Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Twenty-One: I Am Spider-Man

I Am Spider-Man

First Aired: September 23rd, 2012

Synopsis: Trapster has Mary Jane as a hostage. Spider-Man's able to defeat him and keep her safe, but unmasks afterwards and announces to a large group of people that he's really Peter Parker. The scene shifts to a week ago, when a it was announced that there was a Spider-Man play being held at the school, written by Mary Jane and directed by Coulson. Peter's annoyed at Coulson for running the play, and when Coulson holds auditions for the part of Spider-Man, Flash Thompson gets the part. To make matters worse, Sam Alexander swaps Peter's Spider-Man costume with the one in the play as a joke, and Flash keeps it so that he can do method acting. Peter follows him around to try and get it back, but Flash is mistaken for the real Spider-Man and attacked by Trapster. Peter's able to subtly use his web shooters to defeat Trapster and save Flash, but Flash thinks that he's defeated Trapster himself and promotes the play to a nearby news camera. Afterwards, Coulson makes Peter Flash's understudy.

On the night of the play, Flash gets scared since he can't sing, but Peter talks to Flash about power, responsibility, and what the real Spider-Man would do. When Peter's temporarily away from the changing room, Trapster appears, ready for revenge, and he covers Flash in paste. Peter attacks Trapster with the costume from the play and their fight spreads onto the stage. Spider-Man tells Coulson to keep the music going to stop panic, and then defeats the Trapster, even though he's taken Mary Jane as a hostage. Peter has to sing a solo to keep the show going, and then unmasks. The audience is annoyed that the Spider-Man they've been watching isn't Flash, but Flash comes out and tells everyone to give Peter the respect he deserves, having been inspired by Peter's words earlier. Unfortunately for the audience, Flash then takes the opportunity to do his solo, and the audience discovers that Flash can't sing at all.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• When Peter's a bit annoyed that Flash got the part of Spider-Man, Sam makes the claim that he looks better in the costume than Peter does.
• As mentioned, Sam swaps Peter's costume with the play's one solely so that he can make a joke at Peter's expense. That's dickish enough, but it also means that he broke into Peter's personal belongings to do so.

 Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Coulson reveals a list of who else was in the running to be Flash's understudy, we see that right above Peter's name (he's fifth) is Miles Morales. Is this the first appearance of Miles in a non-comics medium?

Review: Who the actual fuck wrote this episode, and why aren't they writing more episodes of this series? (Or writing at this level of quality if they've done a lot of existing episodes already). The basis of the high school running a Spider-Man musical is pretty funny on its own, but the way Coulson gets entirely into the role of director, asking Peter for rhyming words, while having absolutely no idea how plays work is hilarious. On top of that there's Mary Jane getting annoyed at everyone for going off script, and Peter's friends not realising he's fighting on stage...there's a lot of humour in this episode, and it's surprisingly good.

There's also, for what I think is the first time in the entire series, some actual character development. Peter's speech to Flash comes from the heart, and it's great to see him admit to Flash that they'd probably be good friends if the latter were less of a jerk. Flash actually taking it on board and standing up for Peter in front of the school is a great moment, and while I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, I hope he continues along this path of development. Anyone can write a bully Flash Thompson, but writing one who matures is a lot more interesting (and, on a side note, is one of the reasons why I actually quite like The Amazing Spider-Man).

I've got a few nitpicks here and there - it's improbable that the school sets up this play in just a week, Peter being annoyed at Coulson for running the play doesn't seem to have much merit, Sam Alexander exists - but overall this is a surprisingly fun episode. The biggest complaint I have is that I'm disappointed at the missed potential - imagine if the entire episode had been a musical and most of the dialogue was songs. We'd get an excellent episode in that case, but as it is, this is still pretty damn enjoyable.