[6.7/10] Eh, this episode had two significant problems for me. The first one is that this is a massive crossover for everyone in this continuity -- which is something I like in principle! -- but in practice, I didn’t know a solid number of these heroes and villains, despite a pretty decent knowledge of the Marvel Universe. I haven’t watched the Avengers show or Agents of SMASH show that are set in the same continuity as Ultimate Spider-Man, so there wasn’t really the cool factor of seeing these characters team up for me -- more of a cavalcade of “wait who’s that guy?” It’s not like you need such deep intimate knowledge to appreciate a couple more hulking brutes smashing stuff, or a few more villains being villainous, but it did make it harder to be especially invested here.
At the same time, I realize the point of this episode to some extent is that The Grandmaster is being underhanded and arbitrary with the game. But it makes the actual fights kind of dull. Rather than any progression or set of rules our heroes have to work around, both the “capture the flag” portions of the game and the “melee” portion have a quality of “and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened!” Again, there’s a certain reflection of how ten-year-olds play with their action figures that I can appreciate here (right down to a game of “the floor is made of lava”), but when the episode is a bunch of random crap happening to a bunch of random characters, it’s pretty hard to be invested.
I do like another visually-exciting fight with Sandman, and Doc Ock’s brand of villainy is always enjoyable. The introduction of Aunt May as a pawn again is a little convenient, but her interactions with Spider-Man always have that double life spark to them. But the action became pretty static after a while, even with The Grandmaster’s “Playing SimCity on Disaster Mode” approach to things.
Overall, there’s nothing (or at least very little), that’s out-and-out bad here, the whole exercise just feels kind of pointless without enough spark from the game itself or the coolness of recognition on a show that does crossovers all the time to make it worth my while.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2019-02-15T15:18:31Z
[6.7/10] Eh, this episode had two significant problems for me. The first one is that this is a massive crossover for everyone in this continuity -- which is something I like in principle! -- but in practice, I didn’t know a solid number of these heroes and villains, despite a pretty decent knowledge of the Marvel Universe. I haven’t watched the Avengers show or Agents of SMASH show that are set in the same continuity as Ultimate Spider-Man, so there wasn’t really the cool factor of seeing these characters team up for me -- more of a cavalcade of “wait who’s that guy?” It’s not like you need such deep intimate knowledge to appreciate a couple more hulking brutes smashing stuff, or a few more villains being villainous, but it did make it harder to be especially invested here.
At the same time, I realize the point of this episode to some extent is that The Grandmaster is being underhanded and arbitrary with the game. But it makes the actual fights kind of dull. Rather than any progression or set of rules our heroes have to work around, both the “capture the flag” portions of the game and the “melee” portion have a quality of “and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened!” Again, there’s a certain reflection of how ten-year-olds play with their action figures that I can appreciate here (right down to a game of “the floor is made of lava”), but when the episode is a bunch of random crap happening to a bunch of random characters, it’s pretty hard to be invested.
I do like another visually-exciting fight with Sandman, and Doc Ock’s brand of villainy is always enjoyable. The introduction of Aunt May as a pawn again is a little convenient, but her interactions with Spider-Man always have that double life spark to them. But the action became pretty static after a while, even with The Grandmaster’s “Playing SimCity on Disaster Mode” approach to things.
Overall, there’s nothing (or at least very little), that’s out-and-out bad here, the whole exercise just feels kind of pointless without enough spark from the game itself or the coolness of recognition on a show that does crossovers all the time to make it worth my while.