CHARACTERS · EPISODES · GUIDES · MEDIA · RELEASES · BACKSTAGE · FORUM

Ultimate Spider-Man
#20 - Run Pig Run
Original Airdate - September 16th, 2012
Loki gets revenge on Spider-Man by turning him into a pig, also known as Spider-Ham. With the help of Thor, "Peter Porker" must survive an Asgardian Boar Hunt across New York City.

Ultimate Spider-Man stars Drake Bell (Drake & Josh) as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Chi McBride (Boston Public) as Nick Fury, Clark Gregg (Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers) as Agent Coulson, JK Simmons (Spider-Man) as J. Jonah Jameson, Steven Weber (Wings) as Norman Osborn, Greg Cipes (Teen Titans, Ben 10) as Danny Rand/Iron Fist, Ogie Banks as Luke Cage/Power Man, Caitlyn Taylor Love (I'm In The Band) as Ava Ayala/White Tiger, Logan Miller (I'm In The Band) as Sam Alexander/Nova, Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants) as Doctor Octopus, Matt Lanter (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) as Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson, Tara Strong (The Fairly Odd Parents) as Mary-Jane Watson, Misty Lee (Batman: Arkham City) as Aunt May, and recurring guest star Stan Lee (Spider-Man) as Stan the Janitor.

Guest starring are Troy Baker (Generator Rex) as Loki and Travis Willingham (The Super Hero Squad Show) as Thor.

"Run Pig Run" was written by Man of Action and Eugene Son and directed by Phil Pignotti.

Ultimate Spider-Man is produced by Marvel Animation and carries a TV-Y7-FV parental guideline.

Video Clips:

Images:

This episode was pretty bad; I have nothing against Spider-Ham - I don't really think I would have minded an appearance from him on this show as a gag or something, but an entire episode dedicated to him was just too much. Too many pig jokes, the running gag of Flash Thompson running away scared, Spidey's brain and stomach having an argument about a hotdog; not even Thor, one of my favorite characters, appearing could save this episode. Some parts were decent: the semi-continuity about Loki wanting revenge on Spidey or the little talk about pride between Thor and Spider-Ham echoing their previous encounter. But other than that, nothing really worth mentioning.

And I thought ending the pig hunt because the day has ended was a little anti-climatic. They were slowly building up Spidey realizing the others respect him enough to risk their lives for him, which makes him even more determined to join the fight. And then the fight is over a couple of seconds later and we get even more bad jokes and Loki vowing to get his revenge... again. After turning Thor into a frog and Spidey into a pig, I'm not sure I even want to know what he'll do next. I'm pretty sure that even if the ending would have had Spidey develop some more the next episode would only revert his character a couple of steps back and he'd have to learn the same lessons over and over again (without ever actually learning them, of course). Overall, this episode was bad and the only real highlights were seeing Thor again and Spider-Ham, for the first couple of scenes.

The show seems to have started re-using the more famous heroes that guest-starred: last week the Hulk returned and now Thor. I'm guessing Iron Man and Wolverine will each receive another new episode by the end of the season. Not sure about Doctor Strange, but it would be fun seeing him again. But I hope their next appearances will be good, seeing how so far the heroes' second episode was worse than their first.

And was I the only one who thought about Justice League Unlimited's "This Little Piggy" episode while watching this? Turning a character into a pig is a silly concept that doesn't really belong in a super-hero cartoon, but I thought JLU managed to be more entertaining than USM, even with this weird premise.