Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Nine: Field Trip

Field Trip

First Aired: May 20th, 2012

Synopsis: The team's school is having a field trip at a museum, where they're shown a tablet with Norse runes. A frost giant appears from it, and after all of the civilians have fled, the team suit up and try to fight it. They're doing poorly until Thor shows up and defeats it. He examines a strange stone around the giant's neck which transforms him into a frog, and guesses that it's Loki's work. Thor transports the team to Asgard, but finds that it's all covered in ice. Frost giants attack the team, and they're captured by Loki. He explains that he made a pact with the frost giants and used the Norn Stone to turn Thor into a frog. The frost giants are trying to break into a room where Odin is currently recharging his powers with the Odinsleep, and once they do, Loki will kill him and rule Asgard. The team manage to free themselves and Thor, but when they start doing poorly against the frost giants, Spider-Man suggests a tactical retreat, and Thor reluctantly takes the team out of there.

After some bickering, Thor takes the team to Eitri, a dwarf blacksmith, who can help them. Eitri isn't impressed, as Asgardians only come to him when he wants something, but Thor humbly apologises to him and Eitri is convinced to help. Later, the team return to Asgard as Loki finishes up breaking through to the room containing Odin. This time, the team are armed with weapons given to them by Eitri, which require overcoming their weaknesses to use. The team are able to defeat the frost giants, but Loki makes his way to Odin. Spider-Man makes his way to Loki and it's revealed that he wasn't given a weapon since his words are his greatest strength. He taunts Loki and points out that no one will respect Loki for defeating Thor as a frog, causing Loki to turn Thor back into his normal form. With Thor in position to defeat Loki now, Loki teleports away, but not before telling Spider-Man to be on his guard. In the aftermath, Thor teleports everyone back to Earth and gives them a double-headed goat as a reward.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• When fighting the frost giant at the museum, Spider-Man attempts to fight it. Nova angrily shouts out, "Stand down, bug boy! I can handle this!" rather than accepting Spider-Man's help.
• After the team are teleported away from Asgard as part of their tactical retreat and Spider-Man tries working out what to do next, Nova defiantly declares "Oh yeah? Who put you in charge? I was doing pretty good back there!" For reference, he was trapped by Loki just before they left and didn't look to be a position to remedy that.

 Miscellaneous Notes:

• Thor turning into a frog is an idea from a classic issue of the comics, Thor #364.
• Loki is described as being Thor's half-brother, but someone appears to have been asleep at the wheel when writing that - he's actually Thor's adopted brother (in the Marvel universe, at least).
• For anyone who's wondering, the team's weaknesses that their weapons will help them overcome are as follows:
• White Tiger's bow draws on her ability to see shortcomings in others but requires absolute concentration to fire. She needs to block out distractions and focus on the task at hand.
  
• Nova's halberd is difficult to balance and requires a steady hand. He needs to be patient and pick the right moment to unleash his power.
• Iron Fist's sword gives no margin for error, and can't afford to wait for opportunity. Iron Fist needs to make his own, and trust his instincts.
• Luke Cage's axe is designed to attack, to overcome his flaw of being afraid of unleashing his power and thus only using it defensively.

Review: This episode might be a prime example of what people talk about when they say that this show has too many fourth-wall breaks and gags. The overall plot is decent enough, but throughout the whole episode there's a good number of moments where it'll stop what it's doing to make a joke, and they rarely land. They only detract from the plot, which is a pity, because there's definitely a bit more room in the story to expand on the ideas.

To elaborate, there's a bit of bickering amongst the team, both when fighting the initial frost giant in the museum, and when they make their tactical retreat. We could see the characters working to resolve their differences properly, or admitting that they're wrong. Instead, Eitri hands them a weapon, and that's somehow enough to magically fix up their teamwork and have everyone on the same page. (How did Eitri know what their flaws were, by the way? Was there an off-screen interviewing process we missed?)

Ultimately there is a good story buried in here, though. Thor has some good character development as he learns humility, and Loki swearing revenge on Spider-Man is a good hook for a future plot. For that matter, Spider-Man's words being his most effective weapon is a great way to resolve the problems, and one that's rarely used. The episode could definitely do with some polish, but even without it, the basic ideas work well enough.