Episode #11 - One Is The Lonliest Number
Original Airdate 17th March, 2001.

When Venom is seperated from his symbiote, Spider-Man is forced to retrieve the alien in order to save Eddie Brock's life.

Credits
Written By: Larry Brody, Mark Hoffmeier
Directed By: Patrick Archibald

Review: The show finally makes use of Venom and Carnage without having them babble on and on about the Synobtic (without actually explaining it of course!) and thus far, this episode is easily better than the others.

The episode got a little confusing in it’s opening stages, as it featured a very cool flashback to The Alien Costume, Part One and then started creating it’s own version of that show which frankly, was pretty bland compared to the original. This episode more or less proves that the show isn’t in continuity with Spider-Man: The Animated Series. It was super cool to see the black suit again though! I love that costume, and am always happy to see it pop again, whether it be in the comics, or the cartoons.

I thought the idea of teaming Venom and Carnage was utterly moronic. I realise there was no doubt a pressure to use these two as they were the most popular Spidey villains back when the show was in production, but I always thought they worked so well against each other.

I know I’m probably in the minority with this, but I genuinely like Venom and Carnage. Their early appearances in Michelin’s run on Amazing Spider-Man are some of my favourite comics ever, with Amazing Spider-Man #375 probably being one of if not my absolute favourites and here… well, they both suck. Their designs are atrocious (why is Carnage so skinny?) their voices are lame, and there new morphing powers are ridiculous. Their motivation, to do… something with the synobtic is also completely baffling, as no one ever bothered to explain exactly what it was, making both of them completely shallow, and useless.

The undoubted highlight of the episode, and perhaps the entire series is the short scene in which Spider-Man once again dons his black costume. It was actually a pretty cool looking suit too, not at all like Venom’s laughable design. Dark, sleek and easy to animate – simple yet brilliant at the same time. It doesn’t look as cool as it did in Spider-Man TAS (what does?) but it was such a cool moment all the same.

Not bad, overall. Not bad at all. It’s not brilliant, but come on, at this point in the show, no one was expecting it to be.