Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Nineteen: Home Sick Hulk

Home Sick Hulk

First Aired: September 9th, 2012

Synopsis: Aunt May is heading off for a weekend of hiking, leaving Peter at home by himself. While he's out as Spider-Man, he sees a large metal sphere land, which the Hulk burst out of, fighting a robotic alien. Nick Fury, who has called Spider-Man, identifies it as a Phalanx. It stabs Hulk before Hulk defeats it, and Spider-Man decides to take the weakened Hulk back home, since he's worried that Fury will lock Hulk up. Shortly after arriving home with the Hulk, Aunt May returns home, since she's twisted an ankle. Peter works hard to keep Aunt May downstairs, away from the Hulk, and after a series of shenanigans which are supposedly comical, Aunt May eventually falls asleep. Hulk points out that he can't trust Spider-Man since he doesn't know who Spider-Man is, and Peter unmasks. He then takes out a piece of metal that was embedded in the Hulk from the Phalanx attack, and after examining it, discovers that it's made of tiny living nanomachines.

Some more Phalanx show up in Peter's backyard, attracted by some sort of signal sent out from the metal Peter examined, but a recovered Hulk and Spider-Man make short work of them. They follow the survivor to a warehouse where they find a Phalanx ship, which is able to make more of them. It continuously makes more of them and they start getting overwhelmed, until Hulk realises that he might have antibodies from surviving the infection. In the process, Spidey discovers that Hulk is a transformed Bruce Banner. Hulk manages to defeat the Phalanx and Fury shows up. Spider-Man convinces Fury to be friendly with Hulk rather than locking him up, and Fury gives it a try, offering him a home. Hulk is reluctant to join SHIELD, but Spider-Man vouches for them and he eventually agrees. Spider-Man suddenly realises that he left Aunt May alone at home, and rushes home quickly.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• While the Hulk is weakened from the Phalanx, his skin is more of a grey-ish colour, which is a neat nod to the grey Hulk from the comics.
• Spider-Man convinces Hulk to trust Nick Fury by saying that "...Hulk should have a home...a home where friend could come visit him...and smash." This was pretty innocent back in 2012, but in 2021, where 'smash' has a new slang meaning, it sounds like Hulk and Spidey have a much better friendship than we've seen.

Review: The ending of this episode does help to raise the quality a bit, but overall what we've got here is mostly what professional reviewers (i.e. people who aren't me) refer to as a fucking hot mess. The central premise of this episode, and the majority of the plot, is that Spider-Man has to hide a sick Hulk in his house from Aunt May. It's an inane sitcom plot, and it fails in all aspects. It's not funny, it's not entertaining, it doesn't add new depths to Spider-Man and the Hulk's relationship, and it doesn't advance the episode at all. Literally about a third of the episode consists of Peter bouncing between Aunt May and the Hulk, trying to convince the former that there's nothing suspicious about all the loud noises she's hearing. It wears out its welcome immediately but just keeps going on and on for far too long.

Once Spider-Man and the Hulk get to the warehouse full of Phalanx, things do admittedly pick up a bit. Not by much - it's a generic fight, and the Hulk having antibodies doesn't really explain why his punches are able to defeat the Phalanx - but it's miles ahead of an exasperated Spider-Man complaining about the Hulk blowing his nose on his curtains. While I've never seen Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H., and don't think that I will any time soon, I can't say this is that bad a lead-in to the show. Hulk being willing to join SHIELD since Spidey vouches for them is a nice sign of their friendship.

Still, there's a lot to get through to get to that point, and even once we're there, I can't say it's an iconic moment. The last act is better, yes, but does that justify watching this episode? Honestly, no. Better doesn't equate to good, and there's just too much crap to wade through to get there. This episode sells itself on a childish premise, and that does too much damage for me to fully enjoy what few merits it has.