Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Four: Venom

Venom

First Aired: April 15th, 2012

Synopsis: Spider-Man is riding the Spider-Cycle through a subway tunnel as he's chased by a robot, which he's eventually able to destroy by getting a train to hit it. Unbeknownst to him, the robot managed to get a bio-sample from him. At school, Harry reminds Peter about a movie night at his that night, but Peter's grabbed by his superhero friends which hurts Harry. It's made worse when he overhears Sam Alexander saying bad things about him, and he rejects Peter's apology. Mary Jane suggests to Peter that he invite his group to Harry's for the movie night, as Harry probably just feels left out. That night, Norman gives Harry a bunch of money for dinner, then heads out to Doctor Octopus' lab, where Ock has created a symbiote using Spider-Man's bio-sample, although it's escaped and Ock speculates it'll be looking for Spider-Man. Harry, meanwhile, is still angry at Peter, and so uses the money Norman left him to throw a massive party, which Peter and the superheroes discover when they show up.

Harry is dismissive of Peter's group when Peter tries talking to him about them. Shortly afterwards, Peter's spider-sense starts tingling, and when in the bathroom, the symbiote appears and possesses Flash Thompson, who is also there. As he starts going on a rampage, all of the guests leave, while Peter changes to Spider-Man. Nova gets possessed by the symbiote, followed by Luke, followed by Iron Fist. Before Iron Fist succumbs to the symbiote, he tells Spider-Man that the symbiote wants him. Mary Jane goes to the roof, where they're fighting the symbiote, in the hopes of getting a good story, and is reluctantly followed by Harry. Spider-Man allows the symbiote to possess him to protect the others, and it tries going after Harry when he appears. Wanting to protect Harry gives Spider-Man the strength to fight the symbiote, and he uses electrical webbing to destroy Venom. In the aftermath, Norman Osborn hears what happened and is impressed by what happened, requesting another symbiote. Peter and Harry apologise for the strife that's gotten between them, but while they're cleaning up, Harry finds a small bit of the symbiote and keeps it in a bottle.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• Sam loudly tells Peter that he doesn't have to hang out with Harry any more, since Peter's got money now. Aside from the out-of-nowhere implication that SHIELD is paying Peter, what the fuck is it any of Sam's business why Peter and Harry are friends? Does he honestly believe that Peter couldn't be friends with Harry because they genuinely enjoy each others' company?
• When Peter takes his group up to the Osborns' penthouse for what he thinks is a movie night, how does Nova react to the idea? "I don't need a new friend!"

Miscellaneous Notes:

• As mentioned, Flash Thompson is the first person the symbiote possesses. At the time this episode aired, Flash was the current Venom in the comics (and my personal favourite).
• Doctor Octopus says that the symbiote is "distilled aggression, pure venom," which is a clever way of creating the name in this series.

Review: There are a few good ideas here, even if most of the episode is mediocre, so let's start with them. While I don't think that I'd call this my favourite version of Norman Osborn, it's definitely an interesting one - he's shown to genuinely care about Harry's well-being here, and there's no sign that he has anything but love for his son, which is a nice change from the usual. Harry himself is pretty good, too, and it really does feel like he and Peter are friends (although he loses some points for how quickly he gets angry at Peter). Peter gaining the strength to fight off his symbiote possession when it wants to go after Harry is a genuinely lovely moment.

Unfortunately, the symbiote is probably the weakest part of the episode. Its existence is a handwave at best, and the symbiote just isn't as interesting when all it's doing is possessing random heroes and rampaging about. The last few moments of the episode hint at something more interesting in the future, but that doesn't do a lot to fix the symbiote in this episode. The choreography of the fight isn't great either - the heroes seem to pop in and out of existence as they're needed, and there's not a real explanation for why it isn't consistently a four-on-one fight against the symbiote.

Putting aside the superhero stuff - what the fuck was Mary Jane thinking? "Hey, Peter, Harry is hurt that you're spending time with other friends - I know the three of us will be hanging out tonight, so why not invite them along without checking with him first?" It gets the other heroes into the plot, but there's no reason that Peter couldn't have quickly called them once the fight started, especially given the issues mentioned above with them not contributing to the fight a lot. So, yeah - the plot for this episode could definitely do with a bit of polish.