Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Forty-One: Stan By Me

Stan By Me

First Aired: July 7th, 2013

Synopsis: Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborn are the only people at school on a Friday evening, as Peter needs their help with some science classes he missed. The power ominously goes out, and the school's janitor, Stan, says there's something ominous about. In the darkness Coulson, who is also at school, disappears at the same time large claw marks appear on the walls and ceiling. Thankfully, Stan prompts Peter to run and get help, giving him the excuse he needs to change to Spider-Man. As Spider-Man rejoins his friends he's attacked by the Lizard, but saved by Stan attacking it with his mop. His communicator is damaged in the process, which means he can't call his team for help. The group of Spider-Man, Stan, Mary Jane, and Harry head to the boiler room after the Lizard, but Harry is grabbed by the Lizard when the monster grabs a high-tech security panel from a wall.

The group work out that the Lizard is taking technology, and Stan leads the team to where he thinks the Lizard would go - the detention room. Mary Jane is suspicious of the SHIELD technology, visible through a hole in the floor, but Stan explains the school was built above an abandoned subway tunnel. Spider-Man goes down into the hole and is nearly defeated by the Lizard before Stan and Mary Jane save him by using torches to distract the Lizard. Mary Jane is captured by the Lizard, however, and Stan and Spider-Man follow him to his true lair, where they find a captured Coulson and Harry, Mary Jane drowning, and a high-tech computer. While Stan saves Mary Jane, using a grappling hook in his mop, Spider-Man fights the Lizard. He works out that the Lizard has been stealing technology so that he can make a device to repress the Lizard part of his brain and go back to being Curt Connors. Spider-Man activates the device...but it turns out the Lizard was making it to repress the Connors part of his brain. A fire starts, and Spider-Man has to quickly get everyone out, leaving the Lizard behind. The next day he beats himself up about it, but Stan tells Peter he did well, and reveals that he's a SHIELD agent, working at the school.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• At the end of the episode, when Stan is giving Peter a pep talk, he comments that even he didn't do it all alone, and thanks an unseen SHIELD agent called Steve. Given the controversy that sometimes arises around Stan Lee when it comes to giving credit, it's a pretty sweet moment.

Review: I want this episode to be better than it is. Stan the janitor turning out to secretly be competent and having all sorts of gadgets hidden in his mop is a fun premise, and the reveal that he's a SHIELD agent makes a lot of sense (I do think it would be a bit better if they weren't so open about it, but it works nevertheless). He constantly narrates and alliterates in the inimitable Stan Lee style, and Spider-Man missing most of the moments where he shines is fairly humorous. I went into this episode worried that it would be nothing more than, "Look, it's Stan Lee!" throughout the episode, but it manages to avoid that - Stan's present, but he's sharing the spotlight, not stealing it.

As always, though, the show's logic goes in all sorts of weird directions, and that makes it harder to enjoy the episode. Why doesn't Spider-Man escort his friends out of the school? Yeah, Mary Jane wants to report on the story, but why doesn't he lock her out of the school? He shows he's perfectly fine to do so in a cupboard mid-episode. Why is the Lizard at the school? The implication is that he's there to steal SHIELD tech for his device, but it's flimsy. It's also awfully convenient that he's just finished the device as the heroes show up (using technology he's only just stolen!), and that he hasn't been discovered in the past few days. Incidentally, if he's smart enough to build such a device, why does he still speak in broken English? There's also a nonsensical bit early on in the episode where Spider-Man fights the Lizard, who runs away, and then Spider-Man is unsure as to whether he fought who he thinks he did. I get that they're going for a faux-horror vibe for most of this episode, but it doesn't work when we can clearly see who you were fighting.

I do like that we forward the Lizard subplot by removing the Connors part of his brain, so I will give the episode that. Stan Lee is quite fun, and they manage to hold off from him being too competent too early, so even to the audience he appears to be an eccentric old man for a good part of the episode. Overall I'd say that the episode manages to avoid being flat-out bad, but it also could do a lot better given what it's got to work with.