Spider-Man (1981) Episode Twenty: The Web of Nephilia

The Web of Nephilia

First Aired: January 23rd, 1982

Synopsis: While Spider-Man saves some people from a fire one day, a woman named Penny nearby takes a sample of his webbing, and tricks him into nicking his finger on a trick pen so that she gets a blood sample. She takes the webbing and the blood to her scientist boyfriend, Doctor Bradley Shaw, and gets him to start researching it. Shortly afterwards, after being goaded by Penny, Shaw uses his research to try and replicate Spider-Man's powers, but unbeknownst to him, Penny sabotages the experiment, turning him into a half-spider, half-human monster. Meanwhile, there's a blood drive at the Daily Bugle, but Peter is making excuses not to donate since his blood is radioactive. J. Jonah Jameson grows angry when he hears this, having donated himself, and tells Peter not to come to the Daily Bugle until he donates. Shortly afterwards, Shaw, now calling himself Nephilia, is goaded into attacking Spider-Man, and after capturing him in webbing, tosses him away, telling him to beware his power.


Penny is furious when she hears that Nephilia just let Spider-Man go, but convinces him that they should rob a shipment of gold the next day. Peter, meanwhile, researches Nephilia spiders and finds out where Shaw lives, but only after he's abandoned it. Nephilia leaves a note with Jonah with the details of the gold shipment he'll rob, through which Spider-Man finds out about the robbery. The next day, Spider-Man fights Nephilia as the gold is being stolen from an uncoupled train carriage, but Penny sends the carriage down the track to kill the two of them and tries to get away with the gold. Spider-Man convinces Nephilia to work with him to stop the carriage, and afterwards they stop Penny, who admits that she never loved him. Peter later makes a serum which turns Nephilia back to normal, albeit with amnesia about everything that happened. In the aftermath, Peter finds out that J. Jonah Jameson paid for the badge he has which says he donated blood, and Jonah quietly drops his ultimatum that Peter donate blood himself.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Although Nephilia's powers are derived from the golden orb-weaver, he calls himself, well, Nephilia, rather than Nephila. There is a label on the spider's case with the correct spelling, though.

Review: I really don't like that I didn't like this episode as much as I want to. It checks a lot of the right boxes - Nephilia is an evil counterpart of Spider-Man, and they emphasise that his webbing is stronger than Spidey's. He's a reluctant villain, and his powers being derived from what information he can get about Spider-Man's powers is great. But...ultimately he just doesn't work. I think that it's primarily his horrible design - a man's torso with the bottom-half being a giant spider is ultimately not very aesthetically pleasing, not to mention it's asking us to suspend our disbelief quite a bit to believe that his legs mutated into that.

There's also some problems with the pacing and actual contents of the episode. Again, a lot of it I want to like, but...pay attention and you'll notice that Spider-Man and Nephilia never have a proper, all-out brawl. Spider-Man investigates Nephilia's namesake and any spiders of the type that have been sold recently, but it never really leads anywhere since he ends up finding out where Nephilia is by the note left with Jonah. Penny goading Nephilia into stealing gold ultimately does work when she betrays him and takes it for herself, but for a good portion of the episode I was disappointed by the sudden reversion to 1967 character motivations.

So, in summary: a solid enough concept which is let down by the execution and plotting of the episode. While I doubt it'll ever happen, I'd definitely like to see Nephilia, or some version of him, reappear, because I definitely think that he's a salvageable character and that he has potential. In spite of all of that, I'd say that this episode is worth watching - who knows, maybe you'll find the flaws more acceptable than I did.