Episode #11 - When Sparks Fly
Original Airdate August 8, 2003

Electro, lonely and unable to return to his human form begins experimenting on how to make Sally, a girl he has a crush on become an Electro like him so the two of them can be together forever! Can Spider-Man arrive in time or will Sally be changed forever?

Credits
Screenplay By: Morgan Grenda
Directed By: Vincent Edwards
Music By: John Digweed, Nick Muir and William Anderson
Animation By: Mainframe
Guest Starring:Ethan Embry as Electro, Cree Summers as Proffesor Williams

Review: TThis episode was the first of any of the villain's returns to the series, as Electro was originally introduced in The Party. I’m glad someone was brought back, and the show was beginning to become far too much of a villain of the week show, which is rarely ever good. I know it keeps the shows fresh, but the potential for rematches is always a great one in superhero cartoons. Due to the fact Spider-Man had actually met the villain before, this episode had a slightly different tone to the other episodes. For a great change of pace, Spider-Man didn’t mock the villain. I love Spidey’s one-liners as much as the next guy, but the lack of humour really helped drive home that Spider-Man thought Electro was a threat. This was evident in more than one scene. Spider-Man rushing to revive Professor Williams and Peter blatantly telling Harry that he was going off to find Spider-Man. Considering how most of Harry’s characterisation was usually him dealing with how much he hated Spider-Man, it was quite a weird experience to hear.

Max wasn't the typical "Ha Ha! Time for revenge!" villain he has in The Party, he was lonely and wanted acceptance, as Peter stated at the end of the pilot episode. While he did take things too far, it had more of a sense of understanding to it, as he obviously was a troubled person, who was now a freak and this made him far more interesting here than he was in The Party. I wasn’t too fond of him turning Sally into an Electro, especially as the whole scenario appeared to be based on a single smile back in The Party.

This episode really did have more of the feeling that you where watching a cartoon about a superhero, it was a Spider-Man episode, there was very little Peter in it, and Spider-Man himself was nearly killed, as he used himself as a conductor when trying to drain Electro of his power. Unfortunately, what could have been a cool scene of seeing Max forever feeling guilty of his crimes, rotting in prison, he was killed in an explosion. MTV strikes again.

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