Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Five: The Menace of Mysterio

The Menace of Mysterio

First Aired: February 25th, 1995

Synopsis: Spider-Man is seen robbing a museum and successfully getting away with it. The next day, Peter Parker wakes up to a call from Mary Jane, who wants to go on a date with him. After arranging it  Peter hears about the museum robbery, and goes to investigate it as the Daily Bugle's photographer. He meets a police officer there who recognises him as the person who takes Spider-Man's photos. While they're talking, Mysterio appears and declares that he'll defeat Spider-Man, before disappearing. Later, Peter's on a bus when he hears a radio report about another Spider-Man robbery. He investigates and soon discovers that the Spider-Man doing the robberies is Mysterio. Mysterio lures Spider-Man to the Brooklyn Bridge for a confrontation, claiming that it's where he was ruined. Before a crowd of people, Mysterio's able to knock Spider-Man into the water. Everyone assumes that he's dead. When Peter gets home he gets a call from Mary Jane, annoyed that he forgot about their date. Frustrated by this and his defeat, Peter declares that he won't be Spider-Man any more.


Peter gets a visit from the cop he met earlier, who asks for his help, thinking that Spider-Man was framed for the robberies.  He dismisses her, but when she comments that Spider-Man never turned his back on anyone Peter flashes back to his origin, and remembers how not stopping a robber led to his Uncle Ben dying. He changes to Spider-Man and meets with the cop. Looking up incidents with him at the bridge where Mysterio claims he was ruined, they find an incident where a movie shoot endangered a helicopter due to a stunt going wrong. Quentin Beck was responsible for it, wanting more impressive effects, and he was arrested. Spider-Man works out that Quentin Beck is Mysterio, and that he's at an abandoned studio. He heads there, and fights through assorted traps and robots of Mysterio's before being confronted by a group of them, all armed with weapons. Trusting his spider-sense, he's able to defeat Mysterio in one punch. In the aftermath, Mary Jane apologises for being annoyed at Peter before, and the two of them end the episode on good terms with one another.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man briefly fights the fake Spider-Man, there's a store in the scene called Romita's. This is a reference to John Romita Sr. and John Romita Jr., two very notable artists of Spider-Man.
• Quentin Beck is depicted in this episode with blonde hair in a ponytail, as opposed to his dark hair and bowl cut of the comics. I wouldn't call it a bad decision, per se, but it seems a bit arbitrary.

Review: There's nothing particular bad about this episode, but I also can't say that it's particularly compelling. Since the plot of this episode is loosely based on Mysterio's first appearance, it means that we've got comparisons to both the comic and the last time we got an adaptation of it. (Hell, it even has the same title as the last one). It does enough of its own thing that it doesn't feel like there's nothing new here, but none of it makes the episode stand out that much.

Much like the last time we got Spider-Man's origin, he declares he won't be Spider-Man for about five minutes, tops, then almost immediately decides he will be after remembering his origin. While the realisation is good and makes sense for the character, like last time it also feels a bit weak in both how quickly he declares he won't be Spider-Man and how little it feels like there's going to be any consequences for this. And I can't deny it; last time he had a much better reason to feel like being Spider-Man wasn't worth it.

If this is your first exposure to Mysterio, or even Spider-Man, it's not going to be a bad one to start with. But as the latest episode in a long line of Spider-Man, it doesn't really do anything to make it worth your while. An acceptable episode, but hardly essential.