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Ultimate Spider-Man
#55 - Agent Venom
Original Airdate - September 6th, 2014
When Spider-Man's classmate Flash Thompson is infected with Venom, will he become a hero or Spidey's newest villain?

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

I was kinda disappointed at how quickly last week's episode returned to the status quo after how much the promos played up big changes this season, so this episode came as a pleasant surprise. Agent Venom is probably my favorite take on the symbiote and I was pretty excited to see the story make its animated debut. The episode did a great job of playing Spider-Man's anxiety against Flash's fanboy enthusiasm. The resolution is a little sketchy (Flash is the perfect host?), but I'm willing to let it slide if the writers revisit this plot point. Maybe its because Flash was the first person the symbiote bonded to way back in season 1, but we'll have to wait and see.

The action sequences were really good in this one. Especially, the fight between Venom and Spidey. All in all, it reminded of Spectacular Spider-Man, so that was a real treat. Taskmaster puts in a much better appearance here than he did back in the Deadpool ep. I think he's played a little to seriously in this series, but that's a minor gripe all things considered. The Beetle is quiet and generic as usual. The episode even had some genuinely funny moments like Flash being unable to remove the costume before realizing its stuck. The lame cutaways were kept to a minimum and away from the action.

Perhaps the best part was the ending and introduction this season's second story arc. It's nice to see the beginnings of a longer story arc that could potentially shake up the series and bring in more young superheroes. Taskmaster's long-term villainy is also looking promising after how little the show did with his original ambition to recruit Spider-Man as an apprentice. I wonder why Nick was so hesitant get involved and tell Spider-Man about the young heroes in the first place?

In any case, this was actually a better start to the season than last week's action-packed opener and I really want to see where this goes.