Spider-Man (1967) Episode Thirteen: Return of the Flying Dutchman / Farewell Performance

Return of the Flying Dutchman

First Aired: December 2nd, 1967

Synopsis: On a stormy night, a ghostly ship is seen flying above the ocean, which a ship's captain identifies as the Flying Dutchman. The sightings increase to the point that J. Jonah Jameson sends Peter Parker to get photos of it, even though he personally doesn't believe in it. Spider-Man is told by the aforementioned captain, who is on the shore of the beach watching the ocean with a telescope, that the ship appears over Smuggler's Cove every storm. Spider-Man soon sees the ship and takes a photo before being knocked out by two thugs. They enter a secret passage in the nearby cliff and report to their boss that Spider-Man was taking photos of their ship - said boss turning out to be none other than Mysterio.


Mysterio lures Spider-Man out to another ship on the ocean, and after a brief fight, abandons Spider-Man to drift out to sea. While Spider-Man makes his way back using a sail and rudder made of webbing, Mysterio discusses his scheme with his thugs - they use a projector to create the image of the Flying Dutchman, which allows them to get loot from a submarine in the area. Moments later, Spider-Man enters the room and gets into a fight with Mysterio and his goons using a sword he creates from webbing. Although he is able to defeat the thugs, Mysterio has the drop on Spider-Man with a gun, at which point he is stopped by the sea captain, who has wandered into the cave. In the aftermath of the fight, Spider-Man briefly uses the ship projector to frighten J. Jonah Jameson.

Webbing Does Not Work That Way

• I'm willing to give a web rudder a pass because for once in this show, we see Spider-Man actually creating the shape on the ground (well, the deck of the ship) rather than his webbing miraculously forming the shape as it shoots out. The same can't be said of the webbing sword, which is made even more confusing when Spidey describes it as being made of tempered webbing.

Review: While I doubt that it was intentional, I'm going to give this episode credit for its twist: when we see a ghostly ship over the water in a show which hasn't been afraid to showcase aliens, living wax statues, racist caricatures, and magic rituals, my first thought is that Spider-Man will be fighting ghost pirates in this episode. Instead, an existing Spider-Man villain turns out to be behind the plot, and what's more is that it fits his M.O. entirely. If this had been the start of a Spider-Man comic Mysterio would have gone to the top of the suspect list, but by this plot appearing in a show that isn't afraid to jump genres, it ends up being a genuine surprise that this story ends up being fairly normal, albeit a bit generic.

Yes, the twist may be good, but outside of that, the rest of the episode is fairly standard. I do like that Mysterio simply distracts Spider-Man on the boat long enough that he can get away and leave him to his fate; it's quite pragmatic. There's also a good moment in the sea captain (who is, of course, a walking stereotype: "Not bad, for a landlubber!") helping out Spider-Man at the climax, but it comes across a little out of nowhere since the captain has spent the whole story watching the ocean. Other than that though, there's not a lot here to make the episode stand out, and as it is it definitely has some flaws: how exactly does Mysterio projecting an image of the Flying Dutchman allow a submarine to give him money? It's easy to speculate, of course, but it's so easy to find a plausible answer to the question that I'm curious as to why the show doesn't give us one.

Still, it is nice to see Mysterio return, and he does stay fairly in-character and with a good enough scheme, so we'll call this one "not bad".

Farewell Performance

Synopsis: Peter Parker is taking photos of the Castle Theatre before it's demolished by the city, alongside two of the actors who used to perform there, Emily Thorndike and James Boothe, when a poster outside the theatre comes to life. When Peter tells J. Jonah Jameson about it and says that there must be a ghost there, Jonah scoffs, and says that regardless, the theatre has to be destroyed since it's part of the city's project to get rid of eyesores. In spite of this, when a construction crew tries to knock it down, all of their equipment transforms and becomes harmless, leaving them helpless to do their job.

Peter returns to the theatre as Spider-Man to investigate, and speculates that Blackwell, a magician who used to perform at the Castle Theatre, could be behind the acts. Entering the theatre, his suspicions are confirmed, but he doesn't see Emily or James, secretly watching. Spider-Man fights Blackwell for a while but is eventually knocked out. When he comes to, he finds himself strapped into a seat in the theatre, held at knife and gunpoint by Emily and James, and forced to watch a show of Blackwell's. When he breaks out, he finds that the knife and gun are fake, and that the show was all for his benefit to convince him to help save the theatre from being knocked down. Spider-Man works out how to do so: by reporting to a rival newspaper that he wants it knocked down, J. Jonah Jameson puts all of his efforts into keeping it in place, solely so that the stance he takes is different to Spider-Man's.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• The combination of Spider-Man initially thinking that a ghost is behind what's happening, the presence of someone named Blackwell, and the show's Manhattan setting will, decades down the line, inspire the creation of the Blackwell series...actually, that's a lie, but hey, if you like point-and-click adventure games, I recommend them!
• I'm going to assume that some parts of this episode were outsourced to another studio, as in several scenes J. Jonah Jameson's face is extremely long, and with some really prominent cheekbones.

Review: Much like the story featuring Miss Trubble, this episode ended up catching me completely flat-footed. Once again I was expecting wacky ghost shenanigans, and while the episode is admittedly composed of a lot of wacky magic shenanigans, the motivations and explanations behind everything ended up giving it a quite heartwarming twist, one which I don't think we've really had in this show before. It's emphasised by Emily and James not threatening Spider-Man with real weapons, and while the point is admittedly undermined by some of the fight with Blackwell (see: the screenshot above of Spider-Man being attacked by a giant eagle), it gives the 'villains' a nice sympathetic emphasis.

The problem with the episode is, of course, that while the ending does a good job of being fairly original for this show, getting there is a bit of a chore. There's nothing that offensive about Spider-Man's fight with Blackwell, but there is very much a feel that the writers keep trying to find something to pad out the episode just a little bit longer. There's also some dubiousness in the plot - were the antagonists expecting Spider-Man to come in so that they could put on a show for him, or were they just planning on tying up the first person who entered? You've also got to wonder why, in-universe, Blackwell antagonised Spider-Man so much if he wanted to convince him to join their side (unless the fight was also supposed to be part of the show?) - that doesn't seem like a great idea.

Still, while some people will probably find the aforementioned dubiousness too much and be unable to willingly suspend their disbelief, I managed to do so enough that the ending still managed to be effective enough for me - it certainly helps that we haven't seen this sort of motivation in this show before. And of course, on top of that, Spider-Man near-weaponising Jonah's hatred of him in a brilliant bit of reverse psychology both gives us a good bit of humour at the end while staying internally consistent and providing a logical solution to the problem. It's good stuff.