Spider-Man (1967) Episode One: The Power of Dr. Octopus / Sub-Zero for Spidey

The Power of Dr. Octopus

First Aired: September 9th, 1967

Synopsis: Peter Parker is on assignment for J. Jonah Jameson to find some mysterious lights in the mountains. After his car falls off the side of the mountain he's on, he switches to Spider-Man and finds Doctor Octopus' laboratory, the source of the lights. He's defeated and captured, and Octopus reveals that he has a device which he'll use to blow up large portions of the city. He sends a warning to Jonah to evacuate some residents so he can make a demonstration.


Jonah doesn't take the threat seriously; meanwhile, Betty Brant is wondering what's happened to Peter Parker. She heads out to where he was supposed to go and also finds Doctor Octopus' lab, where she is captured. Doctor Octopus starts to activate his device as a demonstration to her and Spider-Man, but Spider-Man escapes and manages to defeat Doctor Octopus, thus stopping the threat of his device. When Peter reports back on what happened to Jonah, Jonah is annoyed that Peter didn't get any pictures of the lights, to which Peter mutters he should have gotten Doctor Octopus to give him a hand.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way:

• Several times when Spider-Man webs something, his webs loop around the object when they reach it. And people say Spider-Man didn't get Captain Universe powers until the '80s.
• Spider-Man spins a giant web shield to block some lasers of Doc Ock's, which wouldn't be that strange...except that the edges of it don't appear to be attached to anything, and it's able to stand up without anything supporting it.

Miscellaneous Notes

• The very first shot we see of Peter Parker is him driving a car. With the notable exception of the Spider-Mobile, Peter Parker in the comics has only rarely been seen driving; it's generally accepted that he's not a great driver.
• Upon driving his car off the mountain he's on, Peter quips, "Fasten your seatbelts!" It was only then that I realised he wasn't wearing one; as someone who's had compulsory seatbelt laws for all of his life, this was a very strange moment for me. (Incidentally, he doesn't put on his seatbelt in spite of his quip. Now that's confidence in your powers!)
• When Betty is investigating Peter's whereabouts, we see her driving down from the top of the mountain. At the bottom of it, she finds Peter's car. Either she wasn't paying attention as she was driving up the mountain, or there are two routes to get to the top.
• Betty shows a press card to a police officer whilst looking for Peter. Unless I'm mistaken, she shouldn't have one unless she's a reporter, something which didn't happen for decades in the comics. I'll be interested to see whether she's mentioned being a reporter or being seen doing reporting activities as the series goes on.

Review: I have to wonder what anyone who was first exposed to Spider-Man through this episode thought of it. A lot of elements are thrown at the viewer without explaining what they are - notably Doctor Octopus, who is recognised by Spider-Man immediately without any exposition as to who he is or how he got his tentacles. Some of this is fine - the relationship between Jonah, Peter, and Betty is pretty self-explanatory and we don't need more than the surface details - but then some things I would have thought essential, like Spider-Man's powers, don't get an explanation. (Wait, is this why Spider-Man's webbing can do so many strange things in the 60's series? Does his webbing come from a source other than web shooters, and we just never get told so?)

Even so, this isn't a bad way to launch the first episode of your superhero show. Doctor Octopus is one of the best Spider-Man villains (even moreso at the time this episode came out), and the plot allows for a lot of action sequences which the audience at the time probably would have loved. Betty actively looking for Peter is nice and something which I can't see the Betty of the comics doing at the time, and Jonah's portrayal here easily lives up to the standards of his comic counterpart ("Typical teenagers! The minute there's any work to do, they go gallivanting off!")

Watching this through adult eyes, it'd be easy to complain about the animation (I was debating having a section for recycled animation, but I was worried I'd end up having to compare a lot of scenes) and the overall plot, but honestly, the only thing that irked me about this episode was the pacing. Spider-Man is defeated by Doctor Octopus three separate times in the episode and it doesn't feel like any of the fights before those defeats contributed very much to the plot. Even then, I can see why those sequences were put in, so while I can't say this is going to blow your mind, it could have done a lot worse.

Sub-Zero for Spidey

  
Synopsis: Peter Parker is going to visit a scientist, Doctor Smarter, when he notices that the footpath is covered in ice. He overhears Smarter calling for help and changes to Spider-Man, finding the scientist being attacked by a strange creature made of ice. Spider-Man manages to chase it off and speculates that it was after Smarter, who looks noticeably guilty at this. Spider-Man goes off and manages to find the creature, but leaves the scene after it freezes the building he's standing atop.

After investigating an iceberg in New York Harbour at Jonah's request, Spider-Man goes back to Doctor Smarter, who speculates that the creature is from Pluto. Right after he says that, two of the creatures burst in and freeze him and Spider-Man before carrying his frozen form off. After Spider-Man defrosts, he makes his way to the iceberg, speculating that it's their base. He manages to make his way in but discovers from Smarter that the aliens aren't actually hostile - they crash-landed here and need a device of his to get home. Smarter uses the device to get the Plutonians to fly off in their spaceship.

Miscellaneous Notes

• Doctor Smarter claims that the aliens aren't hostile. I can buy that their surroundings being covered in ice is an involuntary side effect, but for non-hostile aliens, that one asshole sure was eager to freeze an entire building to the point that it split in two.
• Before heading to the iceberg, Spider-Man adds a heating unit to his costume and what he calls, "an extra special device for my webbing." The latter isn't brought up again for the rest of the episode, leading to the question of what exactly it was supposed to do. At a guess, I'd say it was to stop the Plutonians from freezing his webbing, as happened in the first fight.
• When Spider-Man fights the first Plutonian of the episode, it leaves by walking backwards through the door. This would appear to be a budget-saving method, but I didn't spot any other scenes which looked to be this sequence reversed. Perhaps it was easier than animating it turning around?
• Obviously, as the far-flung future spacemen of 2019 and beyond that we are, we all know that Pluto is a dwarf planet, not a planet, as Doctor Smarter claims.

Review: Oh boy, Spidey fighting aliens. I knew this was coming, but I didn't expect it to be this early. (Actually, I did, since this is one of the few episodes I've seen prior to starting this blog, but that's beside the point). I'm very much a fan of street-level Spidey, and given the general lack of alien villains he has (with the arguable exceptions of Venom and Carnage), I think it's safe to say that I'm not in the minority here. Why was the choice made to have Spider-Man fight aliens in the second animated story ever? Was it to reuse assets previously created for another show? An attempt to deliberately avoid retreading stories from the comics? We'll probably never know.

The first story of this episode had some problems, but I was willing to forgive them because it was simple enough to work in spite of them. Maybe it's the lack of a familiar villain taking away my willing suspension of disbelief here, but I'm finding questions here which don't have easy answers. Why does Spider-Man simply swing away when the building he's on cracks in two rather than trying to stop the Plutonian? Why does Doctor Smarter look so guilty when Spider-Man brings up the possibility that the aliens were there for him? What was the point of Spider-Man's modifications to his webbing? And while I'm not going to harp on the animation quality, I will say that I spent a good chunk of this episode thinking that the Plutonians were robots.

As it is, the only parts of this story I found myself enjoying were the sequences after Spider-Man sneaks into the iceberg base, which are fun in a platformer video game sort of way. Other than that, it's jumping from plot point to plot point without too much thought put into it. The ending reveal that the aliens aren't hostile is an alright attempt to give the story a bit of a twist, but it's too little, too late by then, and overall it ends up as forgettable as the Plutonians themselves.