Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Sixteen: Beetle Mania

 Beetle Mania

First Aired: July 29th, 2012

Synopsis: Spider-Man and his team fight the Trapster, and manage to defeat him soundly by trapping him in a large concrete cylinder. Nick Fury's impressed and gives them an official SHIELD mission to defend J. Jonah Jameson from the Beetle, a criminal who Jonah has been speaking out against recently. While the team are standing on the roof of the Daily Bugle, Spider-Man gets a call from Mary Jane, who's about to have an interview with Jonah. Worried that she might get caught in the crossfire between the Beetle and Jonah, he switches to Peter Parker, meets with her, and tries to redirect her away, but she has none of it. Spider-Man's team try and talk her away, but she manages to get past all of them, and unbeknownst to her and Peter, they're soon taken out by the Beetle and some robots of his. By the time Peter and Mary Jane have reached the top floor, Peter can't contact any of them, and his spider-sense is starting to tingle, so he throws Mary Jane into Jonah's office and switches to Spider-Man, right as Beetle arrives.

 

Spider-Man's fight against the Beetle mostly consists of him dodging the Beetle's lasers, but the fight briefly carries outside where Beetle's able to get the upper hand on Spider-Man. The entire time, Mary Jane has her interview with Jonah, trying to keep his attention away from the noise outside the office. Beetle gets ready to blow up Jonah's office but Spider-Man's team arrives, buying Jonah more time. Even with their numbers they start losing, but they try the same tactic on Beetle that they used to defeat Trapster, this time with a giant roll of paper. They're successful but Beetle escapes easily and breaks into Jonah's office. He gets a shot off, but it turns out that Jonah has been communicating with Mary Jane via video the entire time, and isn't in the office. Beetle's so stunned that it gives the team an opening to defeat him, and when Jonah accuses Spider-Man of working with Beetle, Mary Jane turns off the monitor. In the aftermath, Mary Jane tells Peter that even though she flunked the interview, she's even more determined to get a job at the Daily Bugle.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• When Jonah is ranting about the Beetle, Sam comments that, "Y'know, I think it's better when he's yelling about squashing our resident webhead!"

 Miscellaneous Notes:

• As the team imagine how easily they'll defeat the Beetle, each of them imagines him in one of his costumes from the comics.
• In one bit where Spider-Man imagines Wolverine in anger management (don't ask), the therapist shown is Doc Samson, who wins the award for most unexpected cameo.
• There's also an imagine spot where Spider-Man pictures Nick Fury giving him a spider-buggy...or as comic fans know it, the Spider-Mobile!

Review: After a bit of a drop in quality from the last few episodes, this one manages to do a bit of damage control, and surprisingly enough, ends up being pretty alright. There's still some inane jokes by Spider-Man and he's still weirdly selfish - being reluctant to defend Jonah in this episode - but if more episodes were like this one, I'd like this show a lot more. The team actually feel like a team, with small banter here and there, and the Beetle is an excellent villain. He barely speaks at all throughout the episode, and from the way he initially takes out most of the team, he easily establishes himself as a real threat.

It can't all be perfect, of course, and there are a few issues with the episode. Why are the team so certain that the Beetle will choose to attack Jonah at the exact moment that they show up to defend him? For that matter, why is Jonah being targeted? He's speaking out against the Beetle, but he's hardly revealing the existence of an unknown criminal, or doing anything that poses a legitimate threat to the Beetle. I guess Beetle just can't take criticism very well.

Still, the episode manages to work well enough. The final twist, that Jonah was never in his office after all, is one of those ones that makes perfect sense, and it's satisfying to see Beetle in shock after an entire episode of him being this stoic menace. Lest we forget, this is also the first episode in a while where we actually get to see Peter interact meaningfully with his supporting cast, and while this version of Mary Jane has some big boots to fill, I appreciate it nevertheless.