Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Twenty-Nine: The Rhino

The Rhino

First Aired: January 27th, 2013

Synopsis: Spider-Man and Luke Cage save some workers from a factory fire, but a bulky villain calling himself the Rhino appears and steals some chemicals, easily defeating Spider-Man and Luke as he does so. The next day Luke and Peter are at school when they see Flash bullying a student called Alex, stopping only when Luke and Peter confront him. Although Peter empathises with him, Alex claims that Peter's one of the popular kids and that their situation isn't really the same - he knows who Peter is, but Peter doesn't know who he is even though they have science class together. That night, Luke and Spider-Man are on their motorcycles when they're contacted by Coulson, who wants them to protect an Oscorp train which might be attacked. While they're waiting for it to arrive, Spider-Man talks to Luke about Flash's bullying, and Luke points out that if Spidey tries teaching Flash a lesson then he's just becoming a bully himself. The train arrives but it's attacked by Rhino. He's able to wound Luke, something that should be impossible with the latter's unbreakable skin, and he gets away with some more chemicals which he refers to as his medicine.

The next day Flash's car is destroyed by an unknown party, but Flash declares he's not intimidated and doubles down on bullying Alex. When Peter tries helping Alex he spots some chemicals in his backpack, which Alex soon drinks to turn into the Rhino. Peter confronts him as Spider-Man, and discovers that Alex found out about the chemicals during an internship at Oscorp, before stealing them so that he wouldn't be bullied any more. Since Rhino's after Flash Thompson, Spider-Man gets his address from Coulson and heads to his house, which turns out to be an old petrol station. When Rhino appears, Spider-Man tries explaining to him that he's no better than Flash but Rhino doesn't listen. As Flash realises that Rhino is Alex, he realises the damage his bullying has done. Luke arrives and helps Spider-Man fight Rhino, and they're able to punch him hard enough that the chemicals wear off or something. Alex is taken away by SHIELD, but Flash apologises to him before he's away. Spider-Man realises that he should have told Coulson about the bullying, but Luke tells Spidey that he's a pretty good leader regardless.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• There's a technical error when Rhino breaks into the Oscorp train; he's coloured a dark green. At first I thought it was supposed to be that he'd smashed through the wall of the train so hard that it was wrapped around him, but once he's out of the train he's back to his normal grey.
• Alex says that he got the Rhino chemicals from Oscorp, which does make sense...but the serum he drinks from is clearly supposed to be one of the animal DNA compounds from two episodes ago; the label's identical. Doctor Octopus did used to work for Oscorp so there's sort of a connection there...but more likely the writers didn't really think through everything. (Or, heck, maybe it made perfect sense in the script but the animators chose to use the same design on the label, which is where the errors come into it).

Review: This version of Rhino isn't going to be my favourite by any means - as eloquent as it is for storytelling purposes, him physically transforming rather than wearing an elaborate suit changes just enough for me to not like it. What I do like that they've done here is use him to tell a moral about bullying. I don't think they do a bad job of the message, either - Peter keeps trying to tell Alex to talk to someone about it, and acknowledges at the end that if Alex wasn't going to talk to someone about it, he should have. I'm not sure how I feel about the implication that any sort of standing up for himself will result in him becoming a bully, but honestly, there's enough nuances in bullying that it's a complex situation to fully cover in the show's limited time. I think they did a decent enough job with what they did.

The whole moral of the episode aside, there's some surprisingly good action here. The in media res opening is a good teaser for the threat of Rhino, and there's an excellent action sequence when Rhino attacks the Oscorp train and it goes flying off the rails - Luke and Spidey have to work to stop it right away, and you can see how much of an effort it is. It's the sort of thing that would look amazing in a live-action sequence, and still looks good here. The only real complaint I have about the action is the way Rhino is defeated - Luke and Spidey punch him, then he just falls over and turns back to Alex. A bit convenient, that.

The weakest aspect of the episode is probably Luke's injury at the hands of Rhino - he insists that he's ready to fight again, but Spider-Man shuts him down and tells him to recover. It's all set up for Luke to return to battle and learn a lesson about not pushing himself, but when he finally does return he's absolutely fine. It's a bit of a pity, because it's a solid message and could have fit into the episode easily, but it never comes. Still, in spite of that, the episode manages to be pretty decent by Ultimate Spider-Man standards; the best in a little while.