Date of airing: September 16, 1995 (FOX Kids)
Well, this was a solid episode. Spider-Man had some difficulties fighting the Sinist––, I mean, the Insidious Six, and the villains were indeed dumb enough to believe that Peter was not Spider-Man, just because the Spider-Man they fought in this episode wasn’t acrobatic enough for their taste. This may have been a believable twist for a show like this, but it truly was hilarious, the way the villains tried to explain to themselves – without being prompted by Spider-Man at all – that the wallcrawler they were looking at wasn’t the real deal. It turns out though that Spider-Man’s loss of his powers served him well here. However, the question remains if he would have actually been bound and unmasked if he still had his powers. As if the disappearance of his powers happened to be a plot device just for this one thing – I would consider this great writing. It was also convenient writing, since Spider-Man’s powers were gone during the first fight, but reappeared when he needed them during the second fight.
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| Spider-Man: Bound and Unmasked |
At least I needed to hold my breath for a second when Doc Ock unmasked Spider-Man, and all they saw under the mask was Peter Parker. Venom was too weak to do that in his episode(s), but at least with six villains in the room, they finally got the balls to pull off the mask and give me a great scene of Peter believing for a couple of minutes that his secret has been made and that he is toast. Yes, it would have been too early in the series to go down that story route, but a lot could have been done with Spider-Man’s secret identity being revealed to a group of villains, even if it would have meant the writers were eradicating that plot reveal in a future episode with a Jedi mind trick or something like that.
The Sini––, sorry, the Insidious Six, weren’t clever villains at all though. They were unable to keep ahold a seemingly weakling with Peter (though how weak could Peter have been if he was able to outjump the Six?), and they were unable to keep their differences with each other out of the fight against Spider-Man. When the wallcrawler pissed off the Scorpion and let him into a fight against Doc Ock, I was laughing about how dumb Scorpion must have been to listen to Spidey like that. The same goes for Rhino, who believed “Chameleon” that Spider-Man and the old man were running away in the shadows, and then went all in on Chameleon without even thinking about how he may have been duped by the superhero. Then again, it was a plot device I saw coming in the previous episode, and to be honest, it was a funny premise, because, in a way, Spider-Man managed to control some of the Six with his sense of humor. It’s one of his superpowers, in case his actual powers disappear because of mutations and stuff.
Meanwhile, Kingpin was served a bad blow in this episode, and I wondered if the writers were starting to write him out of the show as the major player in the background of all things. Because so far, Kingpin has been the big boss of the show, and it’s about time Spider-Man gets another big boss (I’m still waiting for Green Goblin). Silvermane could maybe be that person for the next few episodes, now that there is probably a ransom on Kingpin’s head and the episode was serving Silvermane as a backup villain for Spider-Man. That kind of makes me wonder what Smythe will be doing now. Considering he seems like he has been Kingpin’s hostage since his spider slayer failures from early in the first season, he might be happy that Kingpin failed and is now a wanted man within the crime syndicate. Or is Smythe now fully integrated with Kingpin’s activities and business adventures that there is no way out for him?
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| Stick around, Spider-Man will be right back! |
And finally, a few words about Peter as a character in a narrative.
He is dating Felicia, and he is not dating Mary Jane. I’m still
confused, especially since Felicia seemed to be dating Morbius by the
end of the episode, and was dating Flash in the first season (I still
believe they fingerbanged, and you can’t convince me otherwise). But at
least the story of his mutation is going forward, and I especially love
that the word “mutant” was used, which was obviously a first step
towards bringing the X-Men into the narrative, and reminding the
audience that an X-Men animated series does exist and is considered the
“parent series” of SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. Now the question is,
how long until both shows cross over for a joined narrative for a story
arc? Spoiler alert: Not long at all.
