Spider-Man (1967) Episode Five: Never Step on a Scorpion / Sands of Crime

Never Step on a Scorpion

First Aired: October 7th, 1967

Synopsis: The Scorpion, a green-clad supervillain, is training in anticipation of fighting Spider-Man for J. Jonah Jameson. Shortly afterwards, Jonah brags about his upcoming weapon in the Daily Bugle, leading to Peter Parker changing to Spider-Man to go looking for Scorpion. They fight for a bit and Spider-Man runs away after seeing that Scorpion is stronger than him. Scorpion then heads to Jonah's office, as according to his creator, his scorpion nature is growing and making him more evil, thus making him want to destroy Jameson.


Spider-Man races to the Daily Bugle and manages to defeat Scorpion this time, leading to the police taking him away. Shortly after reaching jail, Scorpion breaks the bars of his cell and escapes, heading for Jonah at the Daily Bugle again. When he arrives, the police are called and Scorpion runs away, not wanting to be captured again. Spider-Man webs him up as he escapes and this time he's locked up for good. In the aftermath, Jonah publishes an article claiming that he was the real hero of the day.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way

• When fighting the Scorpion, at one point Spider-Man's webbing instantly forms itself into bolas in mid-air.

 Miscellaneous Notes

• This episode is mostly based on Amazing Spider-Man #20, although elements of Amazing Spider-Man #29 make it in too.
• When the Scorpion first appeared in the comics, his creator Farley Stillwell was appalled at the fact that he would grow more and more evil over time, and realised what a mistake he had made in creating him. He died while trying to administer a serum to the Scorpion to cure him, and thus undo his mistake. This version? "Eh, I'll give Jonah a call; he can take it from there."
• When Spider-Man first webs up Scorpion, Scorpion declares, "My claws were designed to cut spider webs!" Leaving aside the fact that he quite clearly has hands, Scorpion then rips apart the webbing through sheer strength.
• On that note, Scorpion may be able to rip apart Spider-Man's webbing with his bare hands, but he's shown struggling and failing to break his police handcuffs.
• In one of the scenes in the Daily Bugle, Peter is quite clearly trying to ask Betty out when Jonah interrupts and spoils it all. Let's hope he tries again soon!

Review: Alongside the Shocker, I've always had a soft spot for Scorpion, helped very much by the fact that my first introduction to him was in the video game based on the first Sam Raimi film. In it, he wore a badass costume, his tail fired lasers, and he was portrayed surprisingly sympathetically. While other versions of Scorpion very rarely hit any of what I loved about him so much in the game, I'm usually pretty eager to see how well he will live up to it.

Unfortunately for me, this version of Scorpion has to draw from the 1960's comics, which is probably his weakest portrayal. Most of the time the Scorpion-like aspects of him are downplayed and he simply becomes a strongman in a green bodysuit. It makes the fights less visually interesting than they could be, but at the same time, I can't deny that seeing someone match Spider-Man's strength and stamina does give a nice element to the fight. While Spider-Man winning simply by webbing Scorpion up does feel like a bit of a cheat given that Scorpion could previously break his webbing, given how often villains are defeated with a punch to the jaw, it's a breath of fresh air.

The biggest problem, then, is that after the Scorpion is defeated, he promptly escapes from jail and the first two-thirds of the story are more or less repeated. I have no idea whether the writers found that Amazing #20 didn't give them enough story and so they started on Amazing #29 to pad things out, or whether the plan was to always take elements of the two and they simply didn't realise how repetitive the latter issue made the episode, but the addition of the latter issue really brings this episode down. Aside from the repeated elements, there's also a feeling that the story is now being rushed to finish before the story's time limit runs out. Why is Scorpion so afraid of being captured by the police when he's clearly stronger than any of them? When he gets back to jail, is there any reason for him not to escape and come after Jonah yet again?

Pad out the first half of this story a bit more (more of Peter asking out Betty, please!) and end after Spider-Man defeats the Scorpion, and you've got one of the strongest episodes so far. Do what was actually done, and you've got the biggest letdown of the season so far.

