Spectacular Spider-Man Episode Eight: Reaction

Reaction

First Aired: May 3rd, 2008

Synopsis: Spider-Man is looking for the Green Goblin when he stops a truck stealing cars from getting away. As Peter Parker he heads to a football game and is surprised to discover that Flash invited Mary Jane to watch it; when he expresses his surprise she tells him that she and Peter are just friends. Liz Allan invites Peter to a Coney Island trip the next day to celebrate the team's victory. After the game Harry has some shakes and drinks his green serum, and disappears before the locker rooms are locked up. Gwen later finds him collapsed on the footpath, but he brushes off her concerns. At Oscorp Otto Octavius is bullied by Norman Osborn and forced to work on experiments, but shortly afterwards the Green Goblin appears and disables the safeties on Octavius' experiments, causing a gigantic burst of light which fuses Octavius' tentacle harness to his spine. Spider-Man investigates it but is attacked by Octavius, now calling himself Doctor Octopus and no longer meek, who thinks that Spider-Man is responsible for the explosion. The power source for his tentacles runs low and he has to leave the fight, but knows now that his next move is to get a replacement power source that lasts longer.

At Coney Island the next day Harry shows a surprising amount of strength, but avoids Gwen when she wants to talk to him. She tries to talk to Peter who gets dragged off by Liz on a montage around the theme park. They spot Doctor Octopus heading to a big building, so Peter makes an excuse and leaves. Doctor Octopus confronts a guy in the building, his former boss, and asks where the power source he worked on is kept. He retrieves it but Spider-Man shows up and steals it, figuring that it he can avoid Doctor Octopus for long enough the villain's power source will run out. Their fight leads them to Coney Island, and Ock grabs Liz Allan after realising that Spider-Man will stop to save civilians. Spider-Man throws away the power source and saves Liz, then while Ock is swapping power packs takes him out. In the aftermath of the event, Liz and Flash break up, and Sally Avril blames Peter for it. At the Osborns', Harry continues to chug his green serum, while Norman talks to Hammerhead. Hammerhead wants the Green Goblin to go away and is suspicious of Norman since the Green Goblin's using Oscorp tech, but Norman reports that he's been robbed and they have a common enemy.

Subplots:

• In a brief scene, Jonah (and the Daily Bugle staff) celebrate when John Jameson heads into space.

Review: Say what you will about the comic book version of Doctor Octopus, but while I wouldn't deny that he's one of Spidey's best foes, he's also pretty inconsistent. He's been a gangster, a scientist, a terrorist, and for nearly a decade now, something of an anti-hero. I don't think any of these ideas have been particularly bad, but like I said, inconsistent. This take on Doctor Octopus, a timid man who's sick of being pushed around and ready to push back, is incredibly compelling, and it gives him both direction, motivation, and personality which is really, really solid. I also love the design of his tentacles, and like with the Rhino's overheating problems a few episodes ago, the idea of, "Wouldn't he have a power source for the harness?" is a fantastic concept which instantly makes sense.

In spite of what a strong villain Ock is, I feel that this episode feels a bit more low-key after the previous two episodes introduced Tombstone, Mary Jane, and the Green Goblin. A good chunk of this episode is just fighting, and while none of it is bad, and there's also some good personal drama being advanced, it doesn't feel like we've got a whole lot at stake here. Hell, the fights are even broken up into two parts, like the first few episodes of this series.

Still, the drama is enough to keep the episode moving and raise interest for what will happen next. Even putting aside the whole Harry subplot, there's Liz showing very obvious interest in Peter, and Mary Jane suddenly revealing that she's not being too serious with Peter. The former is a neat angle to tackle, and the latter is consistent with what we've seen of Mary Jane so far, not to mention completely fair, even if it is a bit of a kick in the balls to Peter. Overall, this episode does feel like we're losing a little bit of momentum, but not so much that the quality is suffering. It's still good stuff.