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Ultimate Spider-Man
#45 - The Parent Trap
Original Airdate - July 28th, 2013
Spider-Man and Power Man infiltrate Zodiac’s secret volcano base only to discover what really happened to Power Man’s long-lost parents.

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

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I liked this episode well enough, with one exception (which I'll get to in a sec). The humor was on-target if not particularly funny (except for the Star Wars cutaway) - that is Spider-Man humor, dead-on. No chibis - life is good.

So, we now know Power Man's origin. Is there anything about Power Man that indicates he had to be Luke Cage? They've now stripped everything about Power Man that made him Power Man - his origin, his personality, everything is different. Why not have given him the name of the MU 616 teen Power Man, rather than Luke Cage? Everything else would have worked, and then they could have had the "real" Luke Cage as well. OK... "Sweet Christmas" was the same, but still...This is a big reason why I hate what they did, and why I feel it's disrespectful to the character of Luke Cage. I mean, I like the Ultimate Spider-Man Power Man as a character well enough - but he's not Luke Cage in any significant way.

The Zodiac has long since been one of my favorite groups, but I can't help but feel they are being way under-written here. Scorpio and thugs with masks is OK, but there are so many more plots that could feature the rest; Cornelius Van Lunt could take over a similar role to the MU 616 Justin Hammer, and powered Zodiac would be a team worthy of the Avengers.In fact, it would be a great two-part crossover episode (one in each franchise).