Spider-Man (1981) Episode Two: Dr. Doom, Master of the World

Dr. Doom, Master of the World

First Aired: September 19th, 1981

Synopsis: In his flying blimp, Doctor Doom captures Air Force One with the US President aboard. When Peter Parker, waiting at the airport to get photos of the president, hears the plane went missing, he changes to Spider-Man and manages to get a ride in a World War I-era plane with a slightly kooky old man. They coincidentally pass the blimp, and Spider-Man webs to it and breaks in. Unbeknownst to him, Doom is using robots to perform surgery on the president and insert a device which will allow him to control him. Spider-Man gets into a brief fight with some robots before Doom pulls a lever which drops Spider-Man and Air Force One out of the blimp. Air Force One continues to the airport, but not before Spider-Man takes some photos of the president from the outside. By the next day, Doom has finished performing surgery on everyone in the United Nations, and he plans on using them to declare himself the ruler of the world.
Peter Parker briefly has to fight a robot Doom sends after him the next day, but eventually manages to make it to the Daily Bugle to deliver the photos of the president. While giving them to J. Jonah Jameson, he notices the device Doom inserted into the president. Peter and Mortimer, Jonah's nephew, are then sent to the United Nations to photograph the meeting there, but Doom's robots attack and gas everyone. Spider-Man ends up chasing the kidnapped secretary-general to Doom's blimp, but Doom puts Spider-Man in statis with a ray and then teleports back to the UN with the secretary-general, where he is voted in as ruler of the world. Spider-Man manages to escape the blimp, headed towards the Statue of Liberty, by shooting his web so that it pierces the blimp and releases air, then heads back to the UN. Upon attacking Doctor Doom, he is met with protests and has to flee, but when he returns later in the day he is able to control Doctor Doom's robots with a convenient control panel nearby. Doom decides to flee, and Spider-Man commands the robots to free everyone from the mind control devices.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Upon Spider-Man seeing Doctor Doom's blimp, he comments that "Only one man I know who could create an overgrown blimp like that!" Should we infer from this that Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and, more importantly, Reed Richards don't exist in the cartoon's universe?
• Although Doom is mostly known for using Doombots, here he uses pink humanoids instead. I can't blame the animators - it would probably get very easy to lose track of the real Doom otherwise.
• When Doom's robots attack the UN, they release a gas which knocks out everyone but Peter, because "Only my super spider-breath has kept me from passing out!" Sure it has, Peter.
• After Doctor Doom teleports back to the UN, the secretary-general declares that "We shall now vote for a new world leader!" Uh...what do you mean by a new one?
• At the very end of the episode, Peter asks Betty Brant out to see a movie, describing a new film "about a strange super-guy from another planet who's allergic to green rocks." It's a cute reference.

Review: Spider-Man has always been my favourite superhero, and I don't see that changing at any point, but in spite of this my favourite villain has always been from a different hero's rogues gallery. I'm talking, of course, about Doctor Doom, who manages to meet most of my expectations in this episode. Mind-controlling UN delegates! Owning a giant flying blimp! Army of robots! Taking over the world! It perfectly encapsulates one of the (many) things I love about Doom: since his "powers" essentially boil down to "he's smart", there's a lot of different plots and schemes you can throw him into.

As with last episode, there are unfortunately a few flaws here, ones which I feel could be fixed with a few rewrites. The fight Spider-Man has halfway through the episode with the robot Doom sends after him feels like filler, and I'm not quite sure what Mortimer contributes to the plot. The weakest part is definitely the ending - Spider-Man works out that Doom was unlawfully elected - somehow - and then taking after control of Doom's robots using the world's most convenient control panel, Doom just...leaves. Even with Spider-Man quickly mentioning that the mind-control devices will be removed, there's still a lot of questions to be answered. Does Doom get impeached? Does Spider-Man have to explain what happened to anyone, or will they know once the devices are removed? Why did Doom just leave like that? It screams of the writers both running out of time in the episode and not knowing how to end the corner they've written themselves into.

Still, overall this was a pretty enjoyable episode. Even with Doom's reason for wanting to take over the world never being explained (side question: is he the ruler of Latveria in this series? I could see it going either way), his method for doing so feels just realistic enough to be plausible with comic book logic. Spider-Man is spouting some great quips, and his problem with being late to the Daily Bugle is both relatable and not unlucky to the point of it being cruel. As far as stories featuring Doctor Doom go, I'm giving it a seal of approval.