Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Forty-Four: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy

First Aired: July 28th, 2013

Synopsis: Peter has to take out rubbish when he encounters Rocket Raccoon. The two of them briefly fight before Nova arrives and explains that he knows Rocket; he's his mentor. Rocket needs Nova, so the two of them teleport away, but Peter rushes into the teleport beam and comes with them. He suits up as Spider-Man and discovers that they're in space, fighting the aliens known as the Chitauri. The ship they're on is taken into a larger ship commanded by the Chitauri's leader, a cyborg known as Korvac. The rest of Nova's team, the Guardians of the Galaxy, are imprisoned on the ship and they're freed by Rocket, Spider-Man, and Nova. As the heroes fight the Chitauri around the ship, it's revealed that the Chitauri are planning to destroy Earth since there are too many heroes on it for their liking.

To prevent this, Spider-Man and the Guardians try to take over the bridge of the ship so they can send it into the sun, but more Chitauri show up and drive them back. Their backup plan is to destroy the cannon of the ship, since that's where the real threat is, and Nova volunteers to do it, accompanied by Spider-Man, while the Guardians cause a distraction. Neither Spider-Man nor Nova can work out how to destroy the cannon from the ship's controls, so Nova exits the ship as the cannon fires at Earth. Spider-Man joins the Guardians in fighting Chitauri and Korvac, and with the help of Groot, who he assumed was a pot plant, they win the fight. Nova reaches the cannon beam and absorbs it before flying it back into the ship. It explodes, but not before the Guardians and Spider-Man are able to escape onto their own ship. Nova says he wants to stay with the Guardians, but the next day when Spider-Man is breaking the news to his team, Nova appears and reveals that he changed his mind.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• At the start of the episode, Sam and Peter are playing a sci-fi video game, apparently starring, of all people, Tana Nile.
• I mentioned last episode that the show's writers seem to have forgotten about the events of Carnage. When Aunt May tells Peter and Sam to take out the rubbish, Sam comments that "I don't even live here! Wait, do I?", so they've also possibly forgotten the events of House Arrest.
• When Spider-Man realises he's been teleported to Rocket's ship, he panics and exclaims, "Is that Earth? Does this mean I'm not on it right now?" He's previously been into space in The Man-Wolf (as well as orbit, last episode) and didn't react anything like this.
• At one point the Guardians of the Galaxy comment that "The Chitauri run the entire galaxy." I haven't seen the Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon and have no plans to do so, but I'd be willing to bet that this is contradicted in there at some point, if not later in this show.
• This episode ends with a tribute to Michael Clarke Duncan, the voice of Groot, who passed away before it aired. (He also played an absolutely badass version of Kingpin in the 2003 Daredevil film).
  

Review: So it turns out there is a way to make Nova likable; you just need to change his personality completely and write him incredibly out-of-character. It's not enough for me to like him, of course, but I appreciate that someone realised, "Wait, for Nova's focus episode we should probably make him less of a blemish than usual." As for the Guardians, they...look, I know this is a controversial opinion, but I'm not that big on the Marvel Cinematic Universe's version of the Guardians of the Galaxy. (I realise this episode came out before their movie, but c'mon, this episode was clearly made with the upcoming movie in mind). 

I inevitably compare them to the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run of Guardians of the Galaxy, which simply put, is fucking awesome. That version draws on a wide variety of characters from across the Marvel cosmos, and puts them in some brilliantly written sci-fi plots. The movie version, meanwhile, is a group of action heroes vomiting quippy humour and risqué dialogue, while simplifying their backstories and history. I don't dislike them or anything, but they're not the Guardians group that I want to see, and they've very firmly influenced a lot of other versions of their team.

Anyway, all of that aside, how is the episode? It's fine, but nothing special. A bunch of differently-aesthetic characters shooting lasers that go pew-pew at scary aliens. And Korvac, who shows up for some reason, is tied to the Chitauri (hey, ask me about my opinion on the Chitauri some time!) and is utterly boring. It's nothing special, and not my type of science fiction story, but also nothing that I wouldn't expect from a cartoon like this. Not bad, just bland.