Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Thirty-Eight: The Living Brain

The Living Brain

First Aired: August 13th, 2018

Synopsis: Inside the robotic Living Brain, Doctor Octopus reveals that his plan this entire time was to zap Spider-Man with energy from a device he once designed for Norman Osborn. Spider-Man escapes the Living Brain and gets outside, but collapses as police arrive. The Living Brain powers down and is taken to the evidence locker while Spider-Man is arrested and urged to unmask by police chief Watanabe. Before he can do so the facility goes into lockdown and Doctor Octopus announces over the interface that he's going to blow it up with a bomb, forcing Spider-Man to confront him. While Watanabe undoes Spider-Man's handcuffs and lets him go after Doctor Octopus, Miles escapes the battle scene at Oscorp and tries breaking into the police facility to help Spider-Man.

Spider-Man heads through the holding cells on his way to Ock, and is attacked by Electro, who he manages to get back into her cell, and Beetle, who proves to be a tougher fight. Miles and Anya, as Spider-Girl, manage to get in and take care of Beetle while Spider-Man goes after Octopus. He finds the bomb but is ambushed by the Living Brain, who reveals that he's going to download his brain into Spider-Man, now that the villains sent after Spider-Man have weakened his defences. Spider-Man fights Ock back while the others escape. Moments before the bomb goes off, Spider-Man and the Living Brain burst out of the facility and Spider-Man throws the bomb into the air, saving everyone. The Living Brain is defeated and everyone cheers on Spider-Man...who then swings away and laughs that none of them have realised that he, Otto Octavius, is now in control of Spider-Man's body. Back in the Living Brain, Peter wonders what's going on.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Beetle tries grabbing some of his equipment from the evidence locker only to find some of Jack O' Lantern's weapons instead, which he's frustrated by. Spider-Man then comments, "You haven't met Jack O' Lantern? He's the worst!", so it's nice to see that I'm not the only person who found him to be pretty bad.
• While Spider-Man and Watanabe are making their way to the Living Brain she tells him that whenever she's talked to witnesses about him, "Everyone always says that whenever things are at their worst, Spider-Man rises up!" I get that it's supposed to be a cool, uplifting moment, but all I can honestly do is raise an eyebrow and ask, "Really?"

Review: Confirming my suspicions for the last few episodes, this episode puts Doctor Octopus' brain within Spider-Man's body, thus starting what will no doubt be some form of adaptation of the Superior Spider-Man arc from the comics. In spite of controversy at the time it came out (which I mostly saw from people who thought that Peter Parker was really dead and gone, for some reason) I didn't mind Superior Spider-Man too much, and thought it was a fun enough experiment. The reason I bring all this up is to state that I don't actually mind the concept, but I don't think that it really works all that well here.

Why not? For one thing, I think that we need Peter to be an older, more established hero. For another, in the original comics Doctor Octopus was dying, so there was a lot more build-up towards the event and his plan felt more justified. I also know that Dan Slott has some sort of creative capacity on this show, and to be honest, it's hard to feel like he didn't go, "Hey, you know what you should do? Adapt all of my stories, because they're great!" There are plenty of classic Spider-Man stories that haven't received adaptations yet, and it's hard to feel that Superior Spider-Man has earned a place above them.

Even ignoring the direction of the show going forwards, this episode isn't that great. Spider-Man's fights against Electro and Beetle feel pretty bland, and while I appreciate Anya joining in the fight, I'm not really sure why the plot demanded she be here. Spider-Man getting arrested by the police feels very inorganic, with him conveniently collapsing right in front of them, the Living Brain deciding to power down rather than fight them and then take over Spider-Man, and all of them getting locked up in the same building. I'm not that impressed, sadly.