1994 Spider-Man episode #29-“Make a Wish” Review

Ha ha ha, Spidey…you can’t quit! What about all your adoring fans? Realizing that, Spidey tells his origin and powers to someone with the “Faith of a Child…”

Credits
Story By: John Semper, Elliot S. Maggin and Meg McLaughlin
Written By: Mark Hoffmeier
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)

THE PLOT: During a science exhibition that shocases a microscopic laser which can pierce through inorganic material, Doctor Octopus attacks and battles Spider-Man, causing the demonstration to be ruined. Feeling slightly responsible, Peter Parker decides to take an indefinite leave of absence as the Wall Crawler. His plans are inturrupted however in the form of Madame Web, the super Spider Psychic!

LONG STORY SHORT: Madame Web exposits that she intends to start training Peter on a mission and that he needs the “Faith of a Child” in order to get his head straight. Peter dons his costume once more and entertains a little girl named Maria “Taina” Elozonda. While stupidly taking her with him to web-swing, Ock attacks and manges to capture Spidey, leaving Taina as the only witness.

MY THOUGHTS: This and the next episode are fairly notorious in the show’s run, for reasons being that the plots for them are heavily adapted from the Roger Stern written “Kid Who Collected Spider-Man” in Amazing Spider-Man #248. Of course Amazing Fantasy #15 and ASM #55 and #56 are adapted as well, but “The Kid Who Collected Spider-Man” is one of THOSE well known Spidey stories, that works well as a one-in-done, speaks well of the quality of the writer’s run and stands the test of time. Some elements are changed to be sure, but it’d pretty obvious halfway through the episode where the story is going, and the hammer’s hit home by the end of the next episode. But for purposes of this episode proper, it will be the main subject of analysis. The reason I find it to be notorious in Spider-Man fandom is that it seems to be unanimously abhorred in terms of doing the story justice.

(Oh, and I suppose Peter quitting resembles ASM #50 as well, but that last all about ten seconds so who’s counting?)

To be perfectly honest, I still enjoy this episode for what it is fair enough. It’s another one that I can recall watching for the first time, and while even I was annoyed with Taina at age seven, I really dug the introspection into Peter’s backhistory. Comparing and contrasting with the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon once again, that show’s hinderence in it’s origin story episode had much to do with the fact that Spidey was still really popular and in the public’s conciousness in 2008. He still his now I would think. But in 1996, “Spider-Man” was just another Marvel cartoon trying to cash in on the success of the comic book cartoon adaptations set by B:TAS. So being around during that era back then, I was very interested in how this show would portray his origin. Of course I knew it myself, but how was this show planning on doing it?

Adressing the parts of the episode outside of the origin before moving on to the middle, I thought this was a pretty cool story. I liked the idea of the laser being a modern miracle because it actually sounded very plausible, and not some weird Neogenic science. Of course I have a problem with Doc Ock not realizing the properties of the laser despite the fact that he apparently helped MAKE IT, but whatever. Nothing felt contrived or overblown, and the signifigance of the laser’s destruction really added to Peter’s guilt. It wasn’t just that a lab was destroyed, it was a great addition to modern medicine. Of course Peter didn’t really do anything to hep destroy the lab, but he let his emotions get in over his reasonings in a very believable way. It’s always better when the audience can side with Peter and his feelings instead of be taken out of the story when it doesn’t make much common sense.

The production values on this episode was also very nice. Not just with the animation, which was exceptionally good if different from classic TMS, but even the sound effects. When Peter’s reading the letter from Taina’s parents for the first time, you can hear the drawer in the background open while he’s reading even though it’s off camera. The shot then changes to Peter throwing it in the drawer and closing it. That was a small addition to the episode that really added to the somewhat grounded atmosphere. The beginning and end have big action sequences of course, and so does some of the middle with Madame Web, but having much of the story take place in a little girl’s room was rather nice as a breather for the eyes.

Now Madame Web…it really is difficult to sympathize with her character, or at least warm to her. She may have been very amusing to the writing staff to have continuously befuddle Spider-Man, but after all these years it’s still really annoying to hear her voice condescendingly mock Peter when both he and we have no idea what the fudge is going on. I will say that her introductory sequence was very, very cool. The sillhouette of the spider’s web was awesome, as was the image of Peter’s eye and the name dropping of Uncle Ben, Felicia and MJ. It was appropriately confusing and did well to set up the omniscient aspect of her character. Now, her mission for Spider-Man to SPOILERS!!! fight Spider-Carnage still really pulls this series down from being great in my opinion.  It’s supposed to be about Spider-Man and Spidey only. Having other character intrude on Peter’s conciousness really interrupts the aspect that the comics are known for. She can be cool at times…maybe, but I have a feeling that Madame Web’s plot still should have been left well enough alone.

Now concerning the origin, many people tend to ask what the point of reiterating the origin is, especially when it’s been hinted in the series before with the wrestling flashbacks. But seeing as how this was the first time it had been adressed in full, I still really like it. A long standing school of thought believes that the origin was put of due to the supposed James Cameron Spider-Man movie being talked about around that time, but

Semper himself refutes this in a way, stating that they avoided the origin in the beginning due to predictability. In any case I really like the way the origin was adressed, in Spider-Man telling it to someone else. It makes sense, rather than have him remind himself, or someone like Wong in the previous episode.

What I also really enjoyed about this version was that this version had Peter embellish on certain aspects and explain things that honestly made a whole lot of sense. The need for spiders to seek “dark corners and new heights” was cool, and the bit where he assumes the spider bite gave him knowledge on how to experiment with specific enzymes in order to make web fluid was even better. I typically fall back on that explantion to how he does it in the comics, though to Ultimate Spider-Man’s credit it tried it’s hand at explaining as well. The only thing I question was having an entirely new design for Peter with glasses when he invited Liz to the Science Exhibit, only when we see him at the exhibit his design is the modern one. What happened there?

As an adaptation of the original story, this obviously fails because that comic had more stark visuals such as a dark room and the idea that nothing else was going on but that scene. The concurrent story of Doc Ock jacking around with mental octo-arms and the Kingpin’s truly pointless cameo messed with the solid dynamic. It would have been fine seperately, but when adapting one of the more pathos-heavy Spider-Man stories, one cannot just use it in recognition only, which is why the very end of the next episode falls flat. But as it is, yes Taina can be annoying, but this is still a very solid story on its own. Mostly I feel due to its attention on Peter. It’s his problems that drive the story, his emotions we experience, and his origin.  And those are the best comic book stories period, when they rely on the audience’s empathy with the lead character. Seeing as how that’s what the franchise of Spider-Man is all about, I found this to be a successful episode.

Least on it’s own.

4/5 “MARY JAAANE!!!”s

Best Quote Contender:

Doc Ock: *shoves men off the boat* Sorry gentlemen, but despite my current handicap as you can see I have all the arms I require!

*All images taken from marvel.toonzone.net