Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Episode Three: The Fantastic Mr. Frump

The Fantastic Mr. Frump

First Aired: September 26th, 1981

Synopsis: Doctor Doom is performing a ritual atop the Latverian embassy which will give him unlimited power, which requires all four quarters of an amulet. Which he's performing it, Spider-Man, Firestar, and Iceman in their civilian guises run into Mr. Frump, an elderly man who used to help Aunt May out but who has recently had a string of bad luck. Peter reassures him that something good will come up. The three heroes change into their alter egos and decide to race home, but along the way Spider-Man runs into Doctor Doom performing the ritual. Spider-Man attacks Doom, who drops the amulet off the roof. Mr. Frump picks it up right as the ritual was about to be finished, and ends up with unlimited power, although he doesn't realise it yet. Spider-Man and his friends continue fighting Doom while Mr. Frump slowly learns about his power, before he begins experimenting with it. The effects of his reality warping soon reach the fight, where each hero and Doom have acquired a piece of the amulet. Mr. Frump wonders how he got his powers and as such Doom appears before him. Doom manipulates Mr. Frump into working with him, and Frump turns the heroes to stone.


Mr. Frump ends up summoning Aunt May for someone to talk to, before reversing the heroes being turned to stone. While the heroes keep trying to fight Doctor Doom, Mr. Frump's demonstration of his powers to Aunt May continually interrupts them. Frump ends up creating a coliseum for the heroes to fight a variety of monsters in, but ends up having to save Aunt May from one of them himself. While he's doing so, Doctor Doom convinces the heroes to give him their pieces of the amulet so that he can reverse Frump's power, which they reluctantly agree to. Doom tricks Mr. Frump into recreating the ritual for the powers by saying that they'll wear off in an hour if he doesn't replicate it, but naturally Doom tries to get the powers for himself. Spider-Man, Iceman, and Firestar anticipate this, however, and end up fighting him. In the end no one gets the powers, Frump loses his and all of his changes are undone, and Doom swears that he'll find another amulet before flying off. In the aftermath, Mr. Frump is sad that he lost his powers, but finds a cat identical to one he previously created and is happier. The heroes, meanwhile, lose all memory of what happened.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• A sign at the start of the episode declares that Doctor Doom is standing atop the Royal Embassy of Latvaria. Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?
• Throughout this episode, when Doctor Doom speaks, the mouthpiece on his mask moves. I appreciate that they had to animate it and that it's more difficult to do than just keeping it still, but...it doesn't look great.
• As mentioned above, Doctor Doom is performing magic in this episode. Although stories usually focus on Doom's scientific skills and knowledge, his use of magic dates all the way back to his first appearance in Fantastic Four #5.

Review: While the Doctor Doom of the 1981 series (the one that isn't this one, that is) wasn't a bad character, he didn't really showcase most of the really cool and interesting aspects of Doom. While this Doom doesn't really have many positives or negatives to set him apart (with the exception of this Doom having to crouch down to draw a pentagram in chalk himself, which is absolutely hilarious), he does have a bit of a problem in that he appears in an episode that isn't really suited to him. Yes, Doom manipulating Mr. Frump is enjoyable, and him using magic is nice to see, but he ultimately takes a backseat to Mr. Frump as the antagonist.

While I can see what the writers were going for with Mr. Frump, I don't think that they really succeeded in any way. When he doesn't have his powers, he's moaning about how terrible his life is. He's not wrong, but it gets grating quickly, and the fact that once he gets his powers he turns into an absolute asshat doesn't help in the least. He's also an absolute moron, and probably the biggest question of the episode is not "How will we stop Mr. Frump and Doctor Doom?", but, "Hey, how come it's taking Doom so long to get the powers back from this guy, anyway?"

I will say that I like the dramatic irony of the heroes battling Doom while Frump was experimenting with his powers, as well as the moments when his powers unexpectedly interfered with one of the many fights in this episode. If his powers had been a bit less in his control - subconsciously affecting the world around him, maybe - then a cool story could have been told. Maybe we could have seen something about how he constantly self-sabotages, or that he thinks he doesn't deserve such powers. But no, instead we got the reality-warping man who changed all of the skyscrapers in New York to have polka dots. That kind of says it all, doesn't it?