Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Sixty-One: The Spider-Verse, Part 1

The Spider-Verse, Part 1

First Aired: March 5th, 2015

Synopsis: Spider-Man sneaks into one of the Goblin's lairs where he finds the Goblin absorbing Electro into the Siege Perilous, stating that he's going to travel to alternate dimensions to absorb Spider-Man DNA. Naturally Spider-Man won't stand for this, but when he fights the Goblin a portal's opened and Spider-Man ends up in one of those alternate dimensions - the futuristic New York of 2099. With the Goblin nowhere to be seen he goes to stop a bank robbery which the news reports, but after stopping the robots committing it is attacked by the Spider-Man of 2099, who thinks that Spider-Man is a fake of some kind. As they continue to fight the Goblin appears and attacks them, and is able to get Spider-Man 2099's DNA. He disappears into a portal while Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 work to save a building damaged during the fight. In the aftermath Spider-Man 2099 is convinced that Spidey is the real deal, and thanks him for helping to inspire him. Spider-Man goes into the still-open portal after Goblin.

In the new reality Spider-Man finds himself in he soon finds that everyone is gender-swapped, with his alternative being Spider-Girl. She briefly fights Spider-Man, thinking that he's a civilian without powers at first, but she realises that he's telling the truth about being an alternate version and they unmask to each other. They then head to Oscorp, where the Goblin has teamed up with his alternate self, Norma Osborn, wielding the Green Goblin equipment. Goblin soon manages to get Spider-Girl's DNA and in exchange for Norma's help gives her some Goblin serum. He then leaves in another portal while Spider-Man and Spider-Girl fight Norma, with their fight eventually leading them to the George Washington Bridge. Norma manages to knock Spider-Girl off the bridge but Spider-Man saves her after defeating Norma. Before he leaves through the next portal he gives Spider-Girl a pep talk, and she thanks him for the help.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• At the same time as this arc was running the comics had an event also called Spider-Verse. Given that the comics promised every Spider-Man ever appearing, I think this works out as a nice way to sort of deliver on that promise - "even the Spider-Men of different mediums have to deal with multiversal shenanigans!" Also, this arc doesn't have Morlun in it, so that's one advantage it has over the comics.
• In the comics Spider-Girl is the future daughter of Spider-Man, Mayday Parker, whereas the version in this show is a gender-swapped version of Peter named Petra Parker.
  
• As seen in the screenshot above, when in 2099 the show uses 3D animation for everything. It's a really cool idea to emphasise that it's the future, and the level of quality is really good.
• When Spider-Man arrives in the future he's shocked to see that advertisements for anything are everywhere, "Even wheatcakes?" Wheatcakes have been a bit of a recurring thing in the comics over the last decade or so, since they were briefly mentioned waaaaay back in Amazing Fantasy #15. (I should clarify, too; when I say that Spider-Man's shocked, I mean in the sense that he's startled, not in the way that people in 2099 use the word).
• Norma takes the Goblin Serum and transforms into a monstrous form like our Goblin: sure, that makes sense. Gigantic sci-fi gauntlets appearing out of nowhere over her hands: makes less sense.
• Spider-Girl refers to the duo of herself and Spider-Man as "Spider-Girl and her amazing friend!", and if you don't recognise the reference by now then I'm not quite sure what you're doing here. (But hey, thanks for visiting!)

Review: Given how annoying this show's version of the Green Goblin is and that he's driving this arc, I wasn't really expecting much from it, but as far as solo episodes go this works fairly well. Ignoring the logic of why Spider-Man's exploring the Goblin's lair on his own, without his team, the start of the episode is nice and snappy, getting us to where we want to be quickly. The decision to visit two dimensions in this episode is a good one, too; assuming that the same structure holds for the remaining episodes, we get to see a good variety of worlds long enough to learn a few details about them but not so long that their gimmicks wear off.

What's less enjoyable is the way that both alternate Spider-Men attack Peter almost immediately, assuming the worst without listening to what he has to say. With Spider-Man 2099 it's a bit more forgiveable given that to him Spider-Man is a legendary figure from nearly a century ago, but Petra has no reason not to listen to what he has to say. I hope it won't be a recurring thing going forwards. The fast pace also means that the fights don't really have the space to do much, and while that's probably a blessing in disguise given how dull the fights in this show usually are, it's still a bit jarring. In both dimensions the Goblin manages to get his DNA within about a minute, when it should ideally be something he has to really fight and work for.

Still, for a premise that can be a bit gimmicky, this episode managed to work pretty well for me. I'm fairly sure that we'll be seeing Miles Morales soon enough, and with the speed we're going at we should have enough room to see a few more fun concepts. I doubt we'll get into much heavy stuff here, and there is the potential to, but even with that being the case I hope that the different universes will be strong enough to stand on their own.