Spider-Man (1981) Episode Eighteen: The Capture of Captain America

The Capture of Captain America

First Aired: January 9th, 1982

Synopsis: Spider-Man sees a billboard about Captain America, and finds out shortly afterwards as Peter Parker that J. Jonah Jameson is a big fan. Jonah makes Peter watch a video recapping Cap's origin, and then declares that he's going to run a celebration called Captain America Day. On the day of the actual event, Jonah is knocked out and replaced with a disguised Red Skull, who gets into a fight with Cap when he arrives. Peter changes to Spider-Man to try and help, but only ends up getting in the way. Although Spider-Man's able to get a spider-tracer on Cap's shield, he's unable to stop the Red Skull from capturing Captain America. The real J. Jonah Jameson claims that Spider-Man did it on purpose, and riles up the crowd into hating Spider-Man.



As a result of all of this, Spider-Man is hounded by the public whenever he's in costume, making it impossible for him to get the opportunity to track down Cap. As Peter, he talks to his best friend Robbie Robertson about what to do. Robbie unwittingly gives Peter the idea to buy a Captain America costume, and to wear that when searching for the real Cap. Meanwhile, Red Skull reveals his plan to Captain America - a scientist he's forcing to work for him has created a device that will let him swap minds with Cap, allowing him to wreak havoc. Spider-Man is able to find Cap, and after a fight with some robotic knights, frees Cap. Cap fights the Red Skull, who ends up in the mind swap device on his own. At this point the scientist who created the device activates it as the Red Skull was always belittling him, and with no body for the Red Skull's mind to go into, his body is left a mindless shell. Later, Captain America Day continues. Cap offers to have a word with J. Jonah Jameson, but Spider-Man declines, saying that it'd probably mean that he'd have to shake hands with Jonah.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• During the recap of Captain America's origin, there's absolutely no mention of Bucky. Was he deemed irrelevant to this episode, or were they not allowed to mention someone as young as him dying?
• During a montage of Jonah stirring up hatred for Spider-Man, one of the people who hears it is a girl roller skating through the streets and listening to a handheld radio by holding it to her ear. How zeitgeist-y. 
• When Spider-Man goes to buy his Captain America costume, we get shots of a tonne of other Marvel heroes: Iron Man, Black Bolt, Vision, Captain America, Luke Cage, Phoenix, Thor, and Storm.

Review: When you see an episode with the name, The Capture of Captain America, you know that you're in for a good time. It's a little unfortunate that Cap is out of the majority of the episode, and anyone expecting some fights worthy of the Avengers and Captain America films is going to be disappointed, but he's written well enough and the plot is pretty strong overall. The Red Skull's plot is the most comic book-y thing in the world, yet I can't deny that it's a pretty good one. (Has he ever swapped bodies with Cap in the comics? I feel like he must have, and if he hasn't, it's a missed opportunity).

There's some awkwardness in that Spider-Man is hounded so strongly by the public - while I can buy that Jonah would rile them up pretty effectively, I'm not sure what stops him from sticking to rooftops and skyscrapers to avoid them, or even just going around the city as Peter Parker to search for his spider-tracer's signal. It feels like it's an excuse to get him into the Captain America costume, but then that never really ends up affecting the plot too much, so it all comes across as padding, ultimately. Still, it's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.

Overall, in spite of that flaw, the episode flows pretty strongly overall, and it's hard to find other things to dislike about it without nit-picking. Captain America and the Red Skull are a fantastic hero and villain respectively, and while this episode wouldn't be the first thing I'd show someone as evidence for that, you could do a lot worse than this.