The Day Without Spider-Man
First Aired: September 8th, 2019
Synopsis: The mysterious blood gem, a recently-discovered gem that emits strange energy, arrives at Horizon for Gwen and Peter to study, but Peter is nowhere to be found. Miles and Spider-Girl, out fighting crime, also haven't heard from Spider-Man. Scorpion attacks Gwen for the blood gem, and she slips her phone into its case before he takes it. Miles and Spider-Girl head off after Scorpion but can't find him, while Gwen tracks her phone's signal and discovers that Scorpion is working for the Tinkerer. Tinkerer is planning to use the energy of the blood gem to power up Scorpion, but Gwen gets hit by it instead and somehow gets her Spider-Gwen powers back. She escapes from Scorpion and Tinkerer and meets Miles and Spider-Girl, then the three of them work together to stop Scorpion. They then return to fight Tinkerer, but unbeknownst to them Scorpion frees himself once they've left and he goes after them.
Once Scorpion joins in the fight he gets hit by the energy of the blood gem, turning him gigantic. As they continue fighting him Gwen tries altering the gun containing the blood gem so that she can turn him back, but is unable to do so. She does note, however, that the blood gem glows when she touches it, and realises that if she destroys it then it'll remove her and Scorpion's powers since it's acting as a battery. She makes the sacrifice, but as the blood gem explodes she's hit with energy, letting her keep her powers. Gwen then comes up with a new name for herself, Ghost Spider. In the aftermath, with Spider-Man still not having shown up, Gwen, Miles, and Anya head off to stop some bank robbers.
Review: The idea behind this episode is a solid one: take Spider-Man out of the episode so that we can wonder what Doctor Octopus is getting up to in his body, and focus on his supporting cast. It does technically do that, and it tries to pit them against some more light-hearted villains and give Gwen a bit of a character spotlight, but unfortunately very little works. I like that the three spider-powered heroes are all working together, and Gwen's joy at getting her powers back is delightful. The Tinkerer, in spite of not being my preferred interpretation, does have some amusing moments, but...that's about it.
First problem: what the hell else did you think a giant Scorpion would remind me of, you maniacs? Secondly, what the hell is the blood gem? Where does it come from, and how is turning Scorpion gigantic supposed to be appealing? How's he supposed to live his life at that size? I can live with the convenience of Gwen keeping her powers, but that doesn't mean that it's not incredibly convenient. The episode also tries giving Gwen all of this character focus on how she's missed her powers and has missed out on hanging out with the others, but while it's an admirable effort, it feels like it's come out of nowhere.
Speaking of people with powers, what the hell happened to Anya not wanting to be a superhero? Last episode she implied that she was only helping Miles because it was an emergency, now she's suddenly training with Miles and is wondering why Spider-Man isn't around to help? Does this mean that Peter somehow found out that she's Spider-Girl and offered to train her before Ock took over his mind, or did Ock agree and then disappeared before this episode started? It's not really explained well, and the reason for this is that the episode simply isn't executed that well. It's a nice idea, but the episode really drops the ball.
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