Spider-Man Unlimited Episode Seven: Cry Vulture

Cry Vulture

First Aired: February 10th, 2001

Synopsis: When Spider-Man's heading home after a meeting with John Jameson, trying to convince him that the two of them should try and get back to their Earth, he sees a man being kidnapped by some bestials. He tries saving him but is attacked by the Counter-Earth version of the Vulture, who thinks that Spider-Man is working with the kidnappers. The kidnappers get away thanks to the fight but Spider-Man manages to put a spider-tracer on their vehicle before they get away. Returning home, he collapses from his injuries and claims to Naoko that he was attacked when he saw a kidnapping and tried intervening - on describing the man, she recognises him as the person who sweeps the street. Peter immediately changes to Spider-Man and goes after his tracer, but finds that it fell off near a warehouse. Exploring it he finds a package of something called Bestial Beauty, and he looks them up and finds a facility of theirs elsewhere in the city. He gets attacked by guards when he gets closer but is saved by Vulture, who spotted him using the tracer and followed him. 

 

Vulture tells Spider-Man why he fights for humans - he grew up privileged and looked down on humans, but got peer-pressured into setting a building on fire, which was where the human son of his housekeeper lived, and feels the need to atone for that mistake. The two of them manage to get into Bestial Beauty's facility, but are captured by a bestial named Firedrake, who can breathe fire. Firedrake straps the two heroes to operating tables and his boss enters, who unsurprisingly is Sir Ram. Spider-Man manages to free the two of them using his webs and frees the sweeper, while Vulture goes to free other prisoners. Spider-Man fights Firedrake and is having difficulty due to the fire breath, but as their fight spills outside, spots some convenient liquid nitrogen in a nearby truck, which he throws at Firedrake, taking him out of the fight. Sir Ram is brought down, and while the prisoners want to kill him, Spider-Man convinces them that it'll make them the monster that he is. They reluctantly agree that they'd rather go home and do so, but in spite of this, Vulture isn't impressed by Spider-Man.

Subplots:

• After Spider-Man talks to John Jameson at the start of the episode, the latter runs off into the sewers uncontrollably. Later, a shadowy figure is seen at Naoko's clinic, transforming into a wolf-like form.

Miscellaneous Notes

• When Peter makes a comment that the person he saw getting kidnapped didn't have time to finish his cheese sandwich, it's that which clues in Naoko as to who he is. Everyone knows that there's only one person in the city who eats cheese sandwiches!

Review: I know I've watched worse episodes than this, but I'll be damned if I can remember any of them right now. What the actual hell is the point of this episode? It has to be one of the most generic plots you could think of. The person Spider-Man's saving - the street cleaner - hasn't been seen before, and I'll be amazed if he shows up again. Sir Ram is capturing these people because of...science, I guess? He's doing it out of a company front which leaves packets of their product at warehouses because...the plot?

There's some talk about how he's created Firedrake and has surpassed what the High Evolutionary has done, but it really comes across as weak. It's like how badly written young adult dystopias justify how the protagonists end up in the ontological mystery that is their plot by going, "Oh, um, it was all an experiment." (Coughthemazerunnercough). And speaking of Firedrake, why does Spider-Man need liquid nitrogen - oh so conveniently located nearby - to get past the fact that he breathes fire? Couldn't he have thrown something else from a distance, or approached him from behind, or dodged the fire, or used any other tactic that he normally does when confronting someone who can't be approached from the front? If this Spider-Man runs into a maniac wielding scissors, I guess he'll probably throw a single rock at him by the same logic.

Vulture's not much more likable either, sneering at Spider-Man constantly and barely tolerating his help. I mean, I get it, I'd be grumpy if I was in this episode too, but he does things like attacking Spider-Man when Spidey sees the kidnapping happening, then protests that "I would have had them if you hadn't been in the way!" Urgh. So, yeah, if it wasn't obvious, this episode is pretty bad, and I would definitely not recommend it. Don't be surprised if it ends up at the bottom of the list for this series.