Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Ninety-Six: Return to the Spider-Verse, Part Three

Return to the Spider-Verse, Part Three

First Aired: September 10th, 2016

Synopsis: Spider-Man and Miles land in Spider-Man Noir's world, where they find Hammerhead and his gang fighting another gang. The other gang turns out to be run by this version of the Hulk, calling himself Fixit, and the two are saved by Noir. Hammerhead takes out a gun modified by a shard of the Siege Perilous, but the spiders are able to destroy it. The shard bounces towards one of Hammerhead's thugs, however, who touches it and is transformed into Mr. Negative. Mr. Negative is able to turn Hammerhead to stone with his powers, so the spiders and Fixit leave. Noir doesn't want Fixit around, blaming him for something involving Mary Jane, but Fixit says that while he doesn't expect Noir to believe him, he had nothing to do with it. Elsewhere, Mr. Negative uses a giant spotlight to turn a group of cops to stone before being approached by Wolf Spider, who wants the shard in return for granting Mr. Negative power. Mr. Negative refuses, and so Wolf Spider leaves via a portal.

Back at the hotel they're in Noir and Fixit fight, and while Spider-Man's trying to stop it Miles is hit by one of Mr. Negative's blasts and gets turned to stone. Spider-Man demands that Fixit and Noir sort out their shit, and Fixit reveals that in the past Hammerhead's men bombed a building. As it was collapsing Mary Jane ran in to help evacuate people, and although he tried to hold it up, he couldn't do so forever and she was killed by it. Noir didn't know all the details and agrees to work with Fixit. After using a blimp to destroy Mr. Negative's spotlight they lure him to an abandoned theatre. The group trick him into blasting at shadows until his power's gone, although before it's gone completely Noir takes a blast meant for Fixit and is turned to stone. The heroes manage to get Mr. Negative's shard and Fixit uses it to send out a blast of energy through the city, not only restoring people to normal but also adding in colour to the world. Noir and Fixit agree to work together in the future, while Spider-Man and Miles open a new portal and leave.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Spider-Man comments that Wolf Spider is "...trying to gather the fragments too. I don't know why, but I'm not looking to find out." Wolf Spider explicitly said why he wants the fragments back in the first part; he wants to rule over all dimensions.
• One of the members of Hulk's gang is Rick Jones, who says to "Call me the a-bombadier!", because even though Rick hadn't been A-Bomb for about two years at this point in the comics, we're apparently never allowed to forget that awful period.
• In the comics, during the period when the Hulk reverted to being grey Joe Fixit was the alias he went by. He was also a bodyguard for a gangster in Las Vegas during this period (I believe? I haven't read a lot of Peter David's Hulk) so it's a pretty good fit for this world.
• It's a bit difficult to tell given the art style of the show, but Mr. Negative appears to be Caucasian here. In the comics, he's Chinese.
• In the comics Mr. Negative's thugs are known as the Inner Demons; here they're simply renamed to the Dragons.
• Mr. Negative's powers here are completely different to the comics, where among other things, he has a corrupting touch, but honestly, while turning people to stone is a bit out of nowhere, it works well enough for the story.

Review: I like Mr. Negative (proof that Brand New Day isn't all bad!) and I like Spider-Man Noir, so this episode works pretty well for me. I wouldn't call it outstanding - there's more than a few flaws that I'll get to soon enough - but the basic plot works well enough. Something that works particularly well is the misunderstanding between Fixit and Noir - once it's explained we see how Fixit is innocent, but it's also believable that Noir heard that Fixit was at the site of the collapsing building where Mary Jane died and leapt to conclusions. I also appreciate that the show raises the stakes by taking Miles out of the picture midway through, although it would have been more interesting if Peter had been taken out, leaving Miles to be thrust into the role of leader.

There's a few problems with the plot, unfortunately. The biggest one is that Spider-Man continually insists that Fixit isn't a monster based on his experience with the Hulk, and Noir agrees to work with Fixit at the end, all the while conveniently forgetting that Fixit is a gangster. It's possible that he's a less aggressive one, or that he's turned to crime to try and clean up the neighbourhood or something, but none of this is stated, so there's a bit of an elephant in the room that's never addressed. The shard turning out to have enough power to restore people from being turned to stone irks me given that the entire point of the heroes' plan is to drain its power - why not just say that once Spidey and Miles leave, the shard's energy dissipates and everyone's restored? Note that this is also the third power that the shards have conveniently turned out to have. I'll also point out that Wolf Spider contributes nothing to the plot beyond reminding us he's there - after a menacing first appearance he's not really living up to his potential.

Reading over that last paragraph and thinking of a few other flaws with the episode, it does feel like it's got more than a few issues, but honestly,the story still holds up well enough to work for me. Maybe it's the cool setting, maybe it's seeing Mr. Negative and Spider-Man Noir, but somehow this one still manages to pull through and work for me. I wouldn't blame you if you found these issues big enough to prevent it being enjoyable, but it's good enough for me.