Spider-Man (1967) Episode Twenty-Eight: Phantom From the Depths of Time

Phantom From the Depths of Time

First Aired: November 2nd, 1968

Synopsis: On an island in the ocean the inhabitants are captured by some giant bugs and forced to work mining an element called lapicide in the mines by an insectoid humanoid. One of the slaves manages to break free and send a radio signal asking for help, which Spider-Man's spider sense, back in New York, picks up. Spider-Man climbs into a jet and flies off to the island to help, starting off his adventure by defeating the giant bugs, which turn out to be robots.

As Spider-Man keeps making his way towards the castle the insectoid villain works out of, he encounters a rhinoceros-like creature with rocky skin, gargoyles, and a large alligator-like creature in a moat. Eventually he reaches the villain, who is already planning to escape with the lapicide he has. He activates his final creature, the mountain monster, and says that it is designed to destroy the planet, but Spider-Man takes the plane full of lapicide he spotted and flies it into the mountain monster, destroying it. He then frees the slaves before realising that he needs to get back home before anyone realises that he's missing, so he does.

"Spidey Swinging to Pad the Episode" Montages: Three, by my count...but there's also a montage of some plain backgrounds at one point, so let's call it three and a half.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man receives the mayday from the slave, he says that the person must have a special transmitter, so that only his spider-sense can pick it up. While it's a great excuse for why only Spider-Man can save the guy, it raises the question of how the slave got it.
• After the main story's over, we get a montage of Spider-Man action, while Spider-Man's voice tells us not to miss next week, when he faces a revolt in the fifth dimension. The episode titled Revolt in the Fifth Dimension doesn't appear until season three, and even then, it wasn't originally broadcast due to some of its imagery.

Review: From what I understand, from the second season onwards a good chunk of the animation for this show is recycled from something called Rocket Robin Hood. While I've never seen Rocket Robin Hood and doubt that I ever will (I think it's safe to say that its biggest legacy is, "Some of its animation is recycled for Spider-Man"), I can say with a good amount of confidence that most of the animation in this episode is probably taken from it. Read that synopsis again, but this time, take a shot every time you see a typical Spider-Man trope. Done? By the end you shouldn't have taken any shots (well, maybe half of one for Spider-Man's spider-sense picking up something).

So with that in mind, where does this leave this episode? While it's very blatantly another show with the protagonist replaced, I found that because it was so obvious, I was able to enjoy the episode on its own merits. It wasn't like those stupid molemen episodes, trying to tie in the Daily Bugle to disguise its recycling, nor was it like the episodes where Peter got random classmates who never showed up again. It's blatantly a copy-paste job, and I loved it for it. (Well, love is probably a bit too strong a term, but you get what I mean).

The highlight by far is the unnamed villain. Aside from that cool look, something that adds to him is in how little we know about him: we can guess that he's an alien from his appearance and his mention of needing to blast off (although where that leaves the title of this episode is anyone's guess), and that's about it. On a side note, something I loved about his is that whenever he refers to Earth, he calls it an asteroid - a nice little touch at showing that his culture is different to ours. Overall, this episode manages to be surprisingly competent in spite of how un-Spider-Man like it is.