Welcome to Boomb Tube! Here we recap all of your favorite Cape Cartoons! This week, Ultimate Spider-Man in space!
“Man-Wolf” starts with Drake Bell Spider-Man seemingly fighting Captain America in World War II. Spider-Man says “What’s wrong Cap? Wake up on the wrong side of the FLAG!” This is followed by an aside about how it’s Peter Parker’s job to hand out witty one-liners like that even though that “zinger” made no sense. The fight ends up being a Life Model Decoy exercise on the newly rebuilt SHIELD Helicarrier. Since The Goblin destroyed it at the end of the last season, it’s been rebuilt as the Tricarrier, as demonstrated in a sequence describing the new ship that surprisingly didn’t include the phrase “Now at Toys ‘r’ Us.” Nick Fury walks into the room and tells everyone they need to go into SPACE now! Drake Bell says the word moon excitedly a couple of times.
Spider-Man and co. get equipped with space outfits, also available at Toys ‘r’ Us, and are dispatched to the moon where J. Jonah Jameson has sent them to save his son. Jameson is solemn in his request to SHIELD to save his son so Peter cracks some joke about how saving Jameson Jr. would totes get Jonah on his good side. This is followed by a scene of Parker lounging by the pool while a Jameson in sunglasses calls him “webtastic.” Someone must’ve been really disgruntled to give up and write such a lazy line. They must have woken up on the wrong side of the flag.
Everyone eventually arrives on the set of Prometheus where John Jameson is the one survivor left in the space station. As suspicious as he seems, he’s a chill bro so Spider-Man supports him. Jameson mentions something about crystals on the space station, they find some crystals, and then John turns into a Man-Wolf
Man-Wolf runs amok on the station as Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends try to stop him. Peter resorts to the “appeal to the beast’s inner man” trick that he used on The Lizard; I mean The Hulk; I mean Venom; I mean literally any villain he’s fought aside from Slam Adams. In a delightful twist, this ploy doesn’t actually work and Man-Wolf continues to punch stuff. Spider-Man gives up on trying the whole pacifism thing and has Iron Fist punch the crystal on Man-Wolf’s chest. This works, but in the preceding fight Man-Wolf damaged the faceplate on Peter’s spacesuit. The plate cracks, oxygen begins leaking out, and the coldness of space takes Drake Bell as he floats off into the void of space while the Mass Effect 2 logo fades in. Oh wait, he’s just ok because they got him to the Tricarrier? That’s cool too.
John Jameson has been subdued but is now trapped in a hairy half-man half-wolfman form and placed in cryogenic storage until he can be cured. Unfortunately, John’s new permanent fursuit understandably angers Jonah who goes to the air decrying SHIELD for transforming his son into a freak of nature. It’s almost played as comic relief, but Jameson’s anger and grief here is real. Jonah’s son, his own flesh and blood, has been warped into a monster like the ones he crusaded against daily. How could he ever explain this at Thanksgiving? To his wife?! Jameson’s life has been forever tragically changed.
Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the flag.
Review Score: 5/10 – Lazy plot, alright animation, incomprehensible puns.
