Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Fifteen: The Rise of Doc Ock, Part One

The Rise of Doc Ock, Part One

First Aired: January 21st, 2018

Synopsis: Doctor Octavius gives a pop quiz to his class, to their displeasure. It's cancelled when the school is attacked by Crimson Dynamo, and Peter changes to Spider-Man to fight her. Crimson Dynamo disappears, and while Spider-Man's looking for her using an energy reader that Miles made, he detects a massive source of energy in the school's basement. Crimson Dynamo goes after it and Spider-Man's able to defeat her, before Octavius appears and reveals that the source is a regenerating ion generator he made. Crimson Dynamo is able to reboot her armour, and when she goes after the generator Octavius triggers it to explode. She flees with a spider-tracer on her armour. Spider-Man tries shutting down the generator but Octavius takes over using his mechanical arms, and is caught in an explosion when he doesn't have enough time to shut it down. Later, Peter visits Octavius in hospital, who says that the arms have fused to his nervous system. Peter gives him a talk about how it could be an opportunity to become a hero. Octavius explains that Crimson Dynamo would have gone after his generator since the rods in it could help power up her armour, and she'll probably go after his prototypes next.

Spider-Man goes to where the prototypes are stored and finds Crimson Dynamo there. She explains that she wants to use the rods to unlock more abilities of her suit so that she can help people and not be preyed upon, as she was in her home country. She manages to get one of the rods which gives her enough energy to unlock drones from her armour. Octavius then bursts in and declares himself to be The Octopus, but Crimson Dynamo escapes. Spider-Man explains that his spider-tracer isn't working for some reason, so they go back to Octavius' lab. He works out that something in the suit is interfering with the tracer, and fixes up the tracker so that they can go after Crimson Dynamo. They find her about to rob a bank, and while Octavius saves civilians Spider-Man deduces that if the suit can interfere with his tracer, the reverse might also be true. He manages to shut down Crimson Dynamo using his tracer, and she is stopped. In the aftermath Doctor Octavius gives his students two pop quizzes then talks to Peter in private. Recognising the spider-tracer, he's come to the conclusion that Peter makes equipment for Spider-Man, which Peter goes along with.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• The Crimson Dynamo appearing in this episode is Galina Nemirovsky. I don't really have much to say about her, but given how many people have piloted the armour in the comics I thought it was worth establishing.
• I mentioned in my review for this show's origin shorts that the show was laying on Peter's nerdiness a bit thick by having him constantly talk about science in an unrealistic manner. This episode blows that out of the water when Octavius says that "Even a malfunctioning time piece displays a correct chrono-reading twice daily". Drop that line in casually next time you're speaking to someone and see how they react.
• When Peter confirms that he makes Spider-Man's equipment, Octavius comments that since he doesn't need anyone to make him equipment, he's therefore the superior hero. Ever since Superior Spider-Man, the word superior has frequently been associated with Doc Ock.

Review: I've gotta say, this episode is pretty good. This arc is four parts long so we've got plenty of time to spare, but it does a good job of being a complete story in and of itself. Unless I'm spectacularly wrong, at the end of this all we're going to end up with Doctor Octopus becoming a full-blown villain, and it starts off well here - we've already got Doctor Octopus getting his arms fused to him, and him experimenting with the idea of being a superhero. I could see another show focusing on a different plot and ending the episode with him getting caught in the explosion as a cliffhanger, but we're moving forwards at a good pace here.

I'd probably say that the biggest flaw of the episode is Crimson Dynamo - the show vaguely says something about how she grew up poor and stole the armour so that she could help her family and stuff, but it's all quite brief and doesn't really add much. It's not enough to make her sympathetic, and I honestly don't think that we really need the backstory - if she just was here to steal rods without any explanation, I would have bought it. There's no parallel between her and Doctor Octopus or commentary on anything - it's just a weak backstory that doesn't add much. That being said, I did like that we saw Spider-Man fighting someone outside of his usual rogues' gallery.

So yeah, overall I'd say that this is a good episode and a good start to the arc. Doctor Octopus being teased as a hero is a cool idea, and one that makes sense in-universe, but from a meta perspective it adds a layer of tragedy to his story. He's still something of a jerk, so it's not as though his fall is going to come from nowhere, but he also hasn't immediately decided that he's going to start robbing banks and whatnot. It's done a very good job at balancing all of the different aspects that it needs to, so kudos to the team for that.