The Incredible Spider-Hulk
First Aired: June 23rd, 2013
Synopsis: Spider-Man is fighting Batroc the Leaper, and as they fight civilians jeer at him. He's able to defeat Batroc, but gets a call from Nick Fury regarding the Hulk. Spider-Man heads to the helicarrier and discovers that Fury plans to use Mesmero to make the Hulk smarter so that he can be the hero he wants to be. Once the experiment starts the Hulk starts shouting, causing Spider-Man to try and interfere. Mesmero uses his powers on Spider-Man, causing him to fall unconscious, and when he awakens he finds that he's in the Hulk's body. Nobody's around, so Spider-Man goes to Mesmero's cell to confront him, but not being used to the Hulk's body, he instead accidentally frees the villain. Spider-Man is knocked out of the helicarrier by SHIELD agents who think he's acting erratic, and once he's gone, Fury expresses confusion about the experiment; it was apparently a trick of Mesmero's. Meanwhile, the Hulk wakes up in Peter's body and is taken to school.
While the Hulk is in the middle of doing a test, he gets a call from Peter. Peter is unexpectedly attacked by the Thing, who got a call from Fury asking for help. He manages to get to another phone and calls Ava this time, who gets the Hulk away and into Spider-Man's costume before he accidentally webs himself to a helicopter and is carried away. Miraculously, the Hulk ends up near the fight. Meanwhile, Peter realises that he needs to find Mesmero, who's just finished robbing a bank. The Hulk, Thing, and Spider-Man end up near Mesmero's taxi that he's escaping in, and the Thing gets hypnotised to fight them. Spider-Man punches him in the head, which somehow undoes the hypnotism, and after explaining the situation to him the Thing points them in Mesmero's direction. Mesmero is persuaded to swap the minds back, and the Hulk leaves, lamenting how hated he is. Spider-Man notes that he started speaking in first person after the mind swap, so the experiment may have worked after all.
Review: Well, Freaky wasn't too bad, so if we swap Wolverine's role in the plot with the Hulk's and replace Sabretooth with the Thing, it'll be a hit! Right? Wrong. For a start, just by recycling the script I'm already looking at this one unfavourably - there's no twists on the previous formula, or ways to contrast being the Hulk with being Wolverine. Yes, we see that the Hulk is hated by civilians even more than Spider-Man, but given that Spider-Man wanting respect of some kind before realising that he doesn't have it so bad is a recurring theme on the show - Swarm and Spidah-Man! immediately come to mind - I'm not giving the episode that credit.
In an attempt to recreate the plot of Freaky, the episode finds itself doing what this show loves to do; namely lazy writing and logic. Why does Spider-Man need to be at the helicarrier for the experiment, and is explicitly called there by Fury? Why is nobody around when he wakes up in the Hulk's body? Why does the Hulk wake up in Peter's room in Forest Hills? And how on Earth does anything involving Mesmero tricking everyone into thinking Fury suggested the experiment work? Naturally, there's no easy answer for any of these questions, and while I could probably think of answers if I tried hard enough, I don't respect the show enough to do its homework for it.
I'll list the good points of the episode quickly, because they count for so little in the grand scheme of things. Seeing the Thing was a surprise, and I hope that we get to see the rest of the Fantastic Four at some point in the series. I did like that the Hulk did seem to be affected by the experiment; it gives him a bit of personality for any future appearances. And, um...I guess it was nice that White Tiger got a few brief lines? So, yeah, none of this is really enough to justify watching this episode. Go watch Freaky instead. It's hardly amazing, but it's leaps and bounds above this tripe.
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