Ultimate Spider-Man Episode One Hundred and Three: Graduation Day, Part One

Graduation Day, Part One

First Aired: January 7th, 2017

Synopsis: Peter's getting his diploma from SHIELD Academy today and is excited, but becomes less so when he finds Doctor Octopus in his house. Ock says that if he continues being Spider-Man he'll threaten Aunt May, but once he leaves Spider-Man places May in a secure SHIELD location. He then tells all of his teammates what's happened, and they split up to go to places where Ock has known associates and locations. Firstly, with his original team Spider-Man finds Scorpion at a warehouse. As they fight him they also find an imprisoned Crossbones, who is forcibly transformed into a Lizard. Both villains are defeated, and Spider-Man finds some plans involving hard-light technology. He's then contacted by the New Warriors, consisting of Triton, Squirrel Girl, Cloak, and Dagger, and goes to help them fight Kraven the Hunter. They rush in against Spider-Man's orders and are attacked by Vulture, too, but Spider-Man's leadership defeats the villains easily. 

Spider-Man then goes to his spider allies, who are fighting Rhino in Central Park. He's defeated using freeze webs, but Doctor Octopus himself then appears. Although he threatens the team they electrocute the water he's in and defeat him, and all of the villains defeated are taken to the Triskelion to be held in cells. The heroes all then prepare for graduation, and more heroes - the Avengers, Doctor Strange - have appeared to be here for it. Spider-Man goes to get Aunt May to attend, but they pass Doctor Octopus' cell, and the villain reveals that he intended to be captured all along. He frees himself and his team, and they take Aunt May hostage. Doctor Octopus then agrees to release her if Spider-Man injects himself with a serum which will remove his powers, and Spider-Man agrees to do so. He does it, but points out that all of the heroes are there to stop Ock and his team, but Ock then reveals that he planned for that too. He activates a hard-light shell around the heroes, trapping them, and says that it's all Spider-Man's fault.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• After defeating Lizard-Crossbones and Scorpion, Spider-Man's original team are praising him for his leadership skills. Nova is sincere, says that he won't be making any jokes, and that "Working with you has taught me a lot," before immediately adding, "Urgh, I did get a little nauseous just saying that."

Miscellaneous Notes:

• According to this episode, the New Warriors are Cloak, Dagger, Squirrel Girl, and Triton. There's no mention of what happened to Ka-Zar.
• White Tiger acknowledges how bad the show used to be, commenting that "Back in the day you had to relearn the same lesson about leading the team every single week," and it's refreshing that the writers are so self-aware. Now we just need them to comment on how back when the team lived with Spider-Man, he repeatedly bounced between, "We're all family!" and "Man, I can't wait for these jerks to leave."
• Spider-Man defeats Kraven by tricking him into being caught in his own trap, saying that "He always lays snares on obvious escape routes, knowing that his prey will always run." This is something that's literally never come up in the show before.
• When Doctor Octopus appears at Central Park, he surfaces from under the water...with no sign of a breathing apparatus, vehicle, or base that he could have been using to help him get oxygen. We then see that the water is only ankle deep, raising even more questions.
• After Spider-Man is injected by the serum which removes his powers, he loudly cries, "My powers, I...I think they're gone!" Thanks, Spidey, the discussion about how the serum would remove your powers moments earlier made what happened really ambiguous.

Review: This episode is so damn close to being good, but it falls just a bit short of the mark and kind of ends up being weaker for aiming all the higher. I love the idea of it in theory - Spider-Man teams up with all of his allies to stop his major villains, and reminds the audience of the skills he's learned along the way and taught his teammates. Unfortunately, a lot of what happens feels unearned - Spider-Man's leadership skills really bounce up and down depending upon the episode, and it doesn't even feel like he has that strong a relationship to some of these characters (i.e. the New Warriors). There's room for call-backs to past episodes here, but instead we just have Spider-Man giving his team orders and they arbitrarily work.

While I like the ending cliffhanger of Spider-Man losing his powers and all of his allies being trapped, it feels a little sloppy in some areas. Doctor Octopus's harness can absorb the electricity he was being shocked with, and release it to free him and all his allies, and create a hard light barrier around the superheroes? One which Cloak apparently can't teleport out of, nor can Doctor Strange magic away? It's trying a bit too hard to be dramatic; if they'd put less heroes in there it'd help. Also, why don't the cells have any guards around?

Still, in spite of those flaws, I do think that the episode flows pretty well for the most part. The fights aren't drawn out too much, and having Spider-Man touch base with all of his teams is nice to see, so as to reiterate the positive relationship he has with all of them. I have mentioned the flaws above in a lot of detail, but they honestly don't take up that much of the episode. It's far from the best episode of the series, but it does an alright job for itself. Now, if only they'd removed Nova and Triton from the episode - then we'd have some really good stuff.