Spider-Man (1967) Episode Ten: The Revenge of Dr. Magneto / The Sinister Prime Minister

The Revenge of Dr. Magneto

First Aired: November 11th, 1967

Synopsis: In the middle of a storm, a man named Dr. Magneto, angry that the Science Hall of Fame hasn't recognised his genius, uses a magnetic gun he has invented to shut down a lighthouse. A nearby boat is nearly sunk but Spider-Man uses his Spider-Signal to help it. When the story is reported but doesn't mention Dr. Magneto or magnetism, the villain tries destroying some train tracks, which Spider-Man also repairs.


When Spider-Man is credited with this act, Dr Magneto next magnetises the statue of Prometheus from Rockefeller Center and drops it from the Empire State Building, which Spider-Man only narrowly manages to save. Recognising the name, Spider-Man goes to the Science Hall of Fame, where he finds Dr. Magneto. They fight for a bit but Spider-Man ends up destroying Dr. Magneto's gun with anti-magnetic webbing when he finds out that Dr. Magneto refuses to use his skill for good. While J. Jonah Jameson is unhappy that he has to print the story about Spider-Man, he works out the best area to put it in: the classifieds.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way

• Spider-Man is able to stop the Prometheus statue by shooting his webs up, which causes them to spiral into giant springs. These are, of course, enough to stop the statue safely.

Miscellaneous Notes

• In contrast to the better-known X-Men villain, this guy's name is pronounced Mag-net-o, rather than Mag-nee-to.
• First use of the Spider-Signal in this episode! It's a rarely used gadget of Spider-Man's in, well, everything, but I always like seeing it show up.
• In response to hearing that the lighthouse was shut off via magnetism, Jonah angrily says that "There isn't enough magnetism in the world!" to do so. I'm not sure whether that makes Jonah the best authority on magnetism in this episode, or the worst.
• The Science Hall of Fame from the climax of the episode is filled with statues of Greek and Roman-looking figures. I guess Dr. Magneto has a point about them not recognising him, since their standards are apparently high enough that they haven't found anyone worthy of being inducted for at least two thousand years.
• In grand supervillain tradition, Magneto actually is his last name - his full name being Doctor Matto Magneto.

Review: On paper, this is another bog-standard original villain episode as we've been getting a few of recently, but unlike the other episodes, this one manages to be surprisingly fun. For one thing, the villain isn't absolutely ridiculous which helps a lot; for another, he's actually got a pretty good motivation. Wanting to be recognised for your exploits is pretty relatable, and it's definitely a nice change from all of the villains who have wanted a suitcase full of cash in the past. In addition, it's worked in well with the recurring joke of Jonah always blaming Spider-Man for the villain's deeds - whenever Dr. Magneto reads that Spider-Man is the culprit behind his actions, he gets even angrier that he's being overlooked.

Adding to the good characterisation and motivation of Dr. Magneto, we've also got one of the writers remembering the Spider-Man is a science nerd, and so he vaguely recognises Dr. Magneto's name and looks him up in his big book of science. It's nothing too revolutionary (he's lucky that the plot dictated that Dr. Magneto be where his book said he would be), but it's a welcome change from Spider-Man constantly heading back to the Daily Bugle for his leads. We've also got some good characterisation in Spider-Man saying that he only destroyed Dr. Magneto's device when it was apparent that Dr. Magneto wouldn't use his skill for good - it's more of an excuse for why Spider-Man didn't use his anti-magnetic webbing earlier, but giving someone (in the science field, no less) a chance to stop themselves feels very Peter Parker.

The anti-magnetic webbing itself is, of course, a tad on the deus ex machina side, but it's a small flaw in an otherwise surprisingly solid episode. Dr. Magneto's various shenanigans should wear me down, but I managed to find them fairly entertaining here - perhaps it was because none of them overstayed their welcome. (On the note of his acts of villainy, the use of the Prometheus statue and the Empire State Building is a great use of two iconic Manhattan landmarks). It's overall a good pointer for what quality original villains and plots can achieve if the writers actually put some effort in.

The Sinister Prime Minister

Synopsis: At the embassy of Rutania, Spider-Man is planning to get some photos of the prime minister, but instead finds him being captured and replaced with a doppelganger. Although Spider-Man tries to fight the doppelganger, he ends up having to run away when witnesses arrive rather than create an international incident. The next day, the fake prime minister convinces J. Jonah Jameson to put out extra newspapers to ask for money for his country.

Spider-Man returns to the Rutanian embassy to try and find the real prime minister, but ends up in a fight with the fake again, having to run away after a victory since he knows no one will believe him that it's a fake. When the money from Jonah's campaign is put on a plane to be sent to Rutania, Spider-Man ends up boarding the plane. He gets into a third fight with the fake prime minister and this time manages to defeat him and then destroy his mask, proving that it was a fake. When Jonah bemoans that he won't get a statue of himself made, as the fake prime minister promised in return for his help, he sees that Spider-Man has left a stone bust on his windowsill.

Miscellaneous Notes

• For a country that's presumably in Europe somewhere, the Rutanian guards sure do have some strong American accents.
• That money that's being sent to Rutania? It takes the form of solid gold ingots. It makes more sense than American money being sent there, I suppose, but did Jonah convince people to send in those spare ingots they had lying around?
• When Spider-Man destroys the fake prime minister's face, it crumbles away. It's probably supposed to indicate that it's plaster, but the effect is more like stone breaking. This mask raises more questions than it answers.
• The bust that Spider-Man delivers of J. Jonah Jameson at the end has carved on it, "Courtesy of your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man", meaning that Spider-Man must have ordered it himself. That is a hell of an expensive prank to play on someone.

Review: Secret origins time! I mentioned previously that I've seen some episodes of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon before, and this is one of them. A bit after watching it, I decided to check to see whether there had been any sort of references to the Sinister Prime Minister in comics at some point over the decades, and not only found that there hadn't been, but that there was barely any information on this episode on the internet. I saw a niche, and a great plan was started...

Anyway, how does this episode hold up? Well, the Sinister Prime Minister's plan is one of those ones that you have to accept at face value, but other than that, it's not too bad. I mentioned during Electro's return that it was nice to have the sensation that Spider-Man could actually win his fights in that episode, and it's a similar deal here - Spider-Man could beat up the Sinister Prime Minister quite easily, but it would cause an international incident and so he'd better keep his head down. Admittedly, it would have been nice to see Spider-Man doing a lot more sleuthing and investigating, whether in costume or not, but when he does get into a fight, it's straight out of a Silver Age comic (appropriately enough), with the Sinister Prime Minister's cane having whatever weapon is appropriate for the brawl in it at the moment. Some people will find it ridiculous, but I for one loved it.