Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Eighteen: Damage

Damage

First Aired: August 19th, 2012

Synopsis: The Wrecking Crew are randomly smashing up the city, but after fighting Spider-Man and his team for a bit they leave, with no apparent reason for what they were doing. Nick Fury is angry at the team for the damage that was dealt to the city, and when the team protest that the Wrecking Crew were doing nothing but damaging the city, he tells them that they can investigate what might have been going on while undercover in Damage Control, the organisation that cleans up after superhero fights. The team are annoyed, but reluctantly accept it. While cleaning up after the Wrecking Crew, Spider-Man accidentally hits Nova with a shrinking ray, who is reduced to a few inches in size. The CEO of Damage Control, Mac Porter, tells everyone not to go into a building that's unstable, and conveniently next to an undamaged bank. Spider-Man investigates the bank and finds that its vault has been cleaned out, and get suspicious that Porter might be responsible. The rest of his team are sceptical, however.

That night, Spider-Man breaks into Damage Control headquarters, but doesn't find anything suspicious in Porter's office. On the way out he encounters the still-tiny Nova, who admits that he thought Spider-Man might be onto something and came with him to investigate. On the way out Spider-Man finds a shipping container with the money from the bank, and is attacked by some Damage Control workers, who turn out to be the Wrecking Crew in disguise. Spider-Man works out that they intentionally damaged the city knowing that Damage Control would be hired to clean it up, and having already infiltrated the company, could use the opportunity to rob the bank, shrinking the loot with one of the shrinking rays to get it away. Spider-Man gets beaten up by the Wrecking Crew, but Nova gets away and calls in Spider-Man's team. They manage to hold their own against the Wrecking Crew, but the villains are going to bring down Damage Control's headquarters. Porter arrives with a bulldozer which lets him take them out before shrinking them down, ending their threat. While he's at it, he forgives Spider-Man for breaking into his office. Nova returns to his normal size when the shrinking ray wears off, but Nick Fury knocks over some stuff and causes a lot of damage, meaning he'll have to temporarily work for Damage Control himself.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• When Spider-Man breaks into Porter's office, he's attacked by security. Later, when he discovers that Nova's been with him all along and asks what he was doing at that time, Nova says that he was laughing.
• While we're at it, why can't Nova reveal that he believes Spider-Man's theory? Why all this sneaking around, and supporting his teammate? Because Nova is the worst, that's why.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• This episode is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie, who created Damage Control in the comics. Mac Porter is designed to visually resemble McDuffie.

Review: The ideas of this episode aren't bad on paper. The Wrecking Crew smashing up the city to set up a bigger crime is a smart idea, as is them infiltrating Damage Control. Spider-Man and the gang having to work for Damage Control is a fun idea that could easily be full of good comedy moments, or even to expand the world a bit by emphasising what needs to be done after a superhero fight. Nova being shrunken down to a tiny size is a genius idea, since someone might step on him and kill him. Yet nothing here really feels like it's being executed that well.

Probably the biggest issue with this episode is the same issue most episodes of this show have: everybody is a jerk. Nick Fury is a jerk who doesn't listen to the team when they point out that the Wrecking Crew were smashing things up for no reason, Spider-Man's team are jerks when they complain about having to work for Damage Control, and then later again they're jerks when Spider-Man thinks he's found out what's going on. We even get a moment where Nick Fury comes in to see how the team is doing, and immediately yells at them since they don't seem to have learned their lesson yet. Jerks aside, Spider-Man also inexplicably and conveniently has a stealth suit which lets him turn invisible when he breaks into Damage Control - what are the odds we never see it again?

Good stuff is, I guess, that the Wrecking Crew's plan isn't bad, even if it's incredibly obvious that they've infiltrated Damage Control (something which Spider-Man's spider-sense conveniently doesn't warn him of). The homage to Dwayne McDuffie is nice, especially since he both does the majority of the work in stopping the Wrecking Crew, and is consistently polite to everyone he talks to. Could we get a cartoon with him as the protagonist rather than what we've been stuck with, please?