Spider-Man Unmasked
First Aired: August 15th, 2020
Synopsis: Max Modell is on trial at Horizon to determine whether or not he should still be allowed to be principal, and Spider-Man brings a recording of Doctor Octopus talking about what a good person Max is as evidence. Curt Connors dismisses it, but Peter finds out that if he can get his classmate Alexei to testify about how Max helped cure him from being the Rhino, he'll probably win the case. Alexei is missing so Spider-Man tracks him to the East Side docks, where he finds he's Rhino once more. Spider-Man follows Rhino into the sewers where he's attacked by Swarm, a man made of bees. He manages to get away from Swarm with Rhino and the serum that transformed him, but when he and his friends cure him at Horizon they find out that it isn't Alexei. Spider-Man gives testimony in Max's defence but Connors says that his testimony doesn't count since he's Peter Parker, Max's lab assistant. Spider-Man is urged to unmask and he does, and as such Max is removed as principal. The Rhino then appears again and runs off, and Grady Scraps explains that he was stung by something that mutated him.
Gwen and Anya are angry and Peter for hiding his identity from them, so when he finds a bee at Swarm's lair they refuse to help him investigate it. On the way home he talks to Mary Jane about how he's hurt them, and she gives him advice. Peter can't find anything useful with the bee so goes to Max, who refuses to help, then Grady, and they work out that the bee has fibres on it used in ship-building. Spider-Man goes to the docks and is knocked out, only to wake up in an underground arena run by Swarm. Miles, Spider-Girl, and Ghost Spider are also there, having been knocked out when they looked for Rhino. The four heroes have to fight mutated Rhinos and spiders while it's livestreamed to criminals. Anya spots a bee on one of the Rhinos which must be controlling him, but when Spider-Man goes after Swarm to stop him he takes control of the spiders. Spider-Man then makes a sonic weapon from the weapons in the arena and stops Swarm with that, freeing everyone from his control. In the aftermath everyone in the arena is cured, and Peter is told by the school board that his identity will be kept secret but they don't want to see Spider-Man at school. In addition, Peter apologises to Gwen and Anya and they forgive him.
Miscellaneous Notes:
- In the comics Swarm is, somewhat infamously, a Nazi made of bees. We don't find out much about him here, but he's got a Southern accent, so it's probably safe to say that he isn't German here.
Review: I haven't really been a fan of this show's version of Rhino that much, so the fact that a lot of this episode revolves around it is a bit disappointing, but I'm otherwise quite pleased with this episode. There's some good humour here throughout the episode - Peter's allies stalling Max's trial while he brings back Rhino alternates between being cringey and genuinely funny - and Grady manages to be pretty funny basically whenever he's on screen. Peter getting unmasked is unexpected in a good way, and I'm glad that Gwen and Anya finally know his secret, not to mention that they call him out on not telling them earlier. The show also pointedly doesn't reveal how Connors knows that Peter is Spider-Man, providing a good mystery that's still around at the end of the episode.
Speaking of Connors, I actually really like this show's version of him. Traditionally, Connors is an ally of Peter's, which creates a good dilemma in that Spider-Man has to work out how to stop the Lizard without hurting him, but also makes him a bit bland when he's not the Lizard. Here he's a seedy, manipulative jerk all around, and he works great as an antagonist. While I'm talking about this show's interpretation of characters, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Mary Jane - she's sporty here, and genuinely friendly. I doubt that Peter will get together with her in the two episodes we have remaining in the show, but I'm okay with that - she's just a good friend to Peter, in spite of not knowing him that well, and she's just a lovely person whenever she's on screen.
The climax of the episode is definitely its weak point - an underground fighting arena against monsters isn't that interesting, and its presence feels very weakly justified. Swarm's literally just doing it to make money, but it feels like a very convoluted plot, and we don't know anything else about him. How did he get his hands (his bee-hands) on Jackal serum to mutate people? Why didn't he unmask Spider-Man and his allies when they were unconscious? Ignoring that weak scene, we get a pretty good plot in this episode overall.
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