Sands of Crime

Synopsis: Museum guards are looking over the rare Goliath Diamond, and Spider-Man decides that he wants a closer look. When he's not looking, Sandman steals the diamond and trips the alarm, leading to the guards thinking that Spider-Man stole the diamond. Sandman sends a ransom note for the diamond to J. Jonah Jameson, the apparent owner of the diamond, telling him to bring money. As it's signed with an S, Jonah still thinks that Spider-Man is the thief. Spider-Man goes to the beach where Sandman wanted the ransom delivered, but fails to stop him and still appears to be the culprit in the eyes of the police.

A new ransom note is sent asking for twice the money, this time to be brought to a rock quarry, but Jonah is scared of what Sandman might do to him. Peter Parker volunteers to deliver the money, and when he arrives as Spider-Man, he webs the briefcase containing it to a nearby tree stump. After Sandman fails to pick it up, Spider-Man emerges and the two of them fight. Sandman is eventually defeated when he is knocked into a trough of water and can't change forms. Afterwards, Jonah asks Peter why he didn't get any pictures of the fight and Peter has to claim that he was too excited to take any.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way

• Spider-Man shoots out webbing over his hand, which forms the shape of a giant baseball mitt. That's stretching plausibility, but I guess I can accept it. The giant basketball hoop spun in mid-air is somewhat less plausible, and the giant webbing slingshot is right out.

Wrecking Balls Do Not Work That Way

• At one point in the fight at the quarry, Spider-Man's foot is trapped under some rocks, and he can't move. Using some nearby machinery, Sandman drops a wrecking ball on Spider-Man, crushing him once and for all...by which I mean, the wrecking ball destroys only the rocks, leaving Spider-Man unharmed and able to move without any visible damage to his foot.

Miscellaneous Notes

• As with Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man recognises the Sandman as an established villain. Given that he didn't know to make him wet, however, he probably hasn't fought him before.
• When testing the security of the diamond at the museum, one of the guards pokes a stick in an electrical barrier, which disintegrates it down to ash. Where did that come from? Did he just pick it up from somewhere else in the museum, or is there a special room full of sticks for security testing?
• There's nowhere else to put it but here, but I'd just like to say that I think that Sands of Crime is a really cool title (although admittedly, what could you use it for other than a Sandman story?)

Review: I know that complaining about a story in which Spider-Man is wrongfully accused of a crime is a bit like complaining about an Iron Man story in which Tony Stark upgrades his armour, but sheesh, these are starting to wear on me a bit. By my count, this is the third within the first five episodes of the show, fourth if you also count Jonah accusing Spider-Man of being behind Vulture's crimes.

So once again we get Spider-Man running away from the police, and them constantly showing up to hound him. We get Jonah declaring that he's been right about Spider-Man all along, and we get Spider-Man being spotted at several crime scenes right after the villain disappeared. It's all things we've seen before, and it drains the episode a bit - which is a pity, because some elements here are pretty enjoyable. After the fight at the beach Spider-Man has seemingly recovered the diamond from Sandman and delivers it to the police, but inside the bag he gives them there's just a giant rock, thus making it look like he was just pretending to go along with what they wanted while actually getting away. Sandman, meanwhile, managed to get Jonah's briefcase full of ransom money without anyone realising it, only to find out that it's full of shredded paper. It's a good bit of double-crossing from both characters, and it's a pity that more emphasis wasn't given to it.

As for the fights with Sandman, all of the uses of his powers are things we've seen before - turning his hands into hammers, turning himself into a giant ball of sand, and so on. I've already mentioned some of the more ridiculous uses of Spider-Man's webbing in this issue, and the fight at the quarry is made even more dull when Sandman switches to trying to use vehicles lying around to kill Spider-Man. There's nothing here you haven't really seen before, with the possible exception of Jonah randomly being the owner of the McGuffin Diamond.