Marvel's Spider-Man Episode One: Horizon High, Part One

Horizon High, Part One

First Aired: August 19th, 2017

Synopsis: Some bank robbers are trying to steal vibranium, and Spider-Man prepares to stop them. He starts to doubt himself before remembering what Uncle Ben said about great responsibility coming with great responsibility, and goes after the robbers. He's able to stop their getaway car but is attacked by the Vulture, the leader of the group. Vulture manages to get away when Spider-Man has to save some cops from raining glass shards. Shortly afterwards, Peter Parker and Harry Osborn meet up before school, and Harry says that Peter should apply for Horizon High, which he attends. There's an opening coming up and Max Modell, its head, is showing up at Midtown High to do a speech and scout students. Peter then heads to school for the speech, and Max introduces his students Anya Corazon and Miles Morales as examples of what Horizon High is looking for. Behind the stage, Spencer Smythe tricks Harry into investigating a reactor which Anya's about to show and takes a photo of him, before sabotaging it himself. When the reactor, which can create vibranium, is wheeled out, Spencer's meddling causes it to go haywire and threaten the students.

Everyone leaves, giving Peter the opportunity to stop the reactor. Changing to Peter, he finds that there are fires raging as a result of the reactor, and uses a formula of Max's to start the sprinklers and put out the fire. Max is impressed and offers Peter a place at the school, to Alistair Smythe's anger, but Spencer reveals the photo of Harry he took and claims that Harry will have to be suspended for tinkering. Max reluctantly agrees, but is suspicious. The Vulture then bursts in and grabs Max, who he used to work for, and Peter goes after him as Spider-Man. He manages to save Max, but Vulture goes back to the school to get the vibranium from the reactor, which he needs for his suit. He also turns out to be working with Spencer Smythe, but Spider-Man arrives and defeats Vulture. The next day, Peter is walking to school - Horizon High - with Aunt May, who assures him that he can afford to go there. Although he's suspended, Harry meets up with Peter to help encourage him, and reassures him that he'll fit in fine. Harry mentions that he's suspicious of Spider-Man showing up during the presentation the previous day, before Peter heads off to his first day, where he's greeted by Max Modell.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Anya (or Aña) Corazon is - you guessed it - from the comics. She became the hero Araña, before later changing her name to Spider-Girl, and I'll be amazed if the same doesn't happen here. She doesn't show up much but I like when she does; I've read her early adventures as Araña and they were pretty solid.

Review: Pretty good opening to the series, overall. The entire episode revolves around Peter and what he's going to do - both in his career as Spider-Man, and in his personal life. His reluctance to stop the bank robbers at the start of the episode parallels his reluctance to enter Horizon High neatly, in spite of the fact that it's clearly a good fit for him and what he should be doing. His experiences as Spider-Man also allow him to realise that he's going to be fine at school - he can make mistakes, but things will work out. It's a neat message.

I'm also quite pleased by how low-key the episode is - it feels like the majority of the episode is Peter in his civilian clothes, talking to people and establishing a supporting cast. The vibranium reactor is a nice science problem that is tailor-made for someone like Peter to solve, and it's also nice that while it's technically caused by a villainous figure, it's overall for petty reasons and not some grand scheme. The Vulture fights are fairly brief and don't overstay their welcome, and so we definitely get a good feel that we're starting out simply before we build our way up to bigger events and characters. I like it a lot - I'm almost disappointed that Vulture is defeated at the end, although him getting away would probably be a bit too much of a downer.

If I had to choose some flaws, I'd say that it maybe introduces a few too many characters - I get that Anya and Miles are being set up for future appearances, but I could have handled them not appearing for another episode or two. (Miles in particular; I don't think he really does anything in this episode). At Midtown High we're also introduced to Liz Allen (channelling Asuka Langley Soryu) and Randy Robertson - are they just going to drop out of the series now that Peter's going to Horizon, or are they going to be contrived into the series? Still, I'll probably be grateful for all of these appearances later, so yeah, I'd say that overall this one works pretty well.