Spider-Man (1981) Episode Thirteen: The Sidewinder Strikes!

The Sidewinder Strikes

First Aired: December 5th, 1981

Synopsis: Spider-Man stops a herd of rampaging bulls in the streets of New York, which he finds out are there due to an upcoming rodeo in Madison Square Garden. Shortly afterwards, some solid gold spurs belonging to Wild Willy Wilkins, a collector of all things Western and the owner of the rodeo, are transported via the subway. Peter Parker is there as part of a human interest story when the villain Sidewinder attacks the subway with his gang on flying robotic horses. Sidewinder temporary gets away with the solid gold spurs, but Spider-Man manages to get them back and deliver them to Wilkins, who declares that Spider-Man will be a guest of honour at the rodeo.

Peter goes to the rodeo to take photos of it, only to find Sidewinder's mask there, which means he must be a rodeo clown. Due to a series of contrived coincidences he ends up on a mechanical bull which he can't get off of right when it's about to explode, but manages to escape using his webbing. Once the rodeo starts properly, he investigates it as Spider-Man, and runs into the cowgirl who helped him on the mechanical bull. She's about to tell him who Sidewinder is, but they're knocked out by the villain before she can. The cowgirl is put into the main stage while Spider-Man is locked into a robot bull, Diablo, which is programmed to run over the cowgirl and kill her. Due to the bad timing of this, however, Sidewinder ends up deactivating Diablo, and attacks Spider-Man himself with his gang. Spider-Man manages to defeat them and unmasks Sidewinder as Wild Willy Wilkins. The cowgirl points out that Spider-Man was on Diablo longer than anyone else ever has been, so he should win an advertised prize, but J. Jonah Jameson disagrees since Spider-Man didn't sign an entry form.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Peter points out the possibility of Sidewinder attacking the rodeo, Betty Brant comments, "This is the last place Sidewinder would be!" Yeah, that Western-themed villain, who steals Western-related objects, definitely isn't interested in a rodeo, a very Western attraction.
• Sidewinder shouldn't be confused with the comic villain Sidewinder, who is a snake-themed villain who can teleports and, more notably, started the Serpent Society. He also shouldn't be confused with Desperado, another cowboy-themed villain who had a mechanical horse.

Review: I think that the ultimate problem with this episode is that it's setting up a mystery - "who is Sidewinder?" - when there's not really a reason to do so. A good chunk of the episode spends time giving us clues that never really go anywhere - a strangely antagonistic clown Spider-Man encounters at the rodeo, some prominent boots said clown wears that the camera focuses on, the Sidewinder mask found in the clown's quarters, Sidewinder stealing the gold spurs when in retrospect he had no reason to... There's even the classic "Getting cut off as you're about to reveal the mystery bit", with the cowgirl and Spider-Man getting knocked out right as she's about to reveal Sidewinder's identity - surely the only reason you'd do that is to keep the audience in suspense about the mystery?

Outside of the mystery no one cares about, the episode also suffers from a problem that the 1967 Spider-Man series had, which is that it spends a lot of time trying to convince us that this pretty insignificant threat is a real danger to Spider-Man. Pay attention to the fights against Sidewinder, and you'll notice that Spider-Man never really has difficulty fighting him or his gang, they just get away or get a temporary win because the plot needs them to. And please, let's not get into the nonsense with Peter trapped on the mechanical bull.

This is the point where I'd normally say that there was potential in this episode, but...was there? If you cut out the mystery of who Sidewinder is, you don't get much other content, and we've seen the mystery doesn't really need to be there. I guess if you really wanted to you could tighten up the fight scenes, add in some more characterisation for the villain, and maybe give Spider-Man a more personal stake in everything, but by that point you're writing an entirely different episode.