Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Ninety-One: The Symbiote Saga, Part One

The Symbiote Saga, Part One

First Aired: July 3rd, 2016

Synopsis: Peter talks to Mary Jane over the phone, who says that she misses him and is worried about Harry, still injured and in a stasis tube since becoming Anti-Venom. After they're done talking Spider-Man finds that Flash has fully recovered, and as Venom, he and Spider-Man head into the city. They're attacked by Doctor Michael Morbius in a jetpack, who manages to extract some of the symbiote before fleeing. He takes it back to a lab, where Doctor Octopus is being forced to work for him and Crossbones. While they do science with the symbiote, Flash instinctively finds the symbiote trying to lead him to the lab. Spider-Man and Flash follow the symbiote's instincts and arrive just as Doctor Octopus is about to be terminated by HYDRA for serving their purposes. In response Ock injects Morbius with a serum, and Morbius in turn throws the mix of symbiotes they've been working on at Ock. Morbius turns into a large bat monster and briefly fights Flash before leaving.

Doctor Octopus, meanwhile, has become a symbiote monster, causing Flash's own symbiote to retreat into his body in fear. Spider-Man's able to remove the symbiote using a convenient sonic gadget nearby, which also removes Ock's nanobot upgrades in the process. The symbiote isn't out, however, and it forms into a humanoid figure calling itself Carnage. Spider-Man fights it while Flash tries to get his own symbiote to come out, and as the fight leads outside, Flash declares he'll help with or without his symbiote. He jumps out of the window which causes his symbiote to re-emerge. He holds off Carnage while Spider-Man gets the sonic gadget, realising that he'll need a different frequency for Carnage without a host, but Carnage just laughs as Spider-Man activates it. He explodes for some reason and Spider-Man and Flash are initially triumphant, before realising that Carnage is falling down to street level in tiny pieces, allowing it to infect countless civilians.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• While on the phone to Peter, Mary Jane mentions that she's still going to Midtown High, and that she thinks that Peter's at a special school for science. To be honest, I'm not super big on this explanation - it means that Peter's ditching his education to be a superhero, and it also doesn't explain what Flash's excuse for no longer attending school is. I also liked the implication that Peter was old enough to have graduated school, not to mention that this is the sort of explanation that should have been given when Peter first started attending SHIELD Academy.
• When Morbius transforms, Flash asks him, "What are you? Some sort of...living vampire bat person?" In Morbius' early appearances he was often given the title 'The Living Vampire' since the Comics Code Authority forbade the use of vampires.
• This isn't the first time that Doctor Octopus has merged with the Carnage symbiote - he also did so in the 2000 Spider-Man game.
• At one point, Carnage declares that "Carnage is chaos!" It might be an accidental reference, but when Carnage was first being created in the comics, Chaos was one of the proposed names for him.

Review: In spite of the fact that this episode is mostly fighting and fighting and fighting some more, I don't think it's that bad. Carnage - presumably the main threat of this Symbiote Saga we find ourselves in - is set up quite well, and the lead-in to the next episode is a genuinely good cliffhanger (though not without its flaws, see below). Morbius is very hastily injected with a serum, presumably so that he can properly become the living vampire we all know and have assorted feelings for, but he's been established before and it beats dragging out his origin, so I'll buy it. Spider-Man even beats both Monster-Ock and Carnage using a logical method, a rarity in this series.

There's a few flaws here, though, of varying degrees of egregiousness. I mentioned back in HYDRA Attacks, Part One that it was baffling that Doctor Octopus becomes bald when he's infected by nanobots - even more baffling, when they're removed from him here, it somehow causes him to gain hair again, and at its previous length, too! Carnage's voice is shrill and annoying, and it's a bit weird that Peter doesn't think about how he was also briefly Carnage in the past. Also, while I said that the cliffhanger is good, I'm not too keen to see how it'll actually turn out in execution. A city full of symbiote-infested people takes away from what makes symbiotes cool, in a sort of diminishing returns way.

Honestly, I'm surprised at how decent this episode is. I keep trying to think of things about it that irked me, and it feels like there should be more, but nothing's coming up when I go over it in my mind. Maybe it's just the fact that this is the first time since - what, Spider-Man: The Animated Series? - that we've gotten a decent Carnage? Its design is great here, and it constantly has these tiny black tendrils out, waving about and making it look more jumpy and reactive than the other characters. To be honest, I suspect that the Symbiote Saga isn't going to really be my thing, but as far as opening episodes go, this one's pretty good.