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Ultimate Spider-Man
#43 - Venom Bomb
Original Airdate - July 14th, 2013
Spider-Man must work with his nemesis, Doctor Octopus, when The Green Goblin unleashes Venom on the Tricarrier.

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

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As the apparent conclusion to the Goblin storyline, this was very disappointing. I'd even say this episode was as bad as some of the worst of season one, which really depresses me because I thought the Goblin storyline was one of the better parts of Ultimate Spider-Man.

First major complaint: The fourth wall gags were used way, way too much in this episode. They pretty much ruined the Team vs. Goblin fight at the beginning because Spider-Man felt the need to put things on pause to tell us stuff we should probably already know. It's not that I don't understand where Man of Action was coming from with it, but there's a way of fitting in explanations without putting an entire action scene to a halt. That's been one of my biggest issue with the fourth wall stuff in Ultimate Spider-Man since day one. And because of the fourth wall gags, I felt barely any tension whatsoever with what was going on, which was only amplified by weak performances from the voice actors.

I wish the creators had, instead of having all the SHIELD agents turn into Venom lookalikes, dived into the comics and pulled out some of the other Symbiotes that aren't Venom and Carnage. They're going to be one-offs anyways, and at least that way you can try and bring some uniqueness to Venom. Heck, I would've had a much more favorable opinion of the episode had Carnage shown up again, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon even if Man of Action have said otherwise.

Nick Fury Venom was pretty cool though.

I didn't dislike everything about the episode. I liked Doc Ock beginning to realize Spider-Man gift for science, and the scenes with Harry weren't half bad. I would have preferred if the tension between Spidey and Harry had been more of a major focus, but that's probably too much to expect from this show.

All in all, a lackluster ending to a decent arc. I'm kinda wishing for Green Goblin and the Symbiote to come back if only for better conclusions for them than what we got here. And I wish the creators had ended the episode with a more somber mood than just leaving Spidey completely positive after a few words from Fury. It would've been much more powerulf that way in my opinion.