Spider-Man (1967) Episode Twenty: Sting of the Scorpion / Trick or Treachery

Sting of the Scorpion

First Aired: January 20th, 1968

Synopsis: The Scorpion manages to escape from prison by burrowing out of his cell, and vows revenge on Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson. When Jonah hears about it, he calls Stillwell, the scientist who helped create Scorpion. Stillwell claims that Scorpion's powers should have worn off by now, and says that he'll set a trap for Scorpion. Shortly afterwards, Scorpion bursts in through Stillwell's window and demands a serum to give him his powers, and ends up drinking random chemicals when Stillwell refuses. After he leaves, Spider-Man arrives, having heard about Scorpion, and is given an antidote to the chemicals Scorpion drank to feed him.

Spider-Man is able to find Scorpion easily, but unexpectedly, the chemicals cause him to grow to a giant size. Scorpion throws Spider-Man into the river, and then heads to the Daily Bugle and snatches Jameson out of his office. While the army appears to stop him, they fear attacking him in case Jonah is injured in the crossfire. Spider-Man manages to trip up Scorpion with his webbing, sending Jonah flying out of his hands. With Jonah safe, he is able to feed Scorpion the antidote, and then web him up safely.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• I mentioned that Stillwell was planning to place a trap for Scorpion.We actually see this in action, said trap to defeat the Scorpion, the villain with super strength, toughness, and a cybernetic tail, is...to place a bear trap behind the door to his office. Brilliant.

Review: Let's get the Silver Age out of the way first: Scorpion growing to giant size from drinking random chemicals is pretty silly, even if like me you headcanon that the chemicals contain Pym Particles. I know we've seen sillier in this show, and we'll probably see sillier yet to come, but Spider-Man fighting one of his foes who has randomly grown to giant size just doesn't feel like a Spider-Man story. A villain whose power involves growing and shrinking? Sure, I could see that, but the execution of this dials the goofy meter up to fifty.

In spite of that, the fights against Scorpion manage to be mostly competent. Spider-Man causing Scorpion to trip to get rid of Jonah is a good use of his brain, and it is rather fun seeing Spider-Man struggle so much against a villain that at first, he has pretty much no idea what to do, and in a reflection of my initial reaction, is pretty astonished by what's happening. I wouldn't call these scenes outstanding or anything, but it makes a decent job with what it's got.

The weakest part of the episode, then, involves the scenes with the police and the army. They show up, try shooting Scorpion both with guns and tanks...yawn. We already know that Scorpion is a threat just from his sheer size and ability to ignore the square-cube law; we don't need to see him fighting these guys to establish that. Spider-Man doesn't need to be off making a new type of webbing or anything here, so why is he offscreen so much? The answer, of course, is because the episode needs to kill time, and its in these moments that it suffers the most.

I'm not going to deny that giant Scorpion is a goofy idea, but it's a concept that could be exploited, with some Shadow of the Colossus-esque climbing around Scorpion, or giving us a Scorpion even tougher than normal. Instead, it feels like not much has changed with Scorpion compared to the last fight, and so we've once again got a bit of a disappointing story.

Trick or Treachery

Synopsis: The Human Flies, twin burglars who Spider-Man previously put away in jail, manage to steal a safe full of diamonds, and in the process frame Spider-Man for the crime. When Peter Parker hears that they were released from jail, he goes to their old hideout to investigate. They manage to plan a Fly-Tracer modelled after Spider-Man's Spider-Tracer, on Spider-Man, and then get away. By knowing where he is, they can have one of them distract him while the other commits crimes.

Spider-Man finds one of the twins, and falls exactly into that trap, getting caught up chasing him around while the other robs a bank (and frames Spider-Man for it). When the police arrive with a warrant for Spider-Man, he has to flee. He later finds the Fly-Tracer on his costume, and reverses it so that he can track the Human Flies. He manages to track the two of them to a building storing fur clothing, and defeats them.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• We get a reveal that the Human Flies (whose last name is Patterson) are named Stan and Lee, after you-know-who.
• In probably the best bit of show-don't-tell storytelling in this series, when Spider-Man's at the Human Flies' base, an old circus, we see an old poster advertising the two of them as acrobats. 
• Towards the end of the episode, J. Jonah Jameson fantasises about what his newspaper will look like when Spider-Man is captured. In something which I suspect was put in by a sneaky animator rather than because the script specified it, we see that below the title of the paper it says, "Eleven Millionth Edition".

Review: I remember finding the Human Flies a bit dull last time on account of their gimmick of being twins and not really posing a serious threat to Spider-Man. While I wouldn't say they've improved by leaps and bounds in this story, I found them a bit more endearing this time around. Two guys who are pretty athletic say, "You know what? We'd probably be great at burglaries," and then proceed to prove so. Give them a solid motivation for why they're willing to do such a thing, and that's an origin I can get behind. I think the poster revealing that they were acrobats is honestly what did it for me.

As for the story itself, it's one which is trying to be clever, but logic breaks it apart a bit. The first time they frame Spider-Man for a crime, one of them dresses as him while the other knocks out a guard only after he sees Spider-Man stealing diamonds. That makes sense. The next time, they simply plant Spider-Man's mask at the scene of the crime, and that immediately makes the police think it's him. That makes less sense. While they go on about how by knowing where Spider-Man is, one of them can distract him while the other frames him, wouldn't it make more sense to just not commit crimes if you know Spider-Man's nearby? You don't even need to frame him - you'll need to hide the loot either way, so you might as well try for 100% stealth rather than needlessly provoking Spider-Man.

That rather fallible logic aside, we also end up with a pretty bland climax. While one of the twins is performing a robbery, we get Spider-Man chasing the other one...and chasing him...and chasing him... and chasing him some more, until he gets away...but then Spider-Man appears anyway and webs the two of them up. It makes the previous scene reek of padding, and is a pretty damn lazy ending after what we just watched. Was Spider-Man intentionally not catching the criminal he was chasing so that he could find the two of them? Or was he genuinely unable to catch him, but now he miraculously can? It's a pretty bad ending to a pretty mediocre episode.

With that, we've finished off the entirety of the first season of the 1967 Spider-Man series. From what I gather, the second is where the recycled animation and crazy plots really kick in, so it'll be interesting to see how it compares. See you all then!