Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Twenty-One: Neogenic Nightmare, Chapter 8 - Duel of the Hunters

Duel of the Hunters

First Aired: November 11th, 1995

Synopsis: The monster Spider-Man's mutated into fights the Punisher in the warehouse, but the Punisher calls his battle van and escapes. When Spider-Man leaves the warehouse, he's seen by a worker, and soon the news is reported that Spider-Man is now a mutated Man-Spider. Seeing this on the news, Mariah Crawford calls up Kraven the Hunter for help. The Punisher, for his part reaffirms his resolve to hunt the monster, and correctly guesses that he'll sleep during the day. Kraven the Hunter arrives at the airport during the day, and Crawford reveals that she's got a serum that can cure Spider-Man. That night, the mutated Man-Spider shows up at campus, terrifying Debbie Whitman who goes to Flash Thompson for help. The Punisher shows up and captures Man-Spider, but Kraven then arrives, and those two get into a fight. Man-Spider manages to break free and briefly fights Morbius, who's arrived, but Morbius flees and shortly afterwards, so does Man-Spider.

The Punisher and Kraven split up to hunt Man-Spider in their own ways. Man-Spider shows up at Aunt May's, where Mary Jane's called Harry Osborn over, and Harry futilely tries fighting Man-Spider before the latter leaves. Man-Spider somehow finds the Punisher's van, crashes it, and webs up the Punisher. The Punisher is taken to Man-Spider's lair, where he's freed by Kraven. The two easily defeat Man-Spider, but then get into a philosophical debate about whether or not to kill Man-Spider. Mariah Crawford shows up and convinces the Punisher that Man-Spider is an innocent victim, and administers her serum, which turns Man-Spider back into Spider-Man. The Punisher leaves, and Spider-Man swings off, happy to be back in his own body.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As can be seen in the picture above, Man-Spider has six eyes. As we all know, spiders have eight eyes, making the above egregious enough, but when we see some shots from Man-Spider's point of view, we see that he's somehow seeing from nine sources. Argh!
• Man-Spider seems to be visually based on the minor comics character Spider-X. A few years after this episode aired, Spider-Man would undergo a similar transformation in Amazing Spider-Man #437.
• Kraven the Hunter refers to Crawford as Calypso several times. In the comics he had a girlfriend by the same name, who...actually, other than more or less being the villain of Torment, did she ever do anything?
• On that note, Kraven says that Calypso was a goddess who gave life to Odysseus. Actually, Calypso was a nymph who tried to keep Odysseus captive so he could be her immortal husband, but I guess that I'd also lie to my girlfriend if she asked me to explain a nickname like that.

Synopsis: This episode is one hell of a mixed bag. Some of the scenes - such as the initial fight in the warehouse, or Man-Spider brutally destroying the Punisher's van, taking him out, and holding him in his lair - feel like something out of a horror movie, and work fantastically. If that had been the angle the episode had gone for, I'd have loved it, because let's face it, we're here to see Spider-Man, not a mindless Man-Spider monster. (Though to its credit, the episode pulled that off a lot better than I expected it to).

The use of Kraven in this episode is also fantastic. Kraven was ultimately a good guy in his last appearance, and that hasn't changed here. He's fighting Spider-Man, as is traditional, yes - but he's doing it for good reasons, and we ultimately want Kraven to win. He's also started spouting philosophical quotes, which manages to work pretty well, and him both fighting and teaming up with the Punisher works out a lot better than you'd expect it to.

So why is this episode a mixed bag? Ultimately, it's got a bit too much going on. There are scenes with Debbie Whitman and Flash Thompson, possibly setting them up as a couple, scenes with Harry Osborn and Mary Jane, possibly setting them up as a couple, and most egregiously of all, the pointless scene with Morbius and his very brief fight with Man-Spider. I don't want Morbius to magically find a cure for his condition offscreen or anything, but I wish that he'd crawl into a coffin for a few episodes or something like that, because at this stage I feel he's harming the plot more than helping it.

Trim the fat a bit and this would be a cool episode with a rare antagonistic Spider-Man in a way that isn't tainting the character. As it is, it's some good scenes mixed in amongst a few forgettable ones.