Bring on the Bad Guys, Part Two
First Aired: July 30th, 2018
Synopsis: Anya and Gwen are making a storm-impact pattern machine for Horizon's open house, which is in a day. The intent is to identify dangerous weather in advance, but as they test it they discover that it can detect the powers of the Spot, a villain that Spider-Man is fighting nearby. As Spider-Man gets trapped in one of Spot's portals they realise that their device should be able to interfere with his powers, but they need him to open more portals. Anya changes into a costume as Spider-Girl, revealing that she never lost her powers from the Spider-Island incident, and is able to defeat Spot and then save Spider-Man. A weakened Spider-Man falls unconscious and forgets about Spider-Girl, and after he's gone Anya tells Gwen that she'd rather not be a superhero given that there are enough of them around. Later, Spider-Man is web-swinging when everything around him goes black before the city fills up with fog. Spider-Man is attacked by a tank and some HYDRA agents, but Captain America appears and tells him to debrief with Black Widow.
As Spider-Man interacts with Black Widow he discovers that she's a hologram, before he finds himself in a funhouse with three doors. The creator of the funhouse, Mysterio, tells Spider-Man to go through his doors, and Spider-Man does, fighting a panther and some illusions of them. He then fights a robot duplicate of himself that comes out of a mirror, before confronting Mysterio. Mysterio electrocutes Spider-Man through the floor, seemingly defeating him, but it turns out that Spider-Man reprogrammed the robot to take his place, and that's what was defeated. Spider-Man then attacks Mysterio and defeats him. With Mysterio's illusions dispelled Spider-Man realises that there's still time for him to finish his entry for Horizon's open house, but as he swings away Captain America stares at him ominously.
Review: Just like last episode, this one has two sets of villains for Spider-Man to face, but this time the split between the two of them is a lot more stark. If this show was an anime I'd assume that the first half of the episode, with Spider-Girl defeating Spot, was a single manga chapter getting adapted and slotted into the episode, but since it isn't, it feels a bit out of place. Don't get me wrong, seeing Anya fight a villain is great, and I love that she and Gwen are clearly the protagonists of that part, with Spider-Man as a side character, but it feels fairly disconnected from the second half of the episode.
The second half of the episode is, unfortunately, far weaker than the first half. While Mysterio's got a great design in this show, his traps don't feel very exciting or clever - what's the point of making Spider-Man think that he's fighting HYDRA? Why does he think a panther is somehow going to be enough to defeat Spider-Man? It very much feels like we're killing time as Spider-Man fights his way through things, which would be fine if the obstacles were interesting in any way. The more I think about it, Mysterio's a bit like Kraven the Hunter - when he's written well he can provide some really interesting fights and obstacles for Spider-Man to overcome, but a lot of the time what he ends up doing is very simple and bland.
Overall I'd say that this episode is a bit more on the disappointing side of things, which is a pity because the stuff around Anya is really entertaining and fun. I'm glad that it isn't stretched out too much - my comment from last episode about cramming multiple villains into one episode to emphasise how enticing the bounty is still stands - but after such a great start to the episode it makes the Mysterio stuff feel even weaker than it already is. Still, I guess I'd take a strong start like that over the entire episode being crap, so I can't complain too much.
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