Marvel's Spider-Man Episode Fifty: Goblin War, Part Three

Goblin War, Part Three

First Aired: November 24th, 2019

Synopsis: Spider-Girl and Ghost Spider fight Electro and some goblins using her technology before Spider-Man shows up to help them. They escape the subway tunnel they're in when Crossbones, also a member of the Goblin Nation, shows up and blows it up. Spider-Man then takes the others and Miles to the lair that Doctor Octopus works out of. Harry is also there, and he explains that Vulture will now know of the mech he built, which has three keys needed to activate it. Spider-Girl and Miles go for one of the keys but are attacked by Electro, while Ghost Spider goes for another and is attacked by the Wake Riders. Harry and Spider-Man, meanwhile, are attacked by Silvermane and his cyber-goblins when they go for their part. At the same time, Anna Maria comes in to help Doctor Octopus discover why the spider-bots can't see the goblins.

 

Ghost Spider defeats the Wake Riders and discovers that her key is missing, already taken by Vulture, then goes to help Spider-Girl and Miles, whose key has also already been taken. Anna Maria discovers a virus in the spider-bots which stops them from seeing goblins, then fixes it and defeats Silvermane for Spider-Man and Harry. They find that their key is also missing, so race to Oscorp to stop Vulture from activating the mech. Spider-Girl, Miles, and Ghost Spider work together to save civilians as Crossbones shows up and clashes with Electro, before defeating the villains for good. Spider-Man and Harry get inside Oscorp and find that Vulture hasn't activated the mech yet, but he then appears and reveals the he didn't know where in the building it was. He traps them in foam then activates the mech, revealing that it's actually his design and Norman stole it from him, then blows up the Oscorp building, leaving Spider-Man and Harry trapped as it collapses.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Throughout the series, the show has carefully avoided calling Miles by a superhero name - in the comics he shares the name Spider-Man with Peter, which is forbidden here for some reason. In this episode, Crossbones makes a quip about how only a spy could stop him, moments before Miles stops him, leading to him making a joke about how he can now be called "Spy-D", a pretty middling pun. He later gets referred to as Spy-D by Anya, implying that it might become his new superhero name here. It's...fine?

Review: The purpose of this episode is to set up the climax of this arc (and thus season) - we've established who the villains are, now we need to give them an end goal that would allow them to claim victory reasonably. This episode, then, needs to put our heroes in a place where they can theoretically stop the villains, but of course can't actually, because you can't just stick a giant stonkin' mech in Oscorp and then expect it to not get used in the arc. It's very formulaic, down to the keys for the mech conveniently being split up into different locations so that we can justify splitting up the team and having all of the bad guys show up.

None of this is problematic, but it's all very middling quality. I'm not annoyed or frustrated by much - with the exception of Harry and Peter arguing yet again - but I also don't find much to be very exciting here. It's a pity, too, because there's room for it - why not have Harry team up with Anya, or Gwen, people who he hasn't seen for a while? Why not have Doctor Octopus decide to leap into the fray using his tentacles? It all feels very by the books, and while I'll take that over a bad episode, I'm not overly excited by it.

I've got a horrible feeling that with Vulture in the mech, the final episode of this arc will end up going for a large scale, cinematic feel. Unfortunately, past episodes have shown that this doesn't always work out that well - for me, while you can make a large-scale Spider-Man story work, the best ones tend to be more personal, more character driven. Hell, the finale of last season was exactly that sort of story, focusing on Harry and Peter's friendship and what Norman Osborn wanted from each of them, and while it stumbled, I'd definitely say that it felt like a Spider-Man story. I want next episode to prove me wrong, but I'm not that confident, unfortunately.