Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends Episode Twenty-Two: Spidey Meets the Girl From Tomorrow

Spidey Meets the Girl From Tomorrow

First Aired: October 22nd, 1983

Synopsis: While secret government agent Iceman and Firestar attend a Zodiac-themed party, Peter is doing some stargazing. He ends up detecting the crash landing of a spaceship from five hundred years in the future, and goes to investigate it, not knowing that Doctor Octopus has also detected it. He goes to the spaceship and meets its inhabitants, a brother and sister named Barto and Ariel, respectively, who accidentally travelled to the past while fleeing a space crab. Doctor Octopus attacks shortly afterwards, wanting the spaceship so that he can do time travelling crimes, but Spider-Man fights him off with the help of the Spider-Friends, who knew where to go thanks to a note Spidey left, and the space travellers, who have telepathic powers. Ock runs off when he's defeated. Barto explains that their ship is missing three chemicals to be able to return them home, and while Iceman, Firestar, and he go off to look for two of them, Peter and Ariel turn the ship invisible then run off to spend time with one another, as they're in love.

Doctor Octopus returns and steals the invisible spaceship when it's covered in snow, and plans on confronting the heroes when they get the chemicals it needs for fuel. While they're successful in retrieving them, and Peter finds out that the third chemical is ivory, which he gets from an elephant in the zoo, Barto has started to become very sick. Octopus kidnaps him and holds him hostage for the chemicals. While Spider-Man goes after Ock, Ariel also falls ill, and upon Firestar and Iceman taking her to a hospital, it turns out that she doesn't have any sort of immune system, and could die to any disease. The heroes regroup and defeat Ock after finding his underwater base. In the aftermath, Ariel and Barto are ready to return home, when Ariel asks Peter to return with her. Surprisingly, he says yes, and travels to the future - only for Ariel's father to point out that as someone from the past, Peter is full of germs and microbes which could kill off anyone he comes into contact with. Peter reluctantly concedes the point, and returns home - but not before Ariel gives him a brooch to remember her by.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Peter's stargazing at the start of the episode, Stan Lee's narration says that "Something is happening...five thousand years in the future!" Shouldn't that be "Something will happen five thousand years in the future!"?
• There's a great, understated joke near the start of the episode when Ariel says that they're "...sometime in the 18th, 19th, or 20th century," to which Barto replies, "Ah, the medieval period!"
• When Doctor Octopus first fights the protagonists, one of his tentacles is damaged and broken off. We later see that not only has he replaced it, but that he has an entire cupboard full of spare tentacles. It's the stuff like that that makes this worth it.
• The hospital that Ariel is taken to is named the Buscema Hospital, presumably after Sal or John. Nice little tribute there.
• I mentioned in my review of the first episode of this series that the Spider-Friends' catchphrase of "Spider-Friends, go for it!" was kind of cheesy. As shown in this episode, they do actually have a second catchphrase they use for when things are serious - in this case, when Ariel's in hospital. It is, of course, "Spider-Friends...really go for it!"

Review: I spent a good chunk of the first act of this episode a bit sceptical, anticipating some Spider-Man (1967)-esque adventure. I don't think that that's entirely unfounded (I've mentioned before that I don't think aliens and Spider-Man work together that well), as there's a lot of silly things in this episode, primarily the way that Spider-Man and Ariel fall in love so deeply so quickly (but let's not leave out Spider-Man trying to carve some ivory from an elephant, or the space crab which has to be fought twice). That being said, this episode also somehow manages to make it work.

Yeah, Spidey and Ariel falling in love so fast is done so that we can have a tragic ending, and as an adult who is experienced in the ways of love dated some people at one point or another, it's easy to scoff and say that they're rushing into things. But at the same time, I can't deny it - it's great seeing Peter so happy, and the show knows how to absolutely nail the ending, giving no narration or dialogue as Peter's beamed back to Earth, a little more broken than before. I'll also give the show props for giving a decent attempt at making us think that Peter will go to the future - I was expecting him to gently turn down Ariel, but no, he really does make a solid attempt to leave then and there. Given that we've only got two more episodes left in the show, I almost wish that he had left so that we'd have some sort of ending for him.

Ultimately this strength of this episode really relies on how much you buy Peter and Ariel's romance. While they very much seem more infatuated than actually in love, there's still something heartwarming to me to seeing them be so happy with each other as they learn about one another. This isn't the episode for everyone - I'm not even sure if it's the episode for me, given some of the silliness in the plot - but I'd definitely say that this is probably the best ending we've gotten for an episode all series.