Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Eleven: Halloween Moon

Halloween Moon

First Aired: October 7th, 2017

Synopsis: Spider-Man is running late for a Halloween party at Horizon when he hears screams. He runs into Man-Wolf in the park, and the Hulk appears shortly afterwards. Man-Wolf's amulet absorbs some of the Hulk's energy and the Hulk turns back into Bruce Banner. Man-Wolf runs off, and the two heroes soon find out where he is when Spider-Man gets a call from Harry Osborn, telling him not to come to the Horizon party since Man-Wolf is there. Harry vaguely recognises Man-Wolf, and vice-versa. Spider-Man shows up at the party to stop Man-Wolf, but some people that were scratched by him turn into werewolves. Banner turns back into the Hulk and they're able to hold the werewolves in a vault, but the original Man-Wolf is still missing. Harry explains that it's his lab partner, John Jameson, who developed a gem that could enhance people's wolf-like traits in the hopes of helping sick people. With this knowledge, they work out that removing the gem in Man-Wolf's necklace should transform him back.

Hulk teams up with Gwen Stacy to look for Man-Wolf while Spider-Man and Harry do the same. Harry explains to Spider-Man that he's disappointed that Peter didn't show up, since it's their holiday, and that Halloween is his one chance to be someone else. The two groups soon meet up and find Man-Wolf. Spider-Man quickly removes his gem, transforming him back into John, but it turns out Man-Wolf was able to scratch the Hulk, transforming him into a hulking werewolf. At the same time, the other werewolves break out of the vault. As the heroes flee, they deduce that the Hulk's gamma radiation is helping keep himself and the other werewolves transformed, and that if they can remove it then they'll transform back. Spider-Man's able to drain the Hulk's gamma radiation using John's gem, and the theory proves true. In the aftermath, Harry admits to Peter that the whole thing was kind of fun, albeit scary, and Spider-Man bonds with Bruce Banner.

Subplots:

• It's revealed that John Jameson was testing his gem at the behest of Norman Osborn, who is not pleased that Harry was in danger, but otherwise seems unconcerned with the danger people were put in.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When the Hulk first appears, he declares that "It's been ten minutes since I smashed something!" as he approaches Man-Wolf. Whoah there, thirsty much? 
• When Spider-Man is talking to Harry, he says that "Being the son of Norman Osborn doesn't seem so bad," which would be a fairly normal statement to make in the first few episodes of the series, but comes off really weirdly after last episode had him be captured by Norman. Surely Spidey has to realise that Norman's not an entirely good guy at this point, right?

Review: I'm trying to discern how I feel about this episode overall, and I think that the main emotion I'm feeling is indifference. I'm fine with Man-Wolf as a concept, but something's definitely lost without J. Jonah Jameson around. I'm fine with Spider-Man and Bruce Banner's brotherly bonding, but it's hard to feel like it's something that will show up all that often in future episodes. I'm fine with getting a bit of introspection into Harry Osborn's character, but it doesn't feel like it goes as deeply as it could.

The stuff with Man-Wolf transforming based on gamma radiation works well enough, I guess, and the idea that he can drain the Hulk's radiation does give a good justification for why he can defeat him. I'm less keen on him being able to turn other people into werewolves, and the reasoning behind the original purpose of the gem and how it works doesn't really work that well. It's all a bit of an awkward fit - making the gem technological rather than mystical requires all of these hoops to be leapt through to work with the plot, but if it's not technological then John can't be willingly working with Norman Osborn. I dunno, is it really worth all of this for the "dun dun dun!" reveal of John working with Norman Osborn? I'm going to say no, at this point.

I do like some of the fun parts of this episode - Harry and Peter planning on doing a two-person horse costume at the party is very cute, and when the emergency responders show up at the end of the episode, they say that they're used to weird stuff happening in Manhattan on Halloween. It's that interpretation of the Marvel Universe that I like the most - it's mostly the same as our own world, but there's magic, mad science, and mythological beings, and people have mostly adapted to it. As mentioned, Peter and Bruce's bonding works well enough, and I do like seeing Harry's frustrations. There's not a lot of substance here, but at the same time I can't say that this is an out-and-out bad episode.