Spider-Island, Part Two
First Aired: February 4th, 2018
Synopsis: Manhattan is now full of civilians with spider powers, and among them, Spider-Gwen is the most popular. The villain Crossbones attempts to steal a mysterious canister, and Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen team up to fight him. They're able to stop him, but Gwen identifies that the canister is made of vibranium and therefore must be important. They head to Horizon to investigate it, and find a micro-encrypted key inside it. Black Widow then appears and says that it's too important for them to have, moments before HYDRA agents burst in to try and steal it. Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, Black Widow, and the newly empowered Anya work together to stop HYDRA, and in the middle of the fight it's revealed that Black Widow has also gotten spider powers. After the HYDRA agents are defeated, their leader reeals that the key unlocks a vault full of vibranium which Crossbones was planning on stealing.
Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, and Black Widow head to the vibranium vault where they find more HYDRA agents and Crossbones, who now has spider powers of his own. On Black Widow's advice they surrender, and Crossbones gets into the vault. Along with the vibranium he takes the captured heroes to his boss, Arnim Zola, and once they're there they break out since they can now stop both Crossbones and his boss. As they fight they're almost defeated but Manhattanites with spider powers show up and assist them. Some of the HYDRA agents flee, but Spider-Man's able to stop Crossbones before he escapes. In the aftermath Black Widow is impressed by Spider-Man, and the civilians thank Spider-Man for being such a good role model. Spider-Man gives Spider-Gwen his approval, but later, she starts getting pains and her shadow starts transforming ominously...
Review: Man, what a fun episode. This one feels like a nice bit of fluff, exploiting the concept of Spider-Island. What happens when people get spider powers? Villains use them for more crimes! Heroes use them to improve themselves! Civilians get the chance to be heroes! It's all very enjoyable and fairly light-hearted, and feels well-paced in the overall arc. We've got room for an episode or two that doesn't push along the main plot too much, and this one does a good job of just having fun with the concept.
Black Widow's never been my favourite character, but she's easily a highlight of this episode, to the point that this almost feels like an episode of her hypothetical cartoon. She's badass and has a great design, and is totally in control of the situation the whole time. Plus she's got short hair, a look which has always been my favourite for her. Speaking of aesthetics, Arnim Zola also looks fantastic - he looks more sci-fi here, with his chest plate being an almost Matrix-esque green display rather than the cartoonish face normally shown there (looking at you, Ultimate Spider-Man).
While the episode doesn't advance much in terms of the Spider-Island arc overall, minus the last few moments with Gwen, I think that it's made the right decision not to. For all that the characters in-universe know, this is the new status quo, so it feels right to play around with it here. The vibranium theft plot is simple but effective, and having Spider-Man team up with an Avenger is something that you don't see every episode. Plus, Black Widow getting Spidey's powers? Is that a great concept or what?
No comments:
Post a Comment