

Ultimate Spider-Man, Season 2, Episode 25: Return of the Sinister Six; Episode 26: Ultimate

Two-parter season finale! And it's going to be the last Ultimate Spider-Man content I have on this blog for a while. It's not the easiest series to review due to its focus more on gags and actions instead of character development, and I feel that the second season has sort of ran out of the charm juice that made me tolerate the first season a fair bit. It's not a bad season, I feel, and the detractors are exaggerating things, but a lot of their complaints are definitely valid. And, if anything else, the second season really suffers for abandoning any attempts of making any sort of long-running story the way the first season slowly built up Norman and Octavius throughout its runtime. Season two just has random Sinister Six and Dr. Octopus episodes shoved randomly in the middle of the season that never feels as epic as they should.

And that is ultimately what this entire episode was -- an extended fight scene. Dr. Octopus has broken out Kraven, Electro, Lizard, Rhino and, for whatever reason, Scorpion out of prison and suited them up in horrible-looking power armour (the rhino and his weird crotch-tail tank tread is the worst) to have them fight against Spider-Man, Iron Patriot and the Junior Avengers.

And... and that's basically the entire episode. We get a bland "Iron Patriot is a good leader... wait, wait, Spider-Man is the better leader!" spiel from the Junior Avengers. Spider-Man spends his entire screentime dealing with the Lizard, which is kinda neat, but doesn't quite pack enough emotional punch for me to care. Lizard does end up ultimately turning back to Curt Connors at the end of this episode, but that feels like it needed more oomph, you know?

Oh, and Dr. Octopus, for whatever reason, wants to turn Norman back into the Goblin to kill him in his 'true form', leading to the predictable bit of Green Goblin usurping the spotlight once more. Although Dr. Octopus is far, far less interesting and entertaining in season two than he was in the first season, so I can't say it's that huge of a loss.

And episode 26 starts off with Green Goblin basically usurping both the more interesting Norman Osborn and Dr. Octopus once more, just like he did at the end of the first season. With the Sinister Six defeated and basically swept under the rug, and Norman's internal conflict and desire to do good straight-up just ignored, the Goblin goes through a plan to turn every single person in New York City into goblin-mutants, starting off with the four members of Spider-Man's team.

This leads to them fighting Spider-Man while saying very bland and predictable mean things, until Spider-Man goes back with the anti-Goblin formula. I do sort of appreciate the flashbacks to their respective 'huge character' moments (Luke Cage and his parents, White Tiger against Kraven, Iron Fist in K'un Lun, Nova and the Guardians), and I definitely appreciate that the finale incorporates Spider-Man's team more than just having them as extra superpowers to act in action scenes, but it just feels forced. It just feels like Spider-Man is spouting all these character-related moments even though he doesn't really need it to break his friends out of the Goblin formula. 

And then, well, we get the typical "save one person, or save the city" hero dilemma, the typical "choose a third option" solution, and the Goblin's plans to destroy the city is foiled. It's... it's honestly pretty bland, and a lot less epic than it probably should be. Hell, I felt more tension from the Sandman or the Mummy episode! This just feels like it's ratcheting up to some huge climax, but neither the goblinized Team or even the Green Goblin himself are particularly that compelling. 

Ultimately, it feels like a standard 'big event' finale that tries to play up on having it be the conclusion of some huge Norman Osborn character arc... except that character arc is never really consistent, and having Norman taken over by the flat-villain Goblin persona isn't particularly well done either. Bit of a disappointment of an ending, in my opinion.