Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Episode Twelve: Mind Games, Part One

Mind Games, Part One

First Aired: September 5th, 2003

Synopsis: The psychic Gaines twins, a brother and sister, are being transported to a new prison. They somehow manage to get rid of the sedatives keeping them under and control a guard into shooting the driver and taking over their transport. Spider-Man shows up and they use their psychic powers on him, but he manages to resist it and sedates the two of them. Later, Spider-Man's looking over the city with Mary Jane, and after a discussion about what you should do and what you want to do, he heads off to stop a crime. Later, Peter has lunch with Indy and Harry, and Indy reveals that Pterodax and Silver Sable were sprung from prison by the Gaines twins before they were stopped. Pterodax have taken hostages on top of a construction site being run by Oscorp, but Spider-Man shows up and is able to defeat them, although Harry, watching from the ground, is injured in the process. Returning home as Peter, though, he finds Mary Jane and Indy there, who have found out that he's been seeing both of them, and neither of them are happy about it.

When Peter delivers photos to J. Jonah Jameson, the newspaperman tells Peter that Kraven the Hunter is in town, and shortly afterwards Kraven and Sable stalk Peter. Unfortunately, that warns Peter's spider-sense, and he changes to Spider-Man and fights them, managing to restrain Silver Sable for long enough that she gets taken away by the police. Kraven escapes, and to de-stress Spider-Man finds Mary Jane and talks to her for a bit. He realises that she still does care about him as Peter, and he unmasks to her so that they can work things out. She's happy to learn Peter's secret, but Kraven returns and manages to stab her with a syringe, killing her. An unknown amount of time later, at her grave, Spider-Man is approached by an old man who convinces Spider-Man to get revenge on Kraven the Hunter. As it turns out, Spider-Man never defeated the Gaines twins - they've been using their psychic powers, and are going to use him to get revenge on Kraven, who experimented on their parents and led to them getting their powers. As Spider-Man swings off to kill Kraven, they reveal that they've captured Mary Jane so that he doesn't discover anything's amiss, and are willing to kill her if necessary.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As alluded to in the synopsis, it's never actually explained how the Gaines twins managed to get rid of their sedatives - they've got syringes full of some sort of liquid attached to their legs (which Spider-Man uses to defeat them in the psychic illusion), but before Spider-Man shows up we just see that they're no longer being injected.
• It's mentioned that Spider-Man put Kraven into a gulag, which, wow, that's a story I'd like to know.
• Like Silver Sable, Kraven the Hunter, a notable and openly European person, inexplicably has an American accent. Argh!
• The old man who convinces Spider-Man that killing Kraven is a great idea is voiced by some extra who I think appeared in the Raimi Spider-Man films.

Review: Oh man, I'm so torn on this episode. On the one hand: Peter deciding to unmask to Mary Jane is a great moment; the Gaines twins are creepy and effective villains; the return of some past villains, even if they're taken out quickly, is neat; and the exposition about the Gaines twins' past is sprinkled organically throughout the episode, so the reveal that they want Spidey to kill Kraven makes perfect sense. On the other hand, Mary Jane dying really does solidly confirm that this is all psychic nonsense before the reveal (it was already foreshadowed with Spidey struggling on an all-black background at a few points), and there are some small things which don't really make sense, like whether Harry's back to hating Spidey, or that was just the illusion. And do the Gaines twins know Spidey's identity now, as hinted by their capture of Mary Jane? Argh!

I guess the real thing to make or break the episode is: does the twist that it's all an illusion work? Like I said, it's fairly obvious that it is towards the end, and to an extent it does mean that a lot of the episode is technically filler, but at the end of the day, the episode knew how to pace itself with the reveal, how to hint at it without making it obvious, and we still have some consequences to deal with at the end of the episode, which I'm genuinely keen to see what comes of them. (You could also make the argument that Peter caring about Mary Jane so much says something about what he really wants subconsciously, but the show is so flippant about who wants who in this particular minute that I'm a bit over all of it).

Overall, there are a lot of little, "Wait, but was this the case because of this thing, or is it bad writing or a mistake?" bits in the episode, but I think that the place we end up at and how we got there gives the episode enough goodwill for me to enjoy it overall. I could picture myself watching this on a different day and getting annoyed by the small things, or finding some plot holes that I've missed the first time around, but from where I'm sitting right now, the good outweighs the bad.