Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Ten: Freaky

Freaky

First Aired: June 17th, 2012

Synopsis: The mutant villain Mesmero is mind controlling people, and gets them to attack Spider-Man when he arrives on the scene. Wolverine shows up and although he's aggressive towards both Spider-Man and the civilians, he intimidates Mesmero enough that the villain undoes his mind control. SHIELD show up and grab Mesmero, but Spider-Man is disgusted by Wolverine's attitude, while Wolverine thinks that Spider-Man isn't pragmatic enough. Mesmero takes note of this. The next day, Peter starts to feel tired in class, and after closing his eyes finds himself in Wolverine's body, in a sleazy hotel. In school, Wolverine of course finds himself in Peter's body, and leaves class since he of course gives zero shits. Peter calls up Wolverine on his own mobile, and they realise that they swapped bodies, but it's at that point that Peter is attacked by Sabretooth. Peter tries telling Wolverine to stay in class, but the phone gets cut during the fight. He's unable to convince Sabretooth that he's not really Wolverine, so escapes on a bus.

Meanwhile, Wolverine is aggressive to Peter's friends, who naturally don't understand what's going on. Peter shows up outside the school, and they realise that Mesmero must be behind what's going on. When Peter explains that he lost Sabretooth, however, Wolverine explains that Sabretooth is a tracker and you can't lose him, right before Sabretooth shows up. Peter tries to convince Wolverine to put on his costume, since he can't demonstrate his powers in public, and Wolverine reluctantly ends up doing so. Wolverine has difficulty web swinging once he's in costume, but manages to get a web shooter to Peter, who's able to web Sabretooth in the eyes. The two then manage to work together to knock out Sabretooth, before heading to the SHIELD Helicarrier. Peter eventually manages to convince Wolverine to swap their minds back, and before stealing a SHIELD plane, Wolverine tells Peter to enjoy his life, since he has a pretty good one.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• This episode is based on Ultimate Spider-Man #66-67, which follows the same basic plot of Wolverine and Spider-Man swapping bodies. In that arc, it turned out to be a result of Jean Grey - to get back at Wolverine, she swapped his mind with the person he liked least.

Review: I remember being a bit underwhelmed by this episode the first time I saw it, and to be honest, I'm not quite sure why. The reason why Wolverine and Spider-Man swap minds is nice and simple, and their fight against Mesmero neatly demonstrates the conflict between their personalities. Sabretooth provides a good extra obstacle for them to overcome and helps create an immediate threat. It's also quite funny - Peter never really gets the hang of retracting Wolverine's claws, so they're constantly going in and out, and there's a hilarious moment where Wolverine tries web-swinging but just sort of dangles there.

The flaws? There's no real reason given for why Mesmero doesn't mind-control Wolverine or Spider-Man at the start of the episode, and we know from the episode itself that he can affect them with his powers. I guess he's just a sadist? Wolverine is also a massive prick to Spider-Man and his supporting cast - I don't expect him to sit around and chat to them about their problems, but he's brutally rude to them without care; if Peter acted that way to the X-Men I can't see Logan being that forgiving. There's also the creepy moment from the comic issues where he hits on Mary Jane, in spite of her being both a teenager and much, much younger than him.

It's a nice fun story overall - I wouldn't want every episode to be this inconsequential, but having one like this every now and then doesn't do any harm. Ideally it'd be good to see Wolverine show up in some future episodes and to see his and Spider-Man's relationship develop, but even if that doesn't happen, I can say that I enjoyed this one.