Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Fifty-Five: Six Forgotten Warriors, Chapter Two: Unclaimed Legacy

 Unclaimed Legacy

First Aired: September 26th, 1997

Synopsis: Groitzig is taken to Silver Sable's employer by the Wild Pack, who unmasks before him and causes him to recoil in horror. In the apartment where Spider-Man and Robbie were attacked, Robbie disarms the bomb left there and the two of them escape from the Russian police who have arrived. The next day Robbie gets the address of Groitzig's daughter from his old friend Detective Boris, and he and Peter go to question her. She's reluctant to let them in until she realises that Peter is Richard and Mary's daughter. She remembers them coming to Moscow when she was young to warn her father to get out, since people would be after him for the doomsday device he created. He was forced to create it by the Red Skull, and it was hidden in New York. The only other information she has is that her father said he had to find the Six Forgotten Warriors. Groitzig's daughter reveals a hidden box full of information about the doomsday device which she wants to give to Peter, but her husband reveals that he's the Chameleon in disguise and gets away with it.

 

Spider-Man goes after Chameleon but is attacked by the Insidious Six, who defeat him and take him to the Kingpin, also in Moscow. Kingpin wants the doomsday device so that he can rule the world, but his base is attacked by the Wild Pack and he, the Insidious Six, and Spider-Man awaken, restrained, in their base. Silver Sable's employer comes into the room and intends on killing everyone, but Kingpin breaks free and unmasks the man, who is revealed to be the Red Skull, moments before that mask, too, is removed, and he's reveals that he's the Red Skull's son. While he fights Kingpin, Spider-Man manages to break free of his restraints, but the Red Skull activates a self-destruct sequence of the base. The villains escape - the Red Skull with Groitzig and another scientist in a plane, the Kingpin and the Insidious Six outside - while Spider-Man saves the Wild Pack. Outside the base, the Insidious Six are ready to fight Spider-Man and the Wild Pack, when they all realise that they're in Chernobyl, and they're at risk of radiation poisoning. All parties depart, and while Spider-Man is angry at Silver Sable for just being a gun for hire, she tells him there might be more to her than meets the eye. On the plane back home, Robbie tells Peter that he should talk to a teacher of his from college, who knows the story of the Six Forgotten Warriors.

 

Subplots:

• Kingpin's shocked that his base is attacked by the Wild Pack, and Silver Sable reveals that one of the people working for him is a traitor.

Places That Spider-Man Will Chase Shocker To:

• Nowhere, because they barely even interact in this episode. Poor showing, Spidey.

Miscellaneous Notes:

•  Robbie's able to disarm the bomb from the start of the episode as he said he was in the bomb-disposal unit when he was in "the service". He knew Detective Boris because he used to work for a wire service in Moscow, and also mentions he went to college at the end. I realise that none of this is egregiously contradictory, but the writers really have no problem with giving Robbie whatever backstory the current scene needs, do they?
• When Peter and Robbie go to see Detective Boris, the sign outside the police station says POLICIЯ. If Google Translate is anything to go by, the correct sign should have been Полиция.
• I can't be bothered looking up whether it's supposed to be the Russian equivalent of his name or something else, but at one point in the episode there's a picture of the scientist Wolfgang Groitzig, and his name is displayed as Ilya Gordichev.
• When Kingpin reveals that he wants to take over the world using the doomsday device, Spider-Man quips that "Now you sound like a Saturday morning cartoon villain!" GET IT??
  

Review: Last episode I mentioned that while it was a promising start I wasn't overly impressed with the mysteries presented or where they were going. Here - in what I'm just realising now is the second of a five-part story - we've made enough progress that while there are still some questions, we've got a bit more of an idea of what the plot will consist of - Spider-Man, (son of ) Red Skull, and Kingpin all racing to get the doomsday device. The stakes are a tad higher than I like my Spider-Man stories to be, but I do feel that this puts it in a better place than if Peter was still running around trying to clear his parents' name.

It's a stronger episode than the previous one for sure, but there's enough little things here and there that the quality's lowered a bit from what it could be. The Red Skull's son is revealed to be Detective Boris' boss, a decision obviously made with the idea of, "Hey, look, it's that guy from before!" but if ever there was a twist for the sake of a twist, it's that. Silver Sable revealing that Kingpin's group has a traitor is a cool idea, but whoever it is, why are they restrained? The reveal that the Wild Pack's (or the Red Skull's? It's hard to say) base is at Chernobyl is a weird one, and I can't tell whether it was done because we needed an excuse to get everyone out of there without a fight, or because the show was trying to be topical. In the same scene, Silver Sable tells the Insidious Six where a plane can be found, they run over and fly out of there...and then she tells Spider-Man, "Oh, yeah, we're at risk of radiation poisoning too; we'd better get out too" and we cut to Peter on a plane. The characters move from scene to scene in a way that kind of makes sense but still leaves room for some holes when you think about it.

All that being said, I am intrigued as to what the doomsday device is, and who the Six Forgotten Warriors are, so I guess the episode achieved its goals, even if it wasn't a smooth execution? We'll see what happens next, I guess.