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Ultimate Spider-Man
#25 - Revealed
Original Airdate - October 28th, 2012
Spidey gets a front row seat as Doctor Octopus and Norman Osborn's plans collide, leading to the creation of the Green Goblin.

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.

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

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Probably the best episodes this show had so far. The story works, for the most part, and we finally get to see another one of Spider-Man's classic rogues (and probably the most famous one), the Green Goblin. Using his design from the Ultimate Marvel comic books didn't really bother me - he looked pretty cool, and was menacing enough throughout the episodes. Though the fact that Norman Osborn is transformed into the Green Goblin after being injected with a mix of both Spidey's and Venom's DNA by Doctor Octopus didn't really make that much sense to me. Doc Ock continues to be one of the few awesome villains this show has featured and Venom plays a pretty good role as well. I didn't really like the idea of Harry Osborn become Venom at first, and the series of episodes featuring him didn't really help in changing my opinion on him, but here it worked out well enough. Also liked the way the episode ended, with Green Goblin escaping with a sample of Venom which hopefully will lead to some more interesting developments in the next season. As well as the small foreshadowing of Doctor Curt Connors becoming the Lizard in the second season - and I liked that Green Goblin was the one responsible for him losing his arm. This first season hasn't featured that many of Spidey's rogues but I hope the next one remedies that.

The first part of this story is called "Revealed" for a reason. This is where Spidey finally learns the truth about how evil Norman Osborn actually is. For me, the highlight of this episode was probably how the conflict between Norman and Doc Ock played out. The previous episode where their character interacted this well ("The Iron Octopus") was awesome - I'd say tied with this two-parter for the title of best episode this season. There are a lot of breaking the fourth wall moments here that take away from the story and action but overall the episode wasn't too bad. Spidey's decision to deal with the Goblin alone made sense but since one the "themes" for this show is team-work, the other teen heroes obviously wouldn't be too far behind.

Part two, which is titled "Rise of the Goblin, is where the action and this show's attempt at drama really kicks in. The fight scenes were done very well and adding Venom to the story was a neat, pretty original twist but at the same time not too surprising. The episode works out well enough, and apart from the occasional not very funny jokes the other scenes didn't really take away from the action, for a change. I did miss Doc Ock from part two though, this show's version of Otto Octavius is pretty awesome. The only thing I wasn't expecting was the other teen heroes moving in with Peter in Aunt May's home.

These two episodes (and a couple of scenes from some of the other episodes) prove that this show is able to pull off a good story. If they manage to cut down on the cutaway gags and some of the childish jokes the show would be better. Another thing they should improve on is making Spidey's team-mates less annoying, and actually develop their characters some more. Though I would prefer they just don't show up anymore and leave Spidey to act alone the show obviously won't go that route. So making them more likeable and useful characters would be the only solution. All in all, while I'm not too impressed with this first season, I'll still watch the show hoping the next episodes will be at least as good as these ones.