Under the Wizard's Spell
Synopsis: Spider-Man is accused by a policeman of being behind some trouble some roller blading youths committed, but is unexpectedly bailed out by Medusa of the Inhumans, who is in New York for an unspecified reason. Spider-Man laments that she doesn't have time for him when she leaves. Medusa meets up with the Wizard, who first asks her to help him commit crimes, and when she refuses, attaches a collar to her neck that lets him control her. Medusa and the Wizard soon steal a rare metal at an exhibition Peter Parker is conveniently attending, and he changes to Spider-Man to stop them. Although Medusa saves Spider-Man when he's nearly crushed to death, she nevertheless gets away with the Wizard. When Spider-Man and Medusa meet up in Central Park later, she's evasive when Spider-Man asks what she was doing with the Wizard, and convinces Spider-Man to meet her at a water tower later, something the Wizard plans to exploit.
Wizard lies to Medusa and tells her that if she can get a certain electronic component for the ultimate anti-gravity weapon he's building, he'll release her from the collar. Medusa tricks Spider-Man into assisting her with the robbery, claiming that the component can defeat Wizard, but when they take it to Wizard Spider-Man soon finds out how he's been tricked and is locked in a room which steadily grows hotter. Medusa, meanwhile, tries stopping Wizard when she realises he never intends to free her, but he defeats her. Spider-Man manages to escape from his room by bursting a pipe that's in the ground, and after webbing up Medusa, who he doesn't trust, fights Wizard. Medusa manages to get free and helps Spider-Man, explaining about the collar afterwards. Spider-Man works out he can reverse the polarity of it using one of Wizard's gloves, allowing him to remove it. In the aftermath, Spider-Man removes his mask as Medusa covers her eyes, and the two kiss before Medusa leaves New York.
Review: Whatever positives this episode may have, there's one glaring flaw that kind of overshadows everything else: in spite of Wizard claiming that the collar allows him to control Medusa, there's never any indication that it does. She seems entirely in control of herself the entire time it's on, even going so far as to attack the Wizard when she feels bold enough. With that in mind, a lot of the plot of this episode becomes a bit confusing, and it feels like the writers were using it as an excuse to have Spider-Man and Medusa be unable to be clear with each other at any point.
There's another weird thing, too: Medusa and Spider-Man making out. As much as I love Peter and Mary Jane being together, I'm not opposed to trying out Peter with some other love interests, especially in this period when he's single. But still...Medusa? Is she not involved with Black Bolt in this reality? Did the writer of this episode see a picture of Spider-Man and Mary Jane making out and mistake her for Medusa? Why this, with very little build up, after episodes after episodes of Peter going on dates with Betty hasn't led to anything? It's like someone's weird fanfiction accidentally got mixed up with the actual script to the twenty-sixth episode, and so we get this in response.
So overall, the episode suffers from enough flaws that I can't exactly say we've gone out with a bang (even ignoring the issues above, the fights get a bit same-y and drag out a bit). It's definitely an improvement over the 1967 series' final episode, and it's far from the worst episode I've seen, but there's a weird sort of feel the whole time, and I can't say I'm entirely happy with it.
Next time: with this somewhat forgotten series finished, I'll be posting a retrospect of the entire series, giving my overall thoughts on it, questioning why it's such a footnote in Spider-Man's history, and listing the best and worst episodes. I hope to see you there.
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