Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Three: Doomed

Doomed

First Aired: April 8th, 2012

Synopsis: Peter's annoyed at Sam Alexander for hanging out at his lunch table, and when they start to fight about it, Coulson puts the two of them in detention. It turns out to be a pretense for them to get transported to SHIELD, where they'll do some training. Spider-Man and Nova get too hot-headed and destroy the drones that were supposed to be used, so Fury punishes the team by making them clean up. Afterwards, Spider-Man mentioning that he's taken out plenty of villains gives White Tiger an idea: if the team can capture someone on SHIELD's most wanted list, it'll put them in Fury's good books. Nova suggests Doctor Doom, and while White Tiger and Spider-Man think it's a terrible idea, the team set off for Latveria in SHIELD planes anyway. When they arrive Nova is nearly taken out by robots, but the team save him, only for Doctor Doom himself to arrive. 

Spider-Man and Nova are too hot-headed to listen to White Tiger's plan, but they nevertheless successfully defeat Doctor Doom, and take him back to the SHIELD Helicarrier. When presented to Fury, Fury reveals that it's actually a Doombot, which now has access to the Helicarrier. The Doombot attacks the Helicarrier with smaller robots hidden inside it, matryoshka-style, and the team have to split up to fight them, while the main Doombot heads for the Helicarrier's power core, which will explode and kill everyone if it's attacked. Spider-Man gets the team to regroup, and then Iron Fist punches through the floor, bringing them to the power core. The team work together to destroy the main Doombot, ending the threat. Fury yells at the team for what they did and says that whoever's responsible is off the team, but to Spider-Man's surprise, everyone accepts that they went along with it and was responsible. The real Doctor Doom contacts the team, tells them that they've drawn his attention, and that if they cross his path again they'll regret it.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• At the start of the episode, Peter is annoyed at Sam for inserting himself into his life, saying that he only wants to interact with the other heroes when superheroing. Nova is, of course, completely unsympathetic to this request.
• Sam is also annoyed at Peter for being the team leader, dismissively saying that there isn't even a team leader.
• Shortly after arriving at SHIELD, Sam growls, "I don't know what your problem is, webs, but if you wanna throw down, let's get it over with." Spider-Man has done nothing hostile or aggressive to him to trigger this.
  
• Sam is also the person who suggests that they go after Doctor Doom, when White Tiger has already suggested Lady Porcupine.
• When Spider-Man puts the webbed up Doombot in his SHIELD plane to transport it back to the Helicarrier, Nova is furious, and starts beating on the side of the plane, trying to get Spider-Man to stop and let him be the one to transport Doom.
• During the attack on the Helicarrier, when everything is chaos, Spider-Man contacts Nova and says "Nova! I have a plan!", to which Nova replies "I'M NOT TAKING ORDERS FROM YOU!" A few sentences later, Spider-Man begins saying, "If you can stabilise the Helicarrier engine..." and Nova, of course, answers "While you hog all the glory?!"

Review: With the exception of a few decent gags - one I particularly liked was Coulson getting way too into his role as school principal and prioritising balancing the school's budget - this episode is pretty abysmal. The idea is solid on paper - show that the team aren't meshing well, and have them have to learn how to work together - but in execution it's horrible. Spider-Man and Nova don't even try to get on, or to put their issues aside for the greater good, and there's no good reason given for this. Apparently, Nova really is just a giant cockhead. 

Spider-Man doesn't come off much better; both when presenting Doom to Fury and when Fury gives the team a talking down at the end of the episode, he fantasises about getting given a jetpack. Because, you know, Spider-Man's well known for the material rewards he wants, and has never taken responsibility seriously. It's supposed to be a funny comedy moment, but it leans too much into the comedy side of things. Actually, this version of Spider-Man feels a bit off in some other ways - he says when fighting Doctor Doom, "Yeah, like you're landing the coup de grace...whatever that means." How is Peter that thick?

Aside from the aforementioned decent gags, there's not really much good here. White Tiger both goes against the "capture Doctor Doom" plan and tells the team to use a particular SHIELD maneuver in a fight, so she definitely comes across as the best character in the episode. There's also a good moment when Danny and Luke switch which Doombots they're fighting so they can defeat them, which is a trope I always like. Other than that...the music's decent, I guess? But wow, what a shit start to the series now that we're past the initial setup.