Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Eight: The Alien Costume: Part 1

The Alien Costume: Part 1

First Aired: April 29th, 1995

Synopsis: In space, astronaut John Jameson is exploring a meteor where he discovers a mysterious black liquid. Shortly afterwards, the shuttle heads back to Earth full of useful discoveries, including the isotope Promethium X, which could be a new power source. Black liquid swarms into the cockpit of the shuttle, and the pilots lose control of it, risking it crashing into Manhattan. Kingpin is interested in the Promethium X, and hires Rhino to steal it from the shuttle when it lands on the George Washington Bridge. Spider-Man, who has headed to the shuttle to help if he can, finds Rhino there and they briefly fight before Rhino gets recalled by the Kingpin. As he leaves, Spider-Man puts a spider-tracer on him, and a nearby Eddie Brock takes photos of Rhino leaving with the suitcase of Promethium X. Spider-Man gets the astronauts out of the shuttle, but heads back in when he hears a noise. The shuttle falls into the river, and Spider-Man comes out with black liquid covering his costume. When J. Jonah Jameson arrives at the crash site, Eddie claims that he has photos of Spider-Man stealing something from the shuttle.

Spider-Man's unable to track Rhino yet as the villain is in Kingpin's shielded bunker, delivering the Promethium X, so he heads home. There, he finds out that J. Jonah Jameson is offering one million dollars to anyone who brings him Spider-Man. That night, Peter wakes up from a nightmare to find himself in a black version of his suit, which has enhanced all of his powers. He also discovers that it has limited shapeshifting powers and can change its appearance to any sort of regular clothes. The next day at university, Peter flirts heavily with Felicia Hardy and gets into a fight with Flash Thompson, causing Felicia to note that he's scaring her. Meanwhile, Alistair Smythe reveals that he needs specialised equipment for using the Promethium X, which only the government has access to. Kingpin hires Rhino to steal some, and so Spider-Man's able to track him again. He completely wipes the floor with Rhino, but realises that he's become more aggressive, and ducks out of the fight before Rhino can give him information about the Promethium X. Spider-Man is left wondering what's happened to himself to change him so much.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As mentioned, the black suit increases Spider-Man's physical abilities greatly here, and if it wasn't obvious, it's also the cause of him being more aggressive. If there's one lasting legacy this show has, it's this - in the original comics, the black suit took Spider-Man's body out at night to fight crime, leaving him feeling exhausted in the morning. These days, pretty much any adaptation of the black suit will use these elements rather than the original. While I think that both ideas work in their own way, I do have to give it to the cartoon on this - giving a strong boost to Peter's Spider-Man life while negatively affecting his personal life is a great hook.

Review:  I've mentioned before that I've seen all of the Venom episodes of this series, and there are two scenes in this episode that I remember - Spider-Man on the bridge with the shuttle and him standing on the wall of his college, trying out different clothes with the black suit's shapeshifting powers. I could have sworn that he originally helped save the shuttle using his webbing, but I guess my memory's faulty on that part.

Anyway, all of that aside, this is an absolutely fantastic episode. The shuttle crashing to Earth and the aftermath takes up nearly half the episode, and it's written pretty much perfectly, feeling more like something out of a disaster movie than a superhero cartoon. It's a mundane threat that could theoretically happen in the real world (black goo being responsible for the crash notwithstanding), and while I like my Spider-Man to mostly tackle supervillains, throwing a disaster like this at him is a nice change.

The rest of the episode is mostly set up, but that too is done brilliantly. Eddie's presence is felt but not emphasised, so if you don't know where his character's going to end up at the end of the arc, I can see it being a genuine surprise. Spider-Man's experimenting with his new limits starts out feeling exhilarating, but by the end of the episode it's obvious even before he himself realises it how much he's changed. There's a definite sense that he has to fix himself, but how, and how will it affect the other characters? Does he still need the enhancements that the suit gives him to help stop Rhino and Kingpin? I don't know all of the answers yet, but I'm keen to find out.