Does whatever an ultimate can?

Here’s another animated review of another prevailing cartoon these days.

Today I’ve decided to chat less about a show in general, and more about an episode. Don’t worry; I’ll still give background information about the show itself, I just don’t want to drone on and lose focus on my post. So let’s get started with Ultimate Spiderman.

 

If you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel, the Ultimate Spiderman show is the newest show on TV to feature Spiderman as a main character. To be honest though, it’s less like Spectacular Spiderman, and more like his Amazing Friends. By that I mean S.H.I.E.L.D recruits him for superhero training along with teenage versions of White Tiger, Nova, Power Man (Luke Cage), and Iron Fist. Also they give spidey some tech/ or guest appearances from other marvel heroes like Iron Man, or Thor. In America, it airs on Disney XD along with Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and their marvel super shows.

Now actually reviewing this show can be a little tricky, since there are a lot of quirks and they VERY easy to nitpick. I’ll start with the episode called “Field Trip.”

We have an introduction featuring Oden, Loki, and the mighty Thor. I know this is a real nitpick, but that’s like saying were going to talk about Hercules and some lighting guy…I think Zeus was his name? Then we have cute little nod to the spider bite origin,…which is completely screwed by the painfully unfunny goatboy joke.

 

“Ughhh”…is right Peter. I’m okay with how the frost giant made the scene, yeah small for a giant but he’s going to have to fit in there.

Fight starts so spidey catches the fourth wall to show a slow-mo of Nova getting beat. I could see how stuff like would bug people, but I like it since the show sets it up that Nova’s jerky attitude gets him smacked almost as much as the wall crawler. So then spidey’s “ultimate” friends bicker about their battle styles (bet that will come up later) and of course they get pushed back, leaving your friendly neighborhood you-know-who to remind everyone that 4^th wall isn’t the only thing he has under control. Or not.

But wait!!! It’s chibi spidey fan-gushing over the Mighty Thor’s appearance center stage (yeah this pretty much standard fare any marvel hero guest star, bonus points if you’re an avenger). As you may have guessed, Thor keeps the monster at bay, though it’s seen as him brushing off the teens (who I remind u were having trouble with it earlier) to get work done. Thor like the rest of us gets tired of the team’s fighting among themselves but seems to forget to be careful with enemy possessions (maybe he couldn’t read the tag on its neck?) and gets turned into a frog. With the hammer and everything.

O.K.

No, you see, Loki did it and we get a little background info about him and his plans, etc and spidey makes a lame joke, the usual. And since this is spiderman’s show, he is the only one making sense while Thor thinks he can still be all that and a bag of chips as an amphibian.

Loki is a good villain, not just because he has the cards but he feels you know IN CHARACTER. I know Thor is actually arrogant at times but here it seems a little too convenient. Especially when it seems like Spiderman has waaaaay more wisdom in battle than a guy who I should been warring against (at least) his brother for years. It gets even more grating when spidey has to give a god (demi god?) a lesson in humility. In worked in Thor’s movie but that’s not the same situation here. Anyways, the team storms Loki fortress yet again, but with new weapons made a dwarf. (No little friend jokes please.) In fact each weapon is especially designed to show each of the teams flaws to the viewer and force them to fix them to beat the guards. Oh by the way, they had to pretty much make one up for Powerman because even though it wasn’t shown before, he needs something right? How did the dwarf know that stuff anyways and…oh wait…just use magic, done.

Oh but Spiderman doesn’t get away from the moral scott free…nor does he get any weapons to protect himself. He has to step up as the team leader and guide everyone else. Even the writers and Spiderman know how lame that cliché is and spidey tells us the bull he has to put up with. At least this show is aware when it gets cheesy and finally apologies for it, I respect that. Anyways we find Loki going for Oden with only spiderman in his way. Good thing he’s the title character cause it means he can made Loki go out of his by turning Thor normal so he can “be the one to truly defeat”. In an approved use of the 4^th wall, even Spidey can’t believe something that stupid actually worked. So yeah, Loki beaten, Thor learns not to overestimate his guest appearance, and a goat bites Parker to come full circle.

 

A GOOD SUM UP

Overall I’m gonna be fair to this episode, there were a few funny moments and when they become sappy, at least kinda/almost make up for it by pointing it out  It’s a shame that it’s not done so much in other episodes. It also helps that this episode is usually higher rated than most, to show that  not all of the hate is justified. Also the obnoxious 4^th wall jokes that Get In The Way Of The Story are far and few after the beginning. It’s okay if spidey does deadpool shtick as long as episode can go along with it or it’s short. Well except for the fact that it doesn’t seem to apply Spiderman’s use of quips to mock his foes quite properly. And yeah a lot of real *read not cliché after noon special* developments or characters haven’t been seen so far but at least it has potential. Said potential would be stronger if interesting story arcs weren’t shot down to cram in jokes but there are a few possibilities left.  And yeah, it’s true that some characters do lose their comic characterizations but I think we need to remember this less a replacement for Spectacular, and more of a comic designed Super Hero Squad.

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