Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Episode Fifteen: Along Came Spidey

Along Came Spidey

First Aired: October 2nd, 1982

Synopsis: Shocker escapes from the prison he's locked up in, and vows revenge on Spider-Man. The next day, he attempts to steal some jewels right when the Spider-Friends are nearby. The heroes change into their alter egos and try and stop him, but Shocker gets away, and in the process Aunt May is nearly hurt. While they're told that she's fine, Peter is blaming himself for it since he was engaging with Shocker at the time it happened. On the roof of the hospital, Peter tells his friends his origin - he was bitten by a radioactive spider and after learning about his powers, got to appear on a TV show. When the studio was being robbed, he didn't stop the thief since he didn't see it as being his job, but the robber later burgled his place and killed his Uncle Ben. After stopping the burglar, Peter learned that with great power there must also come great responsibility.

Peter says that since it was the use of his powers that almost caused Aunt May to die, he's thinking of retiring from being Spider-Man. His friends dismiss the thought, reminding him of the great responsibility he just mentioned. Shortly afterwards, Shocker attacks the city, saying that he'll cause an earthquake if Spider-Man doesn't show up. When Spider-Man does, he realises after a brief scuffle that Shocker's powers come from his suit. Firestar and secret government agent Iceman destroy his gauntlets, while Spider-Man himself steals the controls for Shocker's suit. The heroes stop Shocker from running away, and Peter declares that he's back for good. In the aftermath, Aunt May has heard that Spider-Man helped stop Shocker, and says that maybe she was wrong about him.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As you probably know, the majority of this episode, with Spider-Man's origins, is based on Amazing Fantasy #15. It copies a surprising amount directly from the issue, even including Peter attempting to ask out Sally Avril.
• One notable change from Amazing Fantasy #15 is that in the comic, Spider-Man webs up the burglar's gun and then punches him out at the warehouse. Here, he webs up the burglar, and then as he approaches him the burglar falls unconscious out of fear. I'm fairly sure that this is because this show has a no-punching policy.
• The opening shot of the episode is a billboard, advertising a Spider-Man article in the Daily Bugle written by, of all people, Stan Lee.
• Shocker's costume is modified slightly from his traditional comics one, most notably removing the criss-cross pattern from everywhere but the mask. I'll be honest; it doesn't look great. His voice is also portrayed as kind of robotic and echoey, which is also a bit of a weird choice.
• Prior to Peter going to the science experiment where he gets bitten by the spider, he's seen getting a college scholarship, implying that he's older than the usual 15 years old that he is when he gets his powers.

Review: It's Spider-Man's origin story. Yeah, we've seen it before, and we're arguably at the point where we don't need it to enjoy the show (even in 1982), but even so, he has the best superhero origin story bar none. With that in mind, is it much of a surprise that this episode is absolutely fantastic? Even knowing all of the beats that would occur, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much the story drew directly from Amazing Fantasy #15, and so waiting to see what else they would take directly from it gave me something to look forwards to.

The biggest flaw in the episode is Peter suddenly declaring he'll quit being Spider-Man. It comes without much buildup, and he's convinced not to so soon that it might as well have not occurred. Maybe if his decision had happened earlier - say, before giving his origin - or if we'd seen him struggle to stick to his decision upon Shocker attacking, it would have had more impact. As it is, it's a tiny little blip of a conflict and then its gone.

That's a very small issue in a great episode though. Like with Iceman's origin last episode, it wouldn't have hurt for the show to do the entirety of the episode as a flashback, but adding in the stuff before and after the flashback helps to give us more to the episode than just it. This is solid stuff, showing just how well Stan and Steve hit it out of the park all of those years ago.