Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Twenty-Five: Neogenic Nightmare, Chapter 12 - Ravages of Time

Ravages of Time

First Aired: November 25th, 1995

Synopsis: Tombstone manages to escape with Connors from the university lab. Spider-Man finds himself outside the Coffee Bean, where he had a date scheduled with Alisa, but she's kidnapped by Hammerhead. At Silvermane's base, Connors is thrown in a lab and told to work out how to de-age Silvermane. At home, Spider-Man works on a new Spider-Tracer that will adhere to Alistair Smythe's Mega-Slayer, then goes to meet with the villain. He can't deliver Connors since he's been kidnapped, but Alistair thinks that Spider-Man's lying and attacks him. He's called off by Kingpin after he and Silvermane come to an agreement, since each of them are holding someone the other cares about. Alistair's Mega-Slayer leaves Spider-Man, but Spidey follows him to the hostage exchange using his new Spider-Tracer, where Connors and Vanessa Fisk are being traded for Alisa. Alistair tries grabbing everyone for himself, and in the chaos Connors and his wife end up with Tombstone, Vanessa is taken for Kingpin, and Alisa is taken by Hammerhead.

Spider-Man goes after Alisa, still not sure why she's caught up in all of this, but once he frees her she knocks him out and takes him to her father, Silvermane. Connors has seemingly worked out how to use the Tablet of Time to deage Silvermane, but is insistent that the process hasn't been perfected. Silvermane doesn't care and insists that it be used. He's de-aged to a man in his prime and goes to unmask Spider-Man, but Connors, who has turned into the Lizard from the stress, starts fighting him and unintentionally frees Spider-Man. Silvermane unexpectedly starts de-aging further, and as Alisa escapes with her father, who's now a baby, Tombstone activates the de-aging process again. The Lizard is hit by it and returns to being Curt Connors. Spider-Man saves him and his wife, while Hammerhead - who found the base when Alistair used Spider-Man's tracer to find Spidey - escapes with the tablet before the base explodes. Vanessa leaves Kingpin, and Kingpin orders that Hammerhead destroy the tablet - but Hammerhead instead sells it to a mysterious old man.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As with last episode, this one is loosely based on an arc from Amazing Spider-Man #68 - 75, which introduced the Tablet of Time in the comics. Silvermane met with a similar fate there.

Review: While I wouldn't call this an extraordinarily entertaining episode or anything like that, it more than manages to do its job. Kingpin vs. Silvermane is one thing, but with Spider-Man, Hammerhead, Tombstone, Alistair, Alisa, and even the Lizard thrown into the mix it becomes incredibly entertaining. The two big fights in this episode - the hostage exchange and the climax at Silvermane's base - both have the situation changing constantly, and it's genuinely exciting, wondering when one of the elements in play will suddenly turn the tides of battle.

The downside to all of this is that while it's not all-fighting, all the time, we don't really get much of a breather - other than Spider-Man briefly testing his new tracer, I don't think we even see him unmasked in this episode. If anything we get more downtime with the Kingpin and Silvermane, seeing their reactions to their loved ones being kidnapped...although now that I think about it, they're arguably the protagonists of this episode. I wonder how well this episode would have worked without Spider-Man in it?

I assume that at some point in the future, we'll see Tombstone at the very least, and possibly Alisa and Silvermane again, so this arc has done a good job with using them. Most interestingly of all, Hammerhead double-crossing the Kingpin at the end has me really intrigued. I don't recognise the person he sold the tablet to, but I'm looking forwards to finding out and seeing where the plot goes.