Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Ninety-Four: Return to the Spider-Verse, Part One

Return to the Spider-Verse, Part One

First Aired: August 27th, 2016

Synopsis: Spider-Man and Miles are playing video games when Spider-Ham, Spyder-Knight, and Miles' mother briefly show up before vanishing into thin-air. Iron Fist shows up and takes the two heroes to K'un L'un, where Nick Fury, Madame Web, and Doctor Strange are. After fighting off some giant spiders from another universe, Madame Web explains that because the Siege Perilous was shattered, the shards have scattered between different universes, and as it pulls itself together, it's bringing bits of those universes with it. Miles and Spider-Man will have to go to the other universes to retrieve the shards, using a shard found in the hidden Inhuman City which will act as a compass to find the others. A portal is then opened by Strange and Madame Web, which lands Miles and Spider-Man in a steampunk world. They're attacked by vampiric versions of Iron Fist, White Tiger, and Luke Cage, but saved by Blood Spider, the last superhero in Manhattan. He explains that the vampires were created by the Lizard King, before they start looking for the shard from this universe.

The team find the shard soon enough but are attacked by Wolf, the Lizard's top hunter. Miles somehow creates light from the shard of the Siege Perilous which drives off the vampires, but Blood Spider sees an opportunity to save his world and steals the shard. Blood Spider goes after the Lizard King but is defeated, and the Lizard King assumes that the shard can also absorb light, allowing him to permanently put out the sun and let vampires thrive. Miles and Spider-Man save Blood Spider, and in the process Miles uses his own shard to create more light and temporarily turn a vampire human. They realise that they can create a cure if they experiment, and test a combination of ultraviolet light and the shard's light on Blood Spider, who was bitten in the fight. The cure is successful, and they create a gun that can allow them to cure people quickly. Spider-Man, Miles, and Blood Spider go to the Lizard King and his vampires and are able to cure them all, but in the aftermath are attacked by Wolf. He reveals that his real name is Wolf Spider and that he's also from another universe, hunting down the Siege Perilous shards since he wants to rule over all the dimensions. He manages to get the shard from this universe and Miles and Spider-Man are forced to escape through a portal when it opens.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• In the comics, Blood Spider is the name of a mercenary trained by Taskmaster to imitate Spider-Man's powers.
• Nick Fury says that as the shards will pull in parts of different universes with them, they could crash together and break reality. This is remarkably similar to the Incursions from Jonathan Hickman's Avengers run.
• You may have noticed that Nova is not listed among the superheroes turned into a vampire. My headcanon is that the Lizard didn't want that twerp working for him and so killed him instead.

Review: Even if it weren't for the flaming garbage pile that was last episode, this would still feel like a breath of fresh air for the series. Unlike the first Spider-Verse arc, this one feels more thought out and willing to play with the concepts more thoroughly. For a start, the premise of why they have to go to the different universes is a lot more interesting, and once we're there we seem to be less formulaic than the first one - yes, Spider-Man and Miles team up with an alternate spider, but this one briefly turns on them for selfish, albeit understandable, reasons. The twist that Wolf Spider is from another universe and also going after the shards is brilliant, as the whole episode leads us to believe that he's a vampire without explicitly saying so.

The biggest flaw with this episode is definitely pretty noticeable - it's that the shard of the Siege Perilous magically has the ability to emit light that not only drives off vampires, but can also cure them. It's handled well enough here, but I'm a little concerned that future episodes might also give their shards convenient abilities to speed up the plot. Spider-Man's also shocked at the reveal that Wolf Spider knows who he is, without considering that, y'know, maybe it's because he's an alternative version of you? It's not explicitly stated so, but if there's a dramatic unmasking later and everyone's shocked I'd like to say now that a) I called it, and b) it was incredibly obvious.

Regardless, this is a good episode and a great start to the arc. Sticking in one universe rather than trying to cram two into the episode means we don't have to rush through things, and given that we're not revisiting a universe from the first arc, I'm hopeful that this means we'll see a few fun more themes. I'm very pleased with this episode, to the point that I think I'd already call it stronger than any episode of the first Spider-Verse arc. Good job, writers.