Before watching Spider-Man Unlimited, I commented that I wasn't very optimistic about it, and most of my praise for it was to do with the art style and with a hopes about the premise that I wanted to work out. I've finished the series now, and while it definitely isn't my favourite series, I can confidently say that overall, it's...okay.
One of my criticisms of the premise was that personally, I like my Spider-Man to be pretty grounded, and taking him into space and to another world completely wrecks that. Yeah, once he's on Counter-Earth there's an attempt at grounding him there by giving him a photography job with the Daily Byte and a place to stay with Doctor Naoko Yamada-Jones, but that doesn't change the fact that the world he's on is filled with bestials, flying cars, and machine men. I know that the Marvel Universe is itself pretty fantastic (seriously, how many alien species does it have? How many secret, hidden societies can their world fit?) but a good Spider-Man story makes you forget that without losing its ties to the wider world.
It's a bit of a pity, because the writing was pretty solid when it was focusing on the human rebellion or something unique to that world (I'll never forget you, electric eel Electro!) If Spider-Man never travelled to Counter-Earth and the story was instead just about the rebels trying to take down the High Evolutionary, I think we could have gotten a pretty decent series out of it, and there wouldn't have been that lingering sense of "okay but this isn't what I really want to see the protagonist doing." The show's at its worst when it's trying to tell Spider-Man stories - see the awkward attempt at giving Counter-Earth its own Green Goblin mystery, and pretty much everything that Venom and Carnage do - and at its best when it's focusing on its own unique aspects.
I'm feeling conflicted about whether or not to praise the show. On the one hand, when it's bad it's really not worth it, but when it's good it does feel like it's something that you haven't seen a lot of (at least, I hadn't, in terms of the premise. More cyberpunk cartoons, western culture!) It's just...Spider-Man can do so much better, and I'm honestly struggling to think of the moments where it was his actions that really had me enjoying the show and feeling excited. As I said above, this would be a great show if Spider-Man wasn't in it, but he is, so you kind of have to take the good with the bad. Sorry, Spidey; that's just the way it is.
A few final dot points, and then I'll move onto the best and worst episodes so that you, the intelligent reader, know what to look forwards to and what to avoid if you decide to check out this series.
- I didn't talk about them much, but Naoko and Shane were great characters, even if the show seemed indecisive about whether or not Naoko was supposed to be Peter's love interest. They were frequently likable and level-headed.
- I kind of forgot about Lord Tyger until the last few episodes, when he started appearing again, and I also really liked him - he was the only member of the Knights of Wundagore who was somewhat sympathetic to the humans. I realise that it would have killed a lot of the conflict, but I wish that he'd been in the show a lot more than Sir bloody Ram.
- Okay, so maybe I'm undermining myself here since I like the Venom movie's interpretation of Venom, but still, this is easily the worst version of Venom and Carnage I've seen yet. They're boring, inconsistent, significantly changed from the comics version without any sign as to what they can and can't do, and their overall plan is dumb (and also not really explained).
- If you want to do a mystery as to who a character's real identity is, the way to do it is not to drop incredibly obvious hints and then keep playing it up as a mystery. Looking at you, Green Goblin.
- This show's interpretation of Kraven is mostly what you'd expect, but I'm going to reiterate what I mentioned in the review of that episode: the idea that the herbs and stuff he takes are going to lead to an early death but he's okay with that is an amazing interpretation of the character. Seriously, someone at Marvel, please steal this idea and incorporate it into the comics.
- The cast all died in the final episode and you can't convince me otherwise
Top Three Best Episodes
- Matters of the Heart: The pacing throughout the episode is good throughout, and the ending is absolutely fantastic. We know that retrieving Bromley's brother isn't going to go smoothly, but there's not really enough time for us to see what's coming, and the reveal that he's a selfish scumbag is perfect. He absolutely deserves his fate.
- Ill-Met by Moonlight: Man-Wolf being a result of the High Evolutionary's experiments is a great origin already, and electric eel Electro is pretty clever. The rebels manipulate and lie to Spider-Man which emphasises how badly they need to succeed, but not to an extent that it makes them unlikable. Good stuff.
- Steel Cold Heart: There's a fight with Sir Ram that's a giant snore-fest and the opening stuff at the construction site isn't great, but X-51 is a likable character, and Spider-Man choosing to leave the rebels so that X-51 has a chance at life shows him demonstrating some sympathy that's weirdly missing throughout most of the series.
Top Three Worst Episodes
- Worlds Apart, Part One: You had one chance to show us a traditional Spider-Man, show, and you fucked it up. Spider-Man decides to let everyone think he's dead so he stops getting harassed? He spends six months making a new suit and planning to get to Counter-Earth? Random Nick Fury appearance? Nah, none of this really works.
- Cry Vulture: I remembered not liking this episode, but I couldn't remember why, and then I reread my review and remembered the nonsense that is Firedrake and Spider-Man's oddly specific way of defeating him. Add in a pretty bad version of Vulture and The Man Identified By The Sandwiches He Leaves Behind and we're deep into bad writing territory.
- Deadly Choices: There's way too much conflict between the Knights of Wundagore and the human rebellion here, as well as way too much angst from Git Hoskins, who acts very randomly in the episode (does he want to blow up the city, or does he just not know how to make a delivery?). It completely killed my interest in Git, who up until then had been my favourite character, and I also couldn't work out a good way to make a git commit --all joke in there so I'll deduct points for that too.
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