Spider-Man (1981): After Watching

The 1981 Spider-Man cartoon is often overlooked, appearing as more of a footnote in comparison to its much more popular sibling, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Having watched the entirety of the series, is it fair? Does Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends hold more of the spotlight because it's genuinely better, or is it unfairly taking attention away from this hidden gem?

Well, I can't answer that, because I haven't seen Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends yet. What I can answer, however, is how this show compares with the previous series, which first aired in 1967. For a start, the exclusion of episodes made up of recycled animation - both from the show itself and other shows - feels like a breath of fresh air. I don't want to be too harsh on the 1967 series, but going into this and knowing that I'm not getting weak animation is an absolute blessing. Something else I was a big fan of was that the 1981 series was experimenting more with the wider Marvel Universe, showing off unexpected heroes and villains from other series. On the downside, I would have been keen to see an episode or two of the 1981 series directly adapting a comic book issue, as happened with several of the stronger 1967 series episodes.

So, the show's got quite a bit going for it when comparing to the previous series. How does it stand up when we're not doing a comparison? Unfortunately, a lot of the episodes are forgettable, or mediocre at best. A lot of them fall into that category of, "Well, it got a lot of stuff right, but it also got a lot of stuff wrong," and so there were few that I really strongly enjoyed. To the cartoon's credit, this might be more due to what was expected from the story of a cartoon at the time, and I can see what the creators were aiming for a lot of the time. The attempt at an ongoing story arc involving Doctor Doom, while ultimately not up to my standards, is encouraging, and I'm glad that the creators tried.

I didn't talk about it much in my reviews, but one of the most fascinating things I found about this show was the character of Mortimer, J. Jonah Jameson's nephew, who is introduced as a rival to Peter, and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing. Who is this character, and why was he created? This feels weird to type, but I'd love to see him show up in a future Spider-Man work, with his character more fleshed out and making more appearances overall. There's potential in him, if you ask me.

With all of the above in mind, I'm going to finish off my thoughts on this series with a list of the top five and the worst five episodes, so that you, the intelligent reader, know what to look forwards to and what to avoid if you decide to check out this series.

Top Five Best Episodes

1. Revenge of the Green Goblin: An absolutely fantastic portrayal of the Green Goblin, with a natural way to include Jonah in the plot. In spite of how villainous the Goblin manages to be, the episode never forgets to include some humour, easily making it the MVP of the series.
2. Arsenic and Aunt May: Aunt May as a relentless killer, repeatedly trying to murder Spider-Man, is absolutely hilarious in execution, and I'd love to see this plot again in the future. Chameleon's appearance and part of Spider-Man's origin are also unexpected, but not unwelcome.
3. The Capture of Captain America: Cap's a great character, and this episode does a pretty good job of showing why, as well as why the Red Skull is such a great villain for him. There are a few odd moments involving Spider-Man in the middle of the episode, but the plot itself manages to be highly entertaining.
4. Curiosity Killed the Spider-Man: There's some stuff towards the end of the episode involving Spider-Man being on a talk show that doesn't flow very well, but otherwise, this episode is a pretty strong showing for Black Cat's first animated appearance.
5. The Web of Nephilia: Nephilia has quite a bit of untapped potential, and I don't think that it would take much to fix up the character and reinvent him for a modern audience. The episode itself has a little too much going on, but it still does ultimately manage to work.

Honorable Mention: That one scene in The Doctor Prescribes Doom where Spider-Man kicks Robbie Robertson (his best friend) out a window, and doesn't find out when he crashes to the ground that he's a robot. That one scene trumps everything else in the show by far, and it made me realise that I'd happily watch an entire season consisting of Spider-Man kicking people out windows.

Top Five Worst Episodes

1. The A-B-C's of D-O-O-M: The problem with The Goron Show is that, well...it's The Goron Show. I came here for Spider-Man, not a bald man with eye lasers.
2. The Incredible Shrinking Spider-Man: Is it wrong to prefer The Birth of Micro Man to this episode? Spider-Man shrinking down is both as ridiculous and generic as you'd expect, and the bland villain just weakens the episode even more.
3. The Sidewinder Strikes!: The episode introduces a mystery that no one cares about, and doesn't make 100% logical sense even within itself. I'm all for introducing original villains, but not when it's done this badly.
4. When Magneto Speaks...People Listen: More like "When Magneto Speaks...People Change Channels", am I right, gang? Even if we ignore that Magneto is more nuanced than this and pretend that this is a completely different character, between the bland fights and the satellite-steering webbing, this episode is just bad.
5. The Unfathomable Professor Gizmo: There are some goofy moments in the episode that almost manage to salvage it, but it ultimately doesn't have any elements that anyone's looking for when they check out a Spider-Man show. I'd be happy to see the robot from Gizmo's origin return, though.

Next time, I'll be putting down some initial thoughts on the upcoming viewing of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I hope you'll join me for them.