Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Four: A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life

First Aired: September 2nd, 2017

Synopsis: Peter invents some tracers as part of an assignment for Otto Octavius' class before starting to clean up for Max Modell, but Black Cat breaks in. She steals a canister containing black liquid, and escapes Peter when he changes to Spider-Man, but not before he gets his tracer on her. When Max finds out about the missing canister he says that it's very important, and reminds Peter that he's got interviews regarding Harry Osborn's character later that day. He's also got a study group with Miles and Anya later that day. Peter heads off as Spider-Man to stop Black Cat, but finds that his tracer isn't as effective as it should be. She escapes him again, claiming that she's causing Spider-Man bad luck, which he doesn't believe in. Back at Horizon, Peter meets Gwen's uncle Raymond Warren, who has an interview with Max. Raymond doesn't have much to say about Harry, but does ask for a job at Horizon, and is refused when it's revealed that there are rumours about him stealing a colleague's work. Peter manages to get his tracer working again and tries chasing after Black Cat at a comic book shop, but once again she gets away.

The next thing Peter does is meet with Harry Osborn for lunch, but after Harry helps fix up some issues with Peter's tracer Peter leaves in a rush, causing Harry to feel neglected. The next place Black Cat goes to is the museum, where she again escapes from Spider-Man using her bad luck powers. Peter heads to his study group with Miles and Anya, only to quickly realise yet another issue with his tracer. He rushes off and finds Black Cat stealing a car. Using the logic that two negatives equal a positive, Spider-Man tries causing Black Cat bad luck, doing things like making her drive under a ladder and breaking a side mirror of the car. The car crashes, and she's astonished that Spider-Man defeated her. She's taken away by the police, and Peter returns to class, confident that his tracer is working...only to be given a failure, since he missed the class. Anya and Miles are disappointed in him, and he returns the canister to Max's office once everything's done.

Subplots:

• When Raymond Warren is refused a job, he does something with a ring he's wearing, and is eager to shake Max Modell's hand. He doesn't get the opportunity, but on the way out of Horizon an eager student high-fives him, and then later shows up at the infirmary with a complaint that his hand is weirdly itchy.
• Spider-Man notes the weird list of items that Black Cat's stolen, and questions whether it's for her or whether she's working for someone else. She refuses to give him an answer.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• The black liquid in the container is referred to as V-252. Hmm, what could 252 be a reference to...?
• One of Peter's teachers is named Mr. Slott, presumably after the notable Spider-Man writer of the same name, who created Horizon Labs and Max Modell, among other things
• Black Cat steals a comic book at the comic book shop, an old 50's-style monster comic called Storied Stories. Its cover promises Bip Bop Boom, presumably a reference to Fin Fang Foom.
• The coffee shop where Harry and Peter meet is called Q's Cup o Joe, presumably a reference to Joe Quesada.
• Whenever Black Cat activates her bad luck powers in the episode, her eyes flash and briefly become more cat-like. It's a neat effect, although it's apparently happening in-universe too, based on some comments of Spidey's, which is a little odd.
  

Review: I get what this episode is going for, showing how Peter's Spider-Man duties keep interrupting his life, but I don't think that the execution is the best. For one thing, it's repetitive - iron out a bug in the tracer while trying to maintain responsibilities, go after Black Cat, she escapes, rinse and repeat. For another thing, it's honestly kind of cringey to watch Peter repeatedly rush off and neglect everything around him. I get that he needs his tracer for Otto's class and he wants to prioritise that, but for the V-252, he could tell Max that there was a break-in. The school has to have some sort of cameras, surely?

The show also can't make up its mind regarding Black Cat's powers. Spider-Man spends the entire episode denying that there's such a thing as bad luck, but then at the end when he tries to cause Black Cat's own bad luck (using some very dubious logic), it somehow works and makes her unlucky? But he then states logical explanations for everything that's happened? If she can really cause bad luck and Peter can't believe it, that's fine, but the show then needs a smarter, more consistent way for her to be defeated - something where she's caught in the radius of Spidey's bad luck, per se, for instance.

Still, in spite of these flaws, I will say that I did enjoy Black Cat - she's laid-back, fun, and flirty with Spider-Man, which are all things that I like to see in her. The V-252 is obviously going to be relevant before long, and the subplot with Raymond Warren is another neat thread being woven into things. (Given that the student affected by his ring is called Alexei, I can guess where that might be going). Although this episode isn't fantastic overall, it does get a lot of little bits right and sets up future threads quite well, which is always appreciated.