Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Fifty-Two: Ultimate

Ultimate

First Aired: November 10th, 2013

Synopsis: Spider-Man's riding around on the spider-cycle when the old SHIELD helicarrier, previously destroyed, bursts out of the water. Spider-Man gets onto it and is attacked by the Green Goblin and his team, all of whom have been given the same serum that transformed Norman Osborn and are now goblins themselves. The Green Goblin reveals that he's planning on using the serum on all of New York from the helicarrier, which he dubs the Hellcarrier. Spider-Man tries fleeing but is chased by his team and has to fight them until SHIELD are able to evacuate him. Coulson gives Spider-Man a briefcase from Doctor Connors which contains an anti-goblin innoculator, before Spider-Man returns to the Hellcarrier to confront the Goblin. The Green Goblin reveals that he wants to transform all of New York so that he'll have a kingdom with which to take over the world, before Spider-Man's team reappear and attack him again.

Spider-Man's able to lock each of his team members in separate rooms and injects each of them with the anti-goblin innoculator, one at a time, while giving them a speech about what good people they are. Spider-Man then returns to the Green Goblin, who has reached enough altitude to carry out his plan, but SHIELD stop the missiles he fires and then use a tractor beam on the Hellcarrier. Spider-Man's team then appear, having returned to normal, leading to the Green Goblin trying to self-destruct the Hellcarrier in response. Spider-Man's team evacuate but Spider-Man goes after the Goblin, who is on a glider. Spider-Man's able to stop the glider and the Goblin falls into the water along with a single canister of goblin gas. In the aftermath, Spider-Man is congratulated and the Green Goblin is captured by SHIELD, although Doctor Connors is unsure as to whether he can cure him. Nick Fury asks Spider-Man to come to his office, where the Avengers are. Impressed by Spider-Man, they ask him to join them.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• When Spider-Man is injecting his team to turn them normal, he gives everyone a pep talk about their strengths and why they shouldn't embrace the Goblin...except for Sam, to whom he simply says, "We saved an entire galaxy, Sam! We can beat one silly goblin!", because Spider-Man has nothing positive to say about Nova's character.
• Nick Fury calls Spider-Man into his office to meet the Avengers, simply saying, "Spider-Man! My office, now!" Sam, being a dick, calls out "Ooooohh!!", because why wouldn't he try and make Spider-Man feel bad?

Review: Well, I'll give it credit for being an improvement over the first season's finale, but this episode still needs some work. The majority of it is devoted to Spider-Man fighting his team in their ugly goblin forms, and when I say devoted, I do mean devoted. So determined is the episode to have Spider-Man fight them that they just pop up where the plot needs them to. Spider-Man jumps off the Hellcarrier and web swings a few blocks away? They jump off it and somehow are able to reach him immediately. He takes a SHIELD jet to the Hellcarrier to confront the Goblin? They're back there the moment he lands. It's lazy writing, but not as lazy as all of them getting locked up in separate rooms and then being inexplicably unable to escape from them while Spider-Man takes his sweet time curing them of the goblin formula.

I want to say that this episode is the Green Goblin's lowest point in the series so far, but has he really had any high points? He's wearing ugly armour here, complete with unnecessary cape, and his plan to have a kingdom, "full of loyal minions with which to conquer the world!" is, let's be real, the most one-dimensional motivation in fiction. Why the fuck is he even here? The Green Goblin is, in my opinion, Spider-Man's greatest foe, but nothing about this version is interesting or compelling. He's not as smart as the show thinks he is, and aside from Norman Osborn's very brief period as Iron Patriot, we've gotten nothing from him that really taps into what makes him a compelling character.

Spider-Man potentially joining the Avengers is a pretty good cliffhanger, and honestly, I kind of hope he does ditch his team and join them. The Avengers have had some pretty decent depictions here, and it'd be a nice way to show that Spider-Man really is learning and improving through SHIELD, as the premise of this show ostensibly is. I doubt that the show really will go through with it, which admittedly might be a blessing in disguise since Spider-Man's team adds some nice diversity to the cast. So, I guess in a weird way, this episode has made me curious about what will happen next, unlike most episodes of this show? I guess the take-away is that while this episode isn't great, the last minute or so isn't that bad.