Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Forty-Three: Venom Bomb

Venom Bomb

First Aired: July 21st, 2013

Synopsis: Spider-Man and his team are fighting the Green Goblin after he was found by SHIELD satellites. They're able to defeat him but are suspicious of how easy it was. Spider-Man visits Harry Osborn to let him know, but all Harry cares about is returning his father to normal since he's sick. Spidey next heads to the helicarrier, where he finds out from Nick Fury that the Goblin will be held on the moon. Spidey protests that they should be trying to cure him, but Fury doesn't listen. For the moment, the Goblin is still on the helicarrier, however, and he spits out a vial containing a symbiote which merges with another symbiote in SHIELD's custody, before the two start infecting SHIELD agents. Spider-Man, meanwhile, tries talking the imprisoned Doctor Octopus into curing Norman, but has to leave when symbiotes attack, leading to Spider-Man fighting a symbiote-possessed Nick Fury and Agent Coulson. The Goblin is freed by symbiotes and goes to Doctor Octopus for revenge, but Spider-Man arrives and saves Doctor Octopus using the Iron Spider armour.

The helicarrier, which has been sent into space to try and contain the symbiote infection, starts activating an automatic self-destruct sequence. Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus start working on a cure to free people from the symbiotes, while the Green Goblin absorbs a multitude of symbiotes. Spider-Man ends up having to hold him off while Ock finishes off the cure,and when he disperses it as a gas, it not only removes all of the symbiotes from their hosts, but it also turns the Green Goblin back into Norman Osborn. Ock leaves in an escape pod while Spider-Man tries ejecting the merged symbiotes into space, managing to do so. Nick Fury, meanwhile, is able to shut down the helicarrier self-destruct sequence. Afterwards Spider-Man goes to Harry, brooding on a rooftop, and shows him Norman - he has to recover, but Harry will be able to see him soon. Afterwards Nick Fury confirms that Ock is missing, but praises Spider-Man for not giving up on curing Norman Osborn.

 

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• After the team defeat the Green Goblin, they're all suspicious of how easy it was. All of them, that is, except for Nova, who sneers, "I can't believe you guys! You're whining about how we won?" As opposed to, something normal, like, say, "Well, I don't think it's suspicious, but I guess we won't know unless something happens."
  

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Venom Bomb was also the name of an arc in the Mighty Avengers comics. I haven't read it, but I believe it was about a bunch of civilians (in...I want to say...Latveria?) getting infected by symbiotes.
• When Spider-Man and his team are fighting the Green Goblin at the start of the episode, Spider-Man has a flashback to the last time he and the Goblin fought, and it's (a chibi version of) a scene from Rise of the Goblin. So, did the writers forget that Carnage exists, or is that non-canon now?
• The Goblin gets a neat little title card thing at the start of the episode, and his name is just listed as "The Goblin", as opposed to "The Green Goblin". I was under the impression that everyone was just shortening his name, but now that I think about it I don't think he ever has been called the Green Goblin here. Eh, I'll still refer to him with the full title; that's who Norman Osborn is to me.

Review: For an episode featuring Norman Osborn getting cured, SHIELD agents getting infected, Spider-Man battling both Coulson and Nick Fury, the return of the Iron Spider, and a Venom-powered Green Goblin, it sure does manage to be a snorefest. I'm trying to figure out why that is, and I think that it's because it doesn't really have any fangs - is there any real belief that the helicarrier will explode? Do the SHIELD agents provide any real sort of threat to Spider-Man? Does Doctor Octopus try and seriously backstab Spider-Man? Does a Venom-powered Green Goblin do anything that he couldn't do before? You don't need to kill off any characters or whatever to artificially raise the stakes, but it'd be nice if a proper threat level was established.

Instead all we get is these different things that we're told are threats without actually seeing why they're deadly. Spider-Man is terrified by the idea of a symbiote Nick Fury, but there's nothing to really suggest that Spider-Man is in proper danger. Furthermore, there's never any risk of Spider-Man getting infected by the symbiotes, or even any signs that fighting them is wearing him down. Most egregious is Octopus leaving the helicarrier and warning Spider-Man that the symbiotes will be even more deadly without hosts - they then merge into a big blob, and are defeated almost immediately. Nick Fury even gets in on the action, telling Spider-Man that the Goblin has to be placed on the moon since he's one of the deadliest threats to the planet. Sure, honey.

If the stakes were established properly, would this be a good episode? I don't think so. Spider-Man's team just disappear from the plot after the opening scene, even though they supposedly live on the helicarrier. Harry seems to have found a new career in standing at the edge of tall buildings and brooding, and what's all this crap about his dad just being sick? Harry himself wanted to kill Norman last episode they both appeared, and even if you say that that was the symbiote's influence, what does he think of his dad trying to kill him towards the end of that episode? I like that Ock is free to be a villain once more, and that Norman's no longer the Green Goblin, but overall this episode just isn't well-written.