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

Return to the Spider-Verse, Part Four

First Aired: September 17th, 2016

Synopsis: Spider-Man and Miles Morales arrive in Miles' universe and immediately see Spider-Woman being chased by the police. They go after her and she reveals that she knows their identities, and that she's Gwen Stacy. The three of them team up to stop some robots that the police throw at them before going into the sewers and making their way to Gwen's hideout. Gwen says that she knew her world's Peter Parker and deduced Miles' identity through investigation. After Miles disappeared she started using technology to imitate spider-powers. In her lair she reveals that she works with her version of Aunt May, who's able to trace a shard of the Siege Perilous to the police station where Gwen's father works. Gwen goes to him in her civilian identity and gains access to the security system, letting Spider-Man and Miles sneak in and get the shard. Moments after they do so Wolf Spider appears, holding Miles' mother hostage. They free her and manage to get his own shards from him, completing the Siege Perilous, then escape alongside Gwen, who has shown up as Spider-Woman.

The team regroup at Miles' place, but as Peter is saying goodbye to him Wolf Spider shows up. He reveals himself to be Peter Parker from an alternate universe and manages to defeat the team, then leaves with the Siege Perilous. They go after him and find him in an underwater lair, where he's opened portals to different universes and is draining the life forces of Spider-Men. This causes him to bulk up, and as the team fight him Gwen and Miles are defeated. Peter allows his life force to be drained, which sends him to some sort of plane where all the alternate spiders are. Spider-Man tells them that he has a plan and things are never hopeless before returning to where he was. It suddenly turns out that because Wolf Spider is evil and all of the other Spider-Men are good, their life forces are poisonous to him, and he's defeated. In the aftermath Captain Stacy meets them and reveals that while investigating the attack at Miles' place, Miles' mother spoke to him, revealed Gwen's identity to him, and he's accepted it. As Peter prepares to return home Miles and his mum say that they want to come with him, so they do. In his own universe, Peter has a gun pulled on him by Nick Fury, who doesn't recognise him, before it's revealed to be a prank.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• There's some incredibly clunky dialogue in this episode - on Wolf Spider breaking into Miles' place Spider-Man talks, starting with "I don't care who you think you are..." which isn't a figure of speech - it's "I don't know who you think you are". Wolf Spider then replies to this with, "Oh, I think you care very much who I am, actually!" which doesn't really work as a response to this. They very much want an excuse to reveal that Wolf Spider is alternate Peter Parker, but it's executed horribly.
• Oh hey, you know how Spider-Man says that he's got a plan when he's in the magical spider plane of life draining and speeches? After Wolf Spider is defeated Spider-Man Noir asks him how he knew that it would work, and he replies that, "I didn't." Genius writing.
• Spider-Man tells alternate Aunt May at the end that "Trips through the wormhole take no time whatsoever," even though each episode opens with him and Miles travelling through the portal and they have a bit of time to talk before arriving in the next universe.

Review: How appropriate - the first Spider-Verse arc ended pretty badly, and this one does too. Wolf Spider first appeared as this mysterious figure, who in a great twist wasn't from the universe he was in. The next few episodes took away from him a bit as he didn't really do much, and now that he's here to be the main villain for the finale, it's revealed that there's really not a lot to him. So much about him is written badly - it's played as a surprise that he's got shards of his own, even though he explicitly said in the first episode that he was going after them himself. It's also played as a surprise that he's an alternate Peter Parker, and while it may be obvious to the audience, none of the characters consider once that, "Maybe there's a Peter out there who isn't a nice guy?"

It's a pity, too, because before he enters the picture the episode's not bad. Spider-Gwen is an enjoyable character, and her interactions with Peter and Miles are fun to watch. It's neat watching them work together to break into the police station, and the dilemma and guilt she feels over her father not liking her alter ego is played well. Wolf Spider fucks everything up though - with the completed Siege Perilous, he leaves, and Spider-Gwen questions why he left them alive. The heroes all deduce that it's a trap, and go after him anyway, and it turns out that his trap is to...drain their life force? Which he could have done with them all defeated anyway? The show needs him to defeat them but can't think of why he doesn't finish the job, and the resulting explanation is as nonsensical as the aforementioned "I don't care who you think you are" dialogue above.

In general Wolf Spider is just a mess - he's cartoonishly evil, declaring how he defeated his own Miles Morales and all heroes that opposed him. The way that he's defeated, with the inherent heroism of the alternative Spider-Men somehow poisoning him (?) which means that he shatters into pieces (?) is fucking abysmal and a textbook example of a deus ex machina. For bonus points, Spider-Man didn't even know that this would happen, yet he submitted to him anyway! I'm going to finish off this post by saying that this show has had a lot of bad episodes, particularly in the first season. But with how bad Wolf Spider ends up being as a villain, and how lazily and nonsensically he ends up being defeated, it honestly might be enough to earn this episode a spot in the top ten worst episodes list when I do my after watching post. How the hell did people get paid for writing this?