Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Episode Nine: Flash Memory

Flash Memory

First Aired: August 15th, 2003

Synopsis: Two motorcyclists rob an armoured truck, but Spider-Man goes after them. Although they're able to do some complex mathematics on the fly to get past some trains, Spider-Man stops them nevertheless. They act as their own lawyers and are released as there are no eyewitnesses. Elsewhere, Flash Thompson goes to see his tutor, who turns out to be a scientist who injects Flash with a serum which makes him smarter. He soon starts seducing Mary Jane and her friend Sally, and Peter reluctantly admits to Harry that he's better off with Indy, as they have mutual interests whereas he and Mary Jane just have good chemistry. He doesn't want to be monogamous with her though, but doesn't get a chance to explain it to Indy as she tells him that the motorcyclists were previously recorded as having IQ in the double-digits; therefore something is up. The motorcyclists turn out to be working with Flash's scientist, and are committing crimes to fund him but are finding themselves getting weaker over time. While committing a crime Spider-Man fails to stop them, but notes a mark on their necks from the serum.

Peter later notes a mark on Flash's neck that's the same, and as Spider-Man asks Flash abut it, who tells him about the scientist, Doctor Zellner. As Flash is also getting weaker he goes to see Zellner, who explains that the serum can't boost the brain without straining the body, and that Flash will die unless he can use the serum on someone already smart to compare the results and develop an antidote. Flash calls Peter and asks for help, who by now realises that Zellner is behind both Flash and the motorcyclists, and lets Indy know. He goes to Zellner's lab as Spider-Man but is tranquilised. Before he can be injected with the serum, Flash frees him from the chair he's trapped in, and Spider-Man manages to defeat the motorcyclists with some difficulty. Zellner gets away with Flash as a hostage, but Spidey webs a webcam to Flash. Indy shows up since Peter told her about the lab, and he uses the laptop in her car to connect to the webcam and discover that Flash is on the subway. Flash weakly tells Zellner the cure to the serum, his big brain having discovered it, but as they're not in a lab the info's useless. Spider-Man bursts in and defeats Zellner, then uses the recording of Flash from the webcam to create the antidote and cures Flash at the cost of his intellect. As Spider-Man, he thanks Indy for her help and tells her that they can work together in the future.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• More evidence that this probably isn't set in the same continuity as the Raimi films; Flash Thompson has orange hair here, whereas in the first film he had dark hair. Like with Harry and Norman, you can always explain it away by saying he's dyeing it, if you want.
• Mary Jane's friend Sally introduces herself as Sally Johnson, but my headcanon is that she's Earth-Whatever-the-Hell-This-Is' version of Sally Avril, because literally all it would take is a surname change for a cute reference. (Update: according to the Marvel Wiki, this is Earth-760207).
• When Spider-Man's been tranquilised, his webbing comes out too weakly to be effective. After I remembered that this continuity's version of Spider-Man has organic webbing, and that that does make sense, I thought about it some more, and...okay, I know that I'm overanalysing this way too much, and I have no idea how tranquiliser works so maybe this is "realistic", but...would it work that way? I feel like him not being able to produce webbing feels like a more natural effect.

Review: Is this the most coherent episode of Spider-Man: The New Animated Series yet? There's some things in this episode involving Indy - which I'll get to - which make no sense, but in terms of the Spider-Man side of things, I feel like I have very few questions here. The scientist wants to make people smarter, presumably for the good of mankind but I guess possibly for more villainous purposes, he hires thugs and Flash Thompson as test subjects, and the serum has side effects. It's all pretty straightforward, and I don't really feel like there are any dangling plot holes, like how Spider-Man made the connections or why the tranquiliser didn't completely knock him out. There's nothing flashy (ha ha) here, but it works.

What really, really doesn't work is what's going on with Peter and Indy. Peter appears to have finally realised that this version of Mary Jane isn't great, as he tells Harry that "Connecting with Indy through mutual interests makes a lot more sense than simple chemistry," while wistfully looking at Mary Jane. But then just a few lines later, Harry tells Peter that he thinks that wants something serious (or, in his words, monogamous), and then while Indy's trying to tell Peter about the improved intellect of the motorcyclists, he keeps trying to tell her that he wants to keep things casual. But...why? With the arguable exception of Black Cat, when has Peter ever been that much of a guy into casual flings? His telling Indy as Spider-Man that they can be partners appears to be a resolution to this, but...Peter, did you forget that she doesn't know you're Spider-Man? It all feels weird and out of character, and I don't know what the hell is going on with it.

I mentioned above that I don't really have questions about the Spider-Man side of things, but there's still some slightly confusing writing that should probably be clearer. (Which is my weaselly way of saying that I do have questions when I think about it, but I don't want to go back and rewrite my first paragraph). There's no indication that Spider-Man also cures the motorcyclists - did they just die offscreen? They also comment that they'll be like Flash in 3.9 minutes, and there's a general sense that Flash has only minutes to live, but Spidey has time to get to the subway, fight Zellner, get Flash back to the lab, and do a montage of making the serum. It's got to be, what, at least an hour?

So yeah, overall I'd say that the general idea and plot of this one is fine, but it does need a bit of cleaning up. If the Indy stuff was resolved properly, or better yet, never raised in the first place, I'd like it a lot more, but it's significantly negative that on top of the other stuff I don't really think I'm pleased with this episode. It's inoffensive enough, but it had the potential to be better.