Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Sixty-Three: The Spider-Verse, Part 3

The Spider-Verse, Part 3

First Aired: March 19th, 2015

Synopsis: The next universe Spider-Man ends up in takes him to York, a medieval village. As Spider-Man approaches he sees a figure called the Alchemist extorting money from the citizens in return for protecting them, but Spider-Man's soon spotted and captured, having been mistaken for a witch. He's saved from being burned at the stake by this universe's Spider-Man, an armoured figure called Spyder-Knight, but the Green Goblin soon appears, grabs Spyder-Knight's DNA, and leaves through a portal. Spider-Man wants to follow but a giant steampunk octopus called the Kraken appears out of a nearby lake, which Spyder-Knight has to fight. As much as Spider-Man wants to leave through the portal he stays to help Spyder-Knight, and in battle Spyder-Knight mentions that the Kraken is what the Alchemist protects the people from. Once the Kraken is defeated it's revealed that the Alchemist, this universe's version of Doctor Octopus, was controlling it all along. Although the portal closes, Spyder-Knight takes Spider-Man to Merlin, this universe's Doctor Strange equivalent, and he's able to reopen it.

Spider-Man finds himself in a more familiar universe and soon discovers its Spider-Man fighting the Green Goblin. They're interrupted by this universe's Goblin, who declares that only he may defeat Spider-Man, and while the Goblins fight Spider-Man escapes with his counterpart. His counterpart knows that he's Peter Parker and reveals that he's Miles Morales - in his universe, Peter Parker died fighting the Green Goblin. He takes Peter to see his counterpart's grave but they're attacked by Miles' Goblin, closely followed by Peter's. Peter's Goblin is able to get Miles' DNA and Peter takes the device that did so, but Miles' Goblin attacks again and Peter's Goblin takes it back. He notes Peter's grave, and seemingly works out from this that Peter is Spider-Man. Peter and Miles, meanwhile, work together to stop Miles' Goblin, and in the aftermath Peter reassures Miles that he's doing a great job as Spider-Man. The Goblin creates a new portal and Spider-Man follows him through it.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When Spider-Man's in York, he's tied up by ropes to be burned at the stakes. He tries breaking free from them and comments that they're too strong to break through. This from the guy who's been regularly breaking through his alternate counterparts' webbing over the past few episodes.
• I'm too lazy to check, but when Miles first appears he gets a little splash image thing with his name - I'm fairly sure that it's the exact same logo title that his contemporary series was using.

Review: If there's one takeaway from this episode I've gotten, it's that my god is this version of the Green Goblin boring. (Both Peter's and Miles'). When Peter and Miles work to take down Miles' version there's no interesting tactics, no clever thinking - it's just a combination of punching, venom blasts, and webbing. The Green Goblin is just a big monster, and there's basically no connection to who he was as Norman Osborn to make him more interesting or engaging. When Brian Michael Bendis first started writing (the comic) Ultimate Spider-Man, I can see why he'd see Norman transforming as being more realistic than him putting on a wacky costume, but I think it's done more harm than good in the long run.

By now the universes are, unfortunately, feeling more and more gimmicky - Spyder-Knight's is basically a checklist of the theme park version of the medieval period, plus an anachronistic octopus robot for some reason. Miles and Peter get a pretty solid bond, but that part of the episode is mostly focused on them taking down Miles' Goblin. There's also the implication that Peter's Goblin has somehow worked out Spider-Man's identity by simply seeing that that universe's version of Peter has a gravestone, which makes no sense.

Ultimately, while I love Miles and think that Spyder-Knight has a decent enough design, I'm glad that next episode is going to be the last of the Spider-Verse arc as it's starting to wear out its welcome. With a bit of luck next episode will be less about dimension hopping and more about wrapping things up, so if it can pull that off alright then this one will be the only real dud of the arc. This arc's been decent so far, but I'm ready for it to be over.