Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Twenty-Five: Revealed

Revealed

First Aired: October 28th, 2012

Synopsis: Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, and Norman Osborn are going out for dinner to celebrate that Harry's gotten some great test scores, but Peter gets a call from his teammates asking for help as Spider-Man, and Norman gets a call from Doctor Octopus, leading to the two of them leaving. Spider-Man shows up to an Oscorp warehouse where his team are fighting the Frightful Four, who release octobots and reveal that the whole thing is a trap. Spider-Man's teammates defeat the octobots without difficulty, but afterwards realise that Spider-Man is missing. A tiny octobot leaves the warehouse, and the team decide to follow it to see if it leads them to Spidey. Spider-Man himself wakes up in a lair of Doctor Octopus' with his communicator missing. Doctor Octopus takes some of Spider-Man's blood and starts making a serum with it, similar to the process that created Venom. Spider-Man manages to break free and destroy some equipment of Doctor Octopus', but he's then taken out by an unexpected Norman Osborn, who electrocutes him with a high-tech glove. 

 

As Norman explains to Spider-Man that he wants his powers, he's stabbed by Dock Ock with a syringe containing the serum, as revenge for how he's treated Ock. Spider-Man's recaptured by Ock who plans on dissecting him to discover how his powers work, but Spider-Man's team burst in at that moment. The team briefly fight Ock while Norman turns into a hulking green creature, soon dubbed the Green Goblin. Although Doctor Octopus has planned for this and has a collar he can electrocute the Goblin with to control him, the Goblin fights it off and brutally beats up Octopus. Spider-Man and his team run away, planning to get SHIELD's help, but the Goblin catches up to them and takes them all out. In the aftermath of the fight an Oscorp building is on fire, and the Goblin recognises Harry in the crowd checking out the building. The team are disappointed that the Goblin got away, and Spider-Man says that as it's his mess, he'll deal with it on his own, without his team.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• While Spider-Man's team is following the octobot, it's moving very slowly. White Tiger suggests that Nova shoot it with energy to energise it, and because Sam is a dick, he says "Good idea...glad I thought of it!"

Review: As the penultimate episode of the season, and the only one (that I've noticed) with an ominous TO BE CONTINUED appearing at the end, this episode feels like it wants to be this big, important amazing episode where everything that's been set up over the season starts to pay off. Unfortunately, there are so many ways that this doesn't work. For a start, we've known that Norman Osborn is after Spider-Man all this time, so him appearing and taking out Spider-Man is less a shocking twist and more an inevitability. Hell, we saw him get called away by Ock earlier in the episode - if we hadn't seen that it might have been something. Spider-Man himself is completely flabbergasted by the reveal of Norman being against him, in spite of Doctor Octopus telling him about it earlier, and I think that we're supposed to be sharing his reaction.

There's also the fact that Norman's Green Goblin is based on the Ultimate version. Look, I get it - Norman taking a serum and transforming into a monster makes a lot more sense than him whipping up a costume, various gadgets, and running around like a maniac. But this version of the Green Goblin is boring - he's a big slab of muscle, with none of the surprises that the gadgets can bring to a fight. He's even talking in Hulk speak here once he's transformed, so there's barely any sort of personal connection to be had. For a man who's been a shadowy manipulator all season, working behind the scenes to try and capture Spider-Man, it's not playing to his strengths at all.

Here's how you fix this episode: after Spider-Man gets captured, focus on his team trying to find him. Give them a chance to shine in the spotlight, show why they need Spider-Man, that they respect and care about him, and once they've found him, what he contributes to the team. There's still room there for a Norman transformation and the setup of the next episode, but without wasting time on twists like "Norman is after Spider-Man!" or "Doctor Octopus doesn't like Norman!" It reinforces the setup from the first few episodes, that Spider-Man needs SHIELD's help to do the things that he can't do himself. 

Unfortunately, what we've been left with is this plot instead, and while it makes an attempt at being dramatic and important, it doesn't pull it off. I'm not that interested in seeing how the Green Goblin will be defeated, nor am I invested in the amazing twist of Spider-Man deciding he doesn't want his team's help on this - a plot point that would be a lot more dramatic if there weren't something like half the episodes of this season excluding Spider-Man's team from the action. You tried your best, Revealed, but you just don't know what to do with the resources you've got.