Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Fifteen: For Your Eye Only

For Your Eye Only

First Aired: July 22nd, 2012

Synopsis: Nick Fury is angry at Spider-Man, as he thinks the latter doesn't do enough training. He tells Spider-Man to come to the helicarrier the next day for more training, but when Spider-Man does show up he finds that the criminal organisation Zodiac has taken it over, with their leader, Scorpio, claiming that Nick Fury is dead. Spider-Man makes a panicky escape, but realises that he has no proof that Fury is dead. He's unable to call his team since the signal is jammed, and as he sneaks around the helicarrier he discovers that Scorpio is going to download all of SHIELD's files then destroy the helicarrier. Spider-Man gets a call from a still-living Nick Fury, but is overheard by the Zodiac mooks. Spider-Man's able to avoid the villains, make his way to a terminal, and then follow Fury's instructions to stop the file download. Fury tells Spider-Man that he's being held on the seventh level, so Spider-Man makes his way there and is eventually able to free him.

Spider-Man and Nick Fury arm themselves, but an alarm goes off warning that the helicarrier will self-destruct in three minutes. Spider-Man uses some new gadgets to take out a large group of Zodiac thugs, which draws the attention of the remaining ones and allows Fury to make his way to the bridge. He takes control of the helicarrier and flies it into the river, which just leaves Scorpio as a threat. The two of them fight and Fury manages to unmask Scorpio, who turns out to be Fury's brother, Max. Max escapes the helicarrier as it's about to explode, but Fury is able to stop the countdown with seven seconds on the clock. In the aftermath, Fury tells Spider-Man that the SHIELD agents are fine, just locked in the brig. Spider-Man has new respect for Fury, since he was able to take back the helicarrier, but the two soon start bickering.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• In the scene where we see that Spider-Man can't contact his teammates, we see that White Tiger is reading a Patsy Walker romance book. It's a neat little nod to an oft-forgotten Marvel character.
• Sporadically throughout the episode, Scorpio wields a giant ankh called the Scorpio Key. In the comics, the exact same item is usually called the Zodiac Key.
• Speaking of changes which I guess don't do any harm but irk me nevertheless, in the comics Nick's brother is actually called Jake. There is a Max Fury, though - a rogue LMD of Nick.

Review: The last two episodes seem to have been written with the intention of giving Spider-Man stronger bonds with Iron Fist and Luke Cage. This episode seems to be trying to do a similar thing with Nick Fury, but just like the previous two episodes, it doesn't really work. Before Spider-Man discovers that Fury's alive, he has tiny chibi versions of the spymaster appearing in his imagination, giving him advice for what to do next. The intent is clearly to show that Fury's training hasn't been for nothing and that he really knows what he's doing, but it's undermined by the actual advice, which is generic stuff like, "Every enemy has a weakness; you can exploit it if you find it out."

Outside of the Fury stuff, between the title, the countdown for the helicarrier ending on 007, and a few other things, the episode feels like it wants to be a James Bond homage, but if that's the case, it fails miserably. Scorpio isn't a sophisticated villain, Fury doesn't have sleek gadgets or a cool car, and there's no fancy parties or anything. If anything, the premise - which for what it's worth, isn't bad - feels more suited for a Die Hard homage, but it doesn't really make the most of it. The vast majority of this episode really is just Spider-Man fighting Zodiac goons, and it gets boring quickly.

What praise I have for the episode is pretty small. There's a pretty good joke about Spider-Man giving Nick Fury a label maker for Christmas (with a hilarious reaction from Fury). I appreciate that this episode put in effort to explain why Spider-Man couldn't contact his teammates, and that the fates of the SHIELD agents aboard the helicarrier were addressed. But there's not a lot of substance here, and I'd hesitate to say that there's much style to compensate.