Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Three: The Return of the Spider-Slayers

The Return of the Spider-Slayers

First Aired: February 11th, 1995

Synopsis: Peter Parker is being forced to go on a blind date with his neighbour Mary Jane Watson, and isn't pleased about it. When he's finished talking to Aunt May about it on the phone (while in costume), he's attacked by the Spider-Slayer that he fought previously, as well as a new, larger one. He manages to get Spider-Tracers on both of them but is defeated by them. Spider-Man is taken to Alistair Smythe, who has invited J. Jonah Jameson to unmask Spider-Man. It turns out to be a trap for Jonah, who's shackled to a bomb with Spider-Man, set to explode in one hour. Alistair blames the rivalry of the two for killing his father, and also has plans to kill Flash Thompsonn, Eddie Brock, and Norman Osborn. The Spider-Slayers drop Spider-Man and Jonah on a rooftop then head off to their targets.

Using the Spider-Tracers he put on them earlier, Spider-Man tracks down the Spider-Slayers hunting down Flash and Eddie and defeats them. In the process he also uses the laser of the first one to sever the bond Jonah has with their bomb, freeing him. He then heads to Oscorp, where a third Spider-Slayer is fighting Norman Osborn's security, but the first two robots are revived and merge with it. When they chase after an escaping Norman in a car, he uses some liquid oxygen at Oscorp to free himself from the bomb. He then goes after the Spider-Slayer, and uses the bomb to blow them all up. In the aftermath, Kingpin is disappointed with Alistair and declares that he'll have to work for him until Spider-Man's destroyed. At home, Peter is fixing his costume when Aunt May forces him to go on the date with Mary Jane, only for Peter to discover that she's good-looking.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man first fights the Spider-Slayer from the previous episode - the Black Widow - he comments that he thought he destroyed it months ago. While it's probably supposed to be an attempt to justify how Alistair's had time to make three giant robots, it's weird to think that that long has passed between episodes. What's Peter been up to in that time?
• Spider-Man and Jameson getting a bomb strapped to them is a reference to Amazing Spider-Man #192. Smythe (Spencer, in that issue) had a bit better justification for doing it there - he blamed the two of them for making him work on Spider-Slayers which had radioactive isotopes, which meant that he was now dying.

Review: I mentioned in my review of the previous episode that Spider-Slayers can sometimes feel like generic robots, and this episode demonstrates it perfectly. When they're rampaging around trying to destroy supporting characters by shooting lasers around, it's hard to feel as though they're robots specifically designed to exploit Spider-Man's weaknesses and stop him. This is just speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were put in right after an episode which had one of them for toy-related reasons. Just look at the three of them - all fairly boxy, bright designs which would translate to plastic very easily.

Not helping matters is that this episode is action, action, action. Spider-Man's constantly going from fight to fight, and while there's potential for us to feel his exhaustion and weariness, he defeats each Spider-Slayer so easily - no doubt for pacing reasons - that it's hard to feel invested in any of this. While him being strapped to a bomb with Jonah is a cute reference, any conflict or drama isn't tapped at all. Hell, even when Spider-Man's walking around with a bomb on his wrist, I don't get the sense that he's worried about what'll happen if he fails to get rid of it - more of a, "Yeah, I'll get to it when I have time".

Probably the worst scene of the episode has to be when the third Spider-Slayer is at Oscorp, fighting security. By this I mean that we get a lot of robots shooting lasers at each other, and while they kind of sell the threat that the Spider-Slayer is a threat, it's not really want I want to see here. If it weren't for the final scene of the episode, with Peter meeting Mary Jane, I would have been pretty disappointed with this one. Instead, that raises it to doing an okay job of setting up future potential...but still not that great overall.