Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Sixty-Three: Secret Wars, Chapter 3: Doom

 Doom

First Aired: November 21st, 1997

Synopsis: Spider-Man and the Lizard rendezvous with the Fantastic Four, who they find injured from a fight with Doctor Doom's robots, and missing the Thing, who was captured by Doom. In Doom's land of New Latveria, he menacingly asks the Thing why they've been brought to Battleworld and by whom. The Fantastic Four go to save the Thing in spite of Spider-Man's insistence that they wait for reinforcements, and upon arriving at New Latveria, discover that they are let in without issue and that within it's a paradise for the native aliens of the planet. At Doctor Doom's castle, a human Ben Grimm greets them and explains that he was transformed back by Doom. Doom himself arrives and explains that he's not a tyrant - he's ruling over the aliens because if he doesn't, another villain will capture them and rule over them. He also reveals that he's fixed up his face so that it's no longer scarred. Reed is doubtful of all of this and attacks Doom, leading to all of the heroes being captured. The Thing tries to convince Doom to let them be free, and Doom points out that the Thing won't even tell him how they got here. The Thing agrees to tell him if the heroes are free, and explains about the Beyonder.

 

Doctor Doom is taken to the laboratory where the heroes were brought to Battleworld, and uses the transporter there to go to where the Beyonder is, before using his elemental separator to absorb the Beyonder, and his powers, into himself. Doom returns himself and the Thing to New Latveria and frees the heroes, but Spider-Man tries convincing him to give up the power, and Doom teleports the heroes away. They agree they'll still fight to stop him, but Doom drops a mountain on them in response, which they fight their way out of. Spider-Man blames himself for everything and heads to New Latveria on his own, hoping he can draw the Beyonder out of Doom. He's unable to convince Doom that he doesn't have the control over the Beyonder's power that he thinks he does, and Doom restrains Spider-Man, as well as the rest of the heroes when they burst in. The Thing hits Doom with the elemental separator while he's distracted by this, freeing the Beyonder, who says he'll transport everyone home but they won't remember it. He then takes Spider-Man away, saying that his greatest challenge awaits.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man and the Lizard meet with the Fantastic Four at the start of the episode, we see a flashback of the latter being attacked by robots within the Fantasti-Car. It's super neat, but how the hell do they have the Fantasti-Car on Battleworld?
• Sue mentions that Doom's face was burned by acid, not an explosion. On the one hand, I can see why censorship of the nineties wouldn't want to talk about Doctor Doom communicating with demons and getting injured in the process; on the other hand they could have just said "an explosion". Does this make more sense if you've seen the 90s Fantastic Four cartoon?
• When Doctor Doom and the Thing are at the laboratory for the transporter, it's afternoon. We get a quick shot of a giant worm bursting out of the sand, which recycles animation from two episodes ago, meaning that there's a sudden switch to night for a few seconds - whoops!
• When Doctor Doom teleports the heroes away, Spider-Man says that they're over fifty miles away from New Latveria. So how the hell does everyone get there so quickly in the climax of the episode?
• A mountain is also dropped on the heroes in the Secret Wars comic, although it's much, much more dramatic there. Here it basically gets dumped on them and there's no explanation as to how they survive, moments before we here them say, "We can push out of it!" and then they burst through one side of it.
• The Secret Wars comic also had Doom attacking the heroes the moment they agreed that they'd still work together to oppose him, although in that case it was more a burst of light...explosion...thingy. It's been a while since I've read Secret Wars, okay?
  

Review: Although I'm still not super keen on Spider-Man being taken away from Earth to prove himself, or fight for the powers of good, or whatever the hell the Beyonder wants him to do, I can't deny that this is the strongest episode of the Secret Wars trilogy, and it's finally doing stuff that we want to see. A mountain landing on the heroes! Doom getting the Beyonder's power! Hell, Doctor Doom in general, and after the disappointments of his portrayal in the 1980s cartoons, this is much more in line with what I expect of the character. I 100% buy his explanation that he's ruling over aliens for their own good, but there's definitely enough ambiguity there that you can read it that he really is just doing it for his own gratification and is in denial.

Although this is, for the most part, a Doctor Doom episode, the writers do manage to get in some good Spider-Man moments (and it's none of that "You're a great leader!" nonsense from last episode) - it makes sense that Spider-Man would be the one to talk to Doom about great power and stuff when he gets the Beyonder's abilities, and that he'd feel guilty about everything and go off to New Latveria on his own. None of it is groundbreaking character stuff, but it's also not like it's out of character, which is better than nothing.

Still, although I would have enjoyed Secret Wars a lot more with this level of quality, I've still got that sense that this just isn't what I want from a Spider-Man story. (If it helps reinforce my opinion/open myself up to more criticism, I also wasn't super hot on Spider-Man going to space in Avengers: Infinity War). It's a bit like Six Forgotten Warriors in its later episodes - I like it as a Marvel Universe story, but not as a Spider-Man story, and the Beyonder whisking Spider-Man off elsewhere at the end sure as heck isn't a good sign that I'll enjoy the next episodes any more.