Spider-Man (1981) Episode Twenty-Two: Arsenic and Aunt May

Arsenic and Aunt May

First Aired: February 6th, 1982

Synopsis: Spider-Man helps the police catch a cat burglar, who is taken to prison and placed in the same cell as the Chameleon. The burglar turns out to be the cousin of Uncle Ben's killer, and tells the Chameleon this as well as what he knows of Spider-Man's origin. Between these facts and the Chameleon's knowledge of Peter Parker, it gives him an idea to get rid of Spider-Man. He escapes from prison and then uses disguises to manipulate Aunt May into seeing a spirit medium, the Great Mentarr, who is himself in disguise. Using special effects, he tricks Aunt May into thinking that she's seeing the dead Uncle Ben, who urges her to kill Spider-Man since it's his fault he's dead. Chameleon also gives Aunt May an amulet which he can use to send her more messages from Uncle Ben.


Aunt May speaks to Peter about how she'd like to meet Spider-Man, and soon begins a series of attempts to kill him, from trying to overdose him with sleeping pills, taking acid from Peter's room, to trying to push him off the Statue of Liberty. All of these attempts fail, usually due to Spider-Man's Spider-Sense. The Chameleon grows impatient, and sends Aunt May a bomb to use to destroy both Spider-Man and her, but Spider-Man stops it and spots Chameleon in his van in the process. He chases after Chameleon but ends up getting caught up in some illusions Chameleon creates. While that happens, Chameleon changes to Spider-Man for a disguise, but Aunt May sees him and thinks that it's the real Spider-Man. She sneaks into his van and tries to pour acid over him, but there's a struggle and soon the van is driving all over the place. Spider-Man catches up to them, saves everyone, and destroys the amulet Aunt May has, having guessed it's purpose. In the aftermath, Aunt May has forgotten most of what happened, but she does have one thing she wants Peter to know: Spider-Man was probably behind it all.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• The episode's title is a reference to the play (and film) Arsenic and Old Lace
• When Spider-Man is going after the cat burglar at the start of the episode, his Spider-Sense briefly functions like X-Ray vision, letting him see the train car the burglar's hiding inside.
• At the start of the episode, Peter is asked to be home at 8 by Aunt May, the reasoning for which being that there's an Avengers cartoon on that she knows he'll love. There weren't any Avengers cartoons airing at this time, so whatever the reason for this moment is, I'm not sure of it. For anyone curious, the Avengers seen in the cartoon are Scarlet Witch, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Vision.

Review: The reasoning behind Chameleon choosing Aunt May as the vector for killing Spider-Man may be a bit dodgy, and with all of the illusions (particularly towards the end) it seems like they've mixed him up with Mysterio a bit, but other than all of that, this episode is absolutely great. I tend to find Aunt May a bit hit-and-miss as a character, but everything she does in this episode comes across as incredibly hilarious to me and works wonders. I wouldn't be surprised if they intended for it to come across as more dramatic, but hey, a win's a win, isn't it?

The way in which she repeatedly tries all of these horrible ways to kill Spider-Man is such a strong juxtaposition with the sweet old lady she's usually portrayed as that it comes across as though she's had these murderous urges pent up inside her all along. There's no hesitation in her, it's just right to whipping out the sleeping pills and trying to trick Spider-Man into eating them, and when that doesn't work, hey, what does it matter? There are plenty of ways she's happy to try killing someone! The one time she does have some hesitation, on the Statue of Liberty, it turns hilarious in a different way as she suddenly slips over and falls off the edge. (Between this and Robbie Robertson, Peter's best friend, falling out of a window that one time, I seem to have a thing for people falling in this series. I can't wait for Gwen Stacy to be introduced!)

The humour, intentional or not, aside, this really is a solid episode. There's definitely a sense of dramatic irony to Aunt May being the one to try and kill Spider-Man, and knowing that Spider-Man will be okay, both because he's got his name in the title of the show and because he's got his spider-sense, helps to downplay the actual threat of it. Chameleon probably could have been used a bit better overall, but the overall story was so enjoyable that I can't say I'm that cut up about it.