Triangle of Evil
Synopsis: Peter Parker finds out that he and Aunt May are running low on money to pay their bills, but while he's trying to work out what to do about it, sees an announcement on TV that a diamond and urn are going to be stolen. While stopping the robberies, he ends up causing a lot of collateral damage that he's billed for. He sees a reality show which he can go on which would get him the money to pay the bills - both personal and as Spider-Man - but unbeknownst to him, the villainous Stuntman, who was behind the robberies, has arranged with the reality show that he and Spider-Man will compete against each other. Stuntman used to be a stuntman who was robbing the studio he was working for until he was caught by Spider-Man. When he was running away, a bolt of lightning struck him, fusing the costume he was wearing at the time to his body, so now he wants revenge on Spider-Man.
When Spider-Man shows up to the reality show shooting, he finds out that he has to compete against Stuntman. The first stunt is climbing a nearby mountain, which Stuntman wins due to some dirty tricks; the second is the two of them racing up the Twin Towers, which Spider-Man wins. While this has been going on, the diamond and urn have been stolen again, and Spider-Man works out both that the competition with Stuntman is just a distraction to keep him from the robberies, and that J. Jonah Jameson's house will be robbed next. He goes and stops the robbery at Jonah's before making it back for the final stunt - a race across a bridge. Due to a series of contrived coincidences, Spider-Man is covered in tar, but stops Stuntman by using a magnet on a nearby crane. When Spider-Man finishes the race, he also ends up covered in feathers, and finds that the studio won't pay him since their tape was ruined so they can't air anything. Luckily, J. Jonah Jameson is more than willing to pay Peter Parker for photos of Spider-Man tarred and feathered, solving Peter's money problem.
Miscellaneous Notes:
- In an absolutely fantastic moment from Peter, when Aunt May mentions that she's not sure what to do about her bills, Peter stubbornly comments, "Aunt May, they're our bills, and I'll take care of them." Excellent writing, writers.
- Stuntman's accomplices, the ones who steal the diamond and urn, are named Moe and Larry. Oh, I see what you did there, episode.
Stuntman manages to work really well as a villain for me, probably because it's pretty hard to screw up cyborgs. His origin is pretty dubious, but while I doubt it was intended by the writers, it occurred to me as I was writing this that since we only hear his origin told by him, as opposed to being shown it by an omniscient narrator, it's entirely possible that he's lying about it and that he became a cyborg through some other means. The twist that he's basically there just to distract Spider-Man from robberies is also quite good, and is the sort of trick you can honestly see working on Spider-Man multiple times.
The competition itself is also fairly enjoyable, and fills out the plot fairly well (although man, the TV crew must be damn confident that Spidey and Stuntman aren't going to have any accidents, judging by the lack of safety equipment). Spider-Man and Stuntman each winning a stunt prior to the third one is kind of required thanks to the story structure, but what I liked about it was that it didn't show Spider-Man as being completely incompetent, and showed that he could get one up over Stuntman. Speaking of the competition, it's shown that Spider-Man signs a contract written up by Stuntman without reading it first, so some of the more questionable things that happen it can be explained away by that.
The episode definitely has its flaws, but it manages to get more than enough right to justify watching it.
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