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

Graduation Day, Part Two

First Aired: January 7th, 2017

Synopsis: Doctor Octopus locks Aunt May and Spider-Man in the room they're in, but not before revealing that the hard light shell surrounding the superheroes is going to shrink in size. Once he's left Aunt May reveals that as a graduation present she brought Peter his original web shooters. He puts them on and rappels out the window to a SHIELD armoury, where he grabs a jet pack. Spider-Man flies towards Oscorp, having realised that Norman Osborn wasn't at the graduation ceremony. Vulture appears and damages the jetpack, but Spider-Man gets away regardless. He meets with Norman who says that he can restore Spider-Man's powers, and reveals that he's gotten his memory as the Goblin back, but has kept Spider-Man's identity to himself out of respect. They manage to find a secret laboratory of Doctor Octopus' where the original radioactive spider is and it bites Spider-Man. Doctor Octopus then appears with his Sinister Six, wanting revenge on Norman, but to Spider-Man's dismay he discovers that the spider hasn't restored his powers.

Spider-Man and Norman flee, and they discover that after years of being Spider-Man Peter's gotten resistant to the spider venom. They do some science on Peter and inject him with a serum moments before Rhino brings the building down on them. Spider-Man emerges from the rubble with his powers, however, and manages to get the depowering serum from Doctor Octopus. He hits Vulture, Lizard, and Rhino with it, and then takes out Scorpion before the human Rhino and Vulture take out Kraven for him. With his back to the wall Doctor Octopus injects himself with a serum, transforming himself into a giant octopus, but Spider-Man hits him with the last of the serum, surprising Ock with his altruism. Doctor Octopus insists that even he can't destroy the hard-light barrier containing the heroes, but Spider-Man says that he'll work out a way. He returns to the Triskelion and begins doing so, and Doctor Octopus appears and assists him. In the aftermath Doctor Octopus is arrested but Spider-Man says that he might be able to do good in the future. A new class of SHIELD Academy begins, with Agent Venom and Scarlet Spider as instructors. Trapster attacks Spider-Man when he goes to pick up a cake for Aunt May, but Spider-Man stops him easily. As Peter and Aunt May reminisce over Uncle Ben, information comes through about a bank robbery, and Peter happily goes to stop it.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Aunt May tells Peter that his original web-shooters are much better than his fancy SHIELD ones, before going on a lengthy spiel about how he created them and stuff. It's a bit unnecessary; of course his original ones are better! They're not filled with gimmicky SHIELD stuff!
• While Peter and Norman analyse Peter's blood to work out why he hasn't gotten his powers back, Norman identifies something unique about Peter's blood that is also apparently responsible for him being Spider-Man. It's a weird bit - it's like they're trying to justify why nobody else can get Spider-Man powers if they're bitten by a radioactive spider, but it doesn't really feel necessary.
• Towards the end of the episode, when the hard-light barrier is shrinking and everyone's at risk of being crushed to death, we can see Ant-Man just standing there at full size. Shrink the fuck down, Scott, and make a little more room!

Review: Just like the first part of this two-parter, this episode is so close to being great, but it misses just short of the mark. I love that the final confrontation of the series is down to Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, and that Spider-Man calls out Ock on wanting respect but only ever being selfish. I love that this gets through to Doctor Octopus, and that he might be starting to change. I love that Norman Osborn is proven to be a good guy through and through, and that he's keeping Peter's identity to himself. I love that Spider-Man is attacked by Trapster while getting a cake, a call-back to the first episode, showing how much Spidey's grown over the course of the series. There's a lot here which genuinely works well.

But there are, of course, flaws with the episode. I can forgive the radioactive spider existing and it restoring Spidey's powers after a quick fake-out - we've only got so much time here, and if it took too long we'd have to rush things even more. But the Sinister Six are defeated far too easily, with Doctor Octopus' magic depowering gun also working perfectly on the transformed members. Scorpion and Kraven basically get taken out immediately, and it's clear that the writers suddenly realised that the team doesn't really need to exist since the real meat of conflict is between Ock and Spidey. Why not have only Doctor Octopus escape from jail at the end of the previous episode? It'd help things flow better, and Vulture and Rhino's changes back to being human could be shown after the graduation ceremony - nobody would be shaking their heads at how this happened offscreen.

The biggest issue, almost literally, is that Doctor Octopus suddenly turns into a giant octopus monster. It's stupid and looks ugly, and is defeated almost immediately. I get it, we need Spider-Man to do something to show Doctor Octopus the benefits of altruism, but it comes out of nowhere so fast, and is once again defeated by the magic depowering gun, and so it just feels really sloppy in the end. I kind of wish they'd taken it out and just kept Spider-Man giving a big speech to Ock explaining why the latter sucks. Something I will give this episode, though: it's far and above the best of the season finales, achieving everything that it sets out to do in spite of some clunkiness at times. It's a good cap to the whole series, too, and while I hesitate to call this version of Spidey the Ultimate Spider-Man, he's definitely a hell of a lot better than when he first appeared.

Next time: with this very, very lengthy series finished, I'll be posting a retrospect of the entire series, giving my overall thoughts on it, discussing what I liked and what I didn't, and listing the best and worst episodes. I hope to see you there.