Amazing Friends
First Aired: May 17th, 2020
Synopsis: Miles and Spider-Man stop some bank robbers before Spider-Man realises that he's late for something with Aunt May. He heads home and finds baby Groot in his bag and a recording from Star-Lord, but when he tries to play the recording it breaks. Peter then meets Mary Jane, whom Aunt May wanted him to meet, but quickly makes his excuses and leaves with Groot. After he and Miles fail to translate Groot's language in the hopes of finding out what the message from Star-Lord was they go to Avengers Tower, where they meet Ironheart. AIM show up shortly afterwards, and during the fight Groot escapes. The AI of Tony Stark in Ironheart's armour says that they'll need Doctor Strange to translate Groot, so Miles goes off to find him while Ironheart and Spider-Man look for Groot. They find him getting captured by AIM but as they fight the villains Baron Mordo, who is working with them, appears. He fights an arriving Doctor Strange but manages to send Strange and Miles to another dimension before teleporting away with Groot.
Ironheart realises that she can track Mordo by the energy signature his magic gives off, and she takes Spider-Man to an island where Mordo supposedly is. They're joined by Amadeus Cho, a teenager with the powers of the Hulk, who followed them from Avengers Tower. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange and Miles are in an alternate version of New York which is slowly shrinking, but they can't escape. The three heroes on the island manage to find an entrance to an AIM base, but while they're making their way through it Mordo is extracting Groot's essence. The heroes beat up some AIM troopers and take their costumes then defeat the Scientist Supreme of AIM, Monica Rappaccini, but Mordo catches them. Mordo creates wood golems from Groot's essence that regenerate when they're destroyed, preventing the heroes from stopping them. In the alternate dimension Miles manages to combine his venom sting with Strange's magic to escape the dimension. The golems are tricked into going into the portal then Doctor Strange defeats Mordo. In the aftermath Strange uses a spell to play Groot's memory of Star-Lord's message, and they discover that Star-Lord is warning them that the symbiotes are heading to Earth.
Review: I've gotta say, I went into this episode expecting it to be a repeat of Home Sick Hulk - Groot running around and doing antics while Peter has to distract Aunt May and Mary Jane from him. Thankfully, the episode is smart enough not to waste our time, and we soon get to some fun team-up action between Spider-Man, Miles, Doctor Strange, Ironheart, and Amadeus. The other heroes are integrated into the plot quite well, and it feels like everyone gets some space to themselves. In particular, some nuance is given to both Ironheart and Amadeus - Ironheart doesn't have any friends due to her intellect and wants some, while Amadeus feels the need to prove himself so he's not seen as dumb muscle. It's really good stuff.
If I had to give this episode a flaw, it's that it doesn't quite know what to do with Doctor Strange and Miles. Most of the time they're trapped in the other dimension, not really contributing anything. There's an attempt to give Doctor Strange some character development by having him talk about how magic and science can't mix, only to be proven wrong when Miles shows that his stingers can combine with Strange's magic and help them escape, but it doesn't really work that well. The other big flaw of the episode is that we spend the entire thing building up to Star-Lord's message and all that it turns out to be is a warning that the symbiotes are coming. We, the viewers, already knew that as of last episode, so it would have been better if that episode hadn't shown us - then we could discover what was happening at the same time as the characters did.
Regardless, this episode manages to do a pretty good job of introducing some new characters and putting them in a decently engaging plot. There's a sweet moment at the end when Spider-Man discovers that the Avengers Intern program that Amadeus and Ironheart are in, which he wants to be a part of, doesn't apply to him since he's already considered to be a hero by Iron Man. This stuff is leaps and bounds above the Superior Spider-Man stuff we had going on not that long ago; I really hope it keeps up this level of quality.
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