Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Sixty-Two: The Spider-Verse, Part 2

The Spider-Verse, Part 2

First Aired: March 12th, 2015

Synopsis: Spider-Man arrives in a black-and-white world and finds the Green Goblin being chased by cops. Spider-Man Noir arrives to fight the Goblin and with Spider-Man's help they're able to knock the Goblin into the river, temporarily taking him out of the picture. Noir is suspicious of Spider-Man, however, until Spider-Man unmasks. Nevertheless Noir insists that he works alone and that he's distanced himself from Aunt May and Mary Jane to protect them. He keeps evading Spider-Man, until a radio report has the Green Goblin capturing report Mary Jane and holding her in a blimp. Spider-Man and Spider-Man Noir go after the blimp using an old plane and Spider-Man's able to save Mary Jane when she's dangled out of the blimp. He then has to save some people who fall out of the blimp but Spider-Man Noir tags in and fights the Goblin inside the blimp. Although it looks like Goblin is defeated, he recovers and takes Noir's DNA, then sets the blimp to crash.

Spider-Man's able to escort the remaining blimp passengers to safety while Noir guides the damaged blimp into the river. Spider-Man Noir realises that there are times when teamwork is necessary as Spider-Man leaves into the portal the Goblin escapes through. The next world Spider-Man finds himself in is a cartoony, exaggerated world. A pig on the farm Spider-Man lands in tells him that there's no Spider-Man equivalent in this world, but when Spider-Man finds a familiar costume on a scarecrow he works out that the pig is lying. The pig admits that he's Peter Porker and that he was Spider-Ham, even managing to join the Avengers, but when the J. Jonah Jameson equivalent ridiculed him he gave up the costume. The Green Goblin shows up and Spider-Man fights him, but when the Goblin talks about how he heard that Spider-Ham is a coward, Spider-Ham gets the resolve to join in the fight. However, during the fight the Green Goblin is able to take some hair from Spider-Ham, all the DNA he needs, and then he leaves through a portal. Spider-Man convinces Spider-Ham to rejoin the Avengers and then goes after the Goblin.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin in Spider-Man Noir's world he comments, "Pumpkin bombs! Gobby's up to his old tricks, alright." I can't remember whether the Goblin's used pumpkin bombs before in this show, but last episode Spider-Man seemed surprised by Norma Osborn's use of them which seemed to imply the Goblin hasn't used them before.
• Mary Jane defiantly tells the Green Goblin, "Laugh now, gargoyle! The Spider will cut you down to size!", which has the Goblin make the baffling reply of "You talk like you know him!" That's...quite an extrapolation to make from a comment like that.
• When Spider-Man saves passengers from the blimp from falling to their deaths, he comments that "Don't worry, folks! I saw Iron Man do this once!", which appears to be a shout-out to the scene in Iron Man 3 where Iron Man saves a bunch of people from falling from a plane to their deaths.
• When Spider-Ham talks about how he gave up the costume, the shot shown is a homage to the famous splash page from Spider-Man No More, with the costume in the bin as Spidey walks away.

Review: This episode does reveal a bit of a flaw in the premise of this arc: what exactly is Spider-Man's plan to stop the Green Goblin? He can stop him from stealing Spider-Man DNA all day if he wants, but since the Green Goblin controls the way they're jumping between universes there's nothing to stop him from just hanging around in that universe until he eventually succeeds. It's some of the worst aspects of the Villains Act, Heroes React trope, and it's most prominent in this episode when the Green Goblin is stopped from stealing Spider-Man Noir's DNA and knocked into the river, but we have to hang around to give him another go anyway. 

The Green Goblin also doesn't seem to realise the advantages of controlling the Siege Perilous - after he steals Spider-Man Noir's DNA there's nothing stopping him leaving the universe and trapping our Spider-Man there, but it's not until they deal with the crashing blimp that he leaves, even taking the time to unnecessarily swoop down and taunt them before opening a portal. Yeah, yeah, the real reason he does this is so that the plot can keep moving, but I shouldn't need that as an explanation for such an illogical move.

In spite of all that, though, I'm still having fun here. Green Goblin mentioning that he can still take Spider-Man Noir's DNA from a blood smear if he dies sets up and foreshadows him stealing Spider-Ham's hair brilliantly, and speaking of Spider-Ham, his world brings something new to the table that the other haven't done - beyond a setting change, it also provides a genre change, with the fight with the Green Goblin being far more comical and cartoony. It's a good aspect to lean into in a story like this, and I hope the remaining worlds do similar things too.