Spider-Island, Part Five
First Aired: February 11th, 2018
Synopsis: Miles and Peter escape the webbing they're trapped in and are saved from spider monsters by Harry, but as Harry gets them away on his glider the Jackal reveals that he's placed a tracer on the glider. The heroes meet up with Anya, who's overlooking Norman in a coma, and thinks that with Spider-Man's blood she can make a cure for the spider monsters that won't have any side effects. Harry reveals that he's still annoyed at Peter for secretly having been Spider-Man and accuses him of being responsible for getting him suspended from Horizon High, but when Peter reveals that Norman was actually to blame Harry assumes that Peter is lying. Spider monsters then attack them, but they're able to escape. The heroes load up the cure created by Anya and start distributing it, but quickly realise that they're doing so too slowly. Harry thinks that he can create a dispersal unit to distribute it as a gas, but they'll need to go to Osborn Academy for the equipment. To prepare for the spider monsters there, the team all get into spider-slayers to fight through the army.
Harry manages to get to a lab for the dispersal unit while the others fight off spider monsters but when he rejoins them Jackal destroys the unit then shuts down the spider-slayers. Jackal sets a bomb to destroy the building then leaves, but Spider-Man realises that they can use the bomb to disperse the cure, the same way the spider virus was initially distributed. Harry, meanwhile, insists that he can disable the bomb, and doesn't want to let it explode and destroy the building as it's everything his father has worked for. To his dismay, Spider-Man forces him away from the bomb and lets it distribute the cure, but Harry is furious. The cure spreads through the air over Manhattan and people are successfully cured. In the aftermath, Harry apologises to Norman and says that it's Spider-Man's fault, who say that it's fine as the school is no longer needed - Harry has graduated. He then takes Harry to a secret basement filled with some orange-coloured equipment.
Review: Let's start with the good - Harry's anger at Peter throughout the episode is entirely justified and understandable, but at the same time not so understandable as to make Peter the bad guy. Peter telling him that his father is responsible for getting him removed from Horizon High is a good use of clear communication which Harry simply refuses to listen to without evidence, with Peter of course doesn't have. It's only the tip of the iceberg though - Harry's insistence that he can disable the Jackal's bomb is the height of hubris, and the way that Spider-Man forces him away from it is done brilliantly. He's saved his friend's life and the city, but Harry can't see it that way, stubbornly believing that there was another solution for it all. It's executed really well.
Less well-executed in the episode is a good portion of the middle of the episode - the characters somehow don't realise until they try it that curing people one at a time is inefficient, and the spider monster attack on their laboratory is kinda forgettable. Suiting up in the spider-slayers should be a real "Fuck yeah!" moment but the fighting with spider monsters is forgettable, and it takes away from what makes a lot of these characters cool.
Still, the character drama is high, I'm fairly sure that Anya still has her spider powers, and we ultimately do get a fairly satisfying conclusion to the overall arc. Jackal gets away to scheme another day, and the setup at the end, while kind of confusing (Harry's been developing this technology all season, but now Norman has replicas of it that look more advanced?) is a good lead-in to the next few episodes, and the first season's finale. Spider-Island ultimately wasn't as enjoyable as the comic book arc of the same name, but I've definitely seen worse arcs across the various cartoons I've been watching all of these years.
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