Cartoon Review: The Spectacular Spider-Man Ep. 3

"Natural Selection"

Review
Rebounding from the average second episode the third episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man does a great job introducing Spider-Man villain The Lizard. I am actually surprised that three episodes in the crew of this show decided to introduce The Lizard so quickly. But I guess since the Spider-Man movies have dragged out The Lizard's appearance it is better that this character's appearance is not dragged out like his film version.

While Spider-Man's previous fights with the Enforcers, Vulture, and Electro having mainly focused on Spider-Man's speed and agility this fight with The Lizard was a pure physical fight. The fight was pretty brutal that it is surprising that for a kids oriented show the animators got away with such a violent fight. The only thing missing from the fight between Spider-Man and The Lizard was some blood being spilled but I guess that is were the line is drawn for a kids show. Still each punch that The Lizard connected with against Spider-Man really sounded bone-crushing. And even though Spider-Man's fighting style still relies on his speed and agility I am glad the animators are giving a hint of how strong he is as he took some brutal punches.

What was cool about the fight was how instrumental Mrs. Connor's, Gwen, and Eddie were to Spider-Man not being killed in his fight. Having Mrs. Connor's and Gwen come up with the antidote was a nice way to show us that these two women are just as smart as their male counterparts.

Even though I enjoyed the fight between Spider-Man and The Lizard my favorite part of this episode was the ending were Peter finally is able to get a picture of him as Spider-Man to sell to the Bugle but unlucky for him it is a picture of him fighting the Lizard. Peter has always been a character that whenever he gets a personal victory it is always followed up by a personal loss and in this case he gets the money to help his Aunt May but looses his internship and friends in the process. It should be interesting to see how Peter will apologize to Gwen and Eddie as he continues to take pictures for the Bugle may affect how long it takes for them to forgive Peter for abandoning them to make a profit.

Episode Rating - 8.8/10