The Spectacular Spider-Man Episode 4: Market Forces Review

Patrick continues his quest along with SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN and EPISODE 4: MARKET FORCES.

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!!! 

The high standard of this cartoon of Spider-Man continues with Market Forces. The start of the episode is excellent as we get a great heist scene that involves trucks and a security van. In the van is a case and we see that the case is stolen and given to the Big Bad’s right hand man Hammerhead. He tells Montana, of The Enforcers to put on what ever is in the case. It’s an intriguing and interest start that gets us hungry to see more.

Peter is the focus of this episode

This episode gives us a glimpse at lots of elements. We get our first mention of Mary Jane Watson and her “wonderful personality”. This serves as a nice lead up to what will probably lead to MJ being a more prominent figure in the series. Peter is juggling a lot in this episode. He is trying to help Harry with study, get pictures of Spidey and keep his school and home life in balance. It’s a testament to the writers, who have done really well so far, to keep all tings storylines and not make the episode feel crowded.

Harry: feels lost and abandoned by Pete

The Peter side of the story is jammed with story but it’s nice to see some focus on Peter too. His interactions at the Daily Bugle and Betty are nicely done and show Peter is not the wallflower you’d expect, even if he is awkward. His crush on Betty is understandable, she’s nice to him and besides Gwen, Peter has little interaction with any girls. It’s nicely written too, it’s awkward without being cringey. The writers have also started to show the strain Spidey has on Peter’s life. Harry and Peter are at loggerheads due to the fact that Peter is never around to help him. it’s understandable to see Harry’s point but it’s like Norman says to him: “You want to pass Calculus, study.”  I liked the way the friction between Harry and his father was introduced in a sort of sideways manner. You know it’s there, but it hasn’t come to the boil yet. Another sign that sticking with the series means that characters around Peter will be developed too. A nice touch.

Montana in Shocker garb.

The Spidey story is fairly simple. Montana’s suit creates shock waves and this has lead to him being a supervillian called Shocker. Montana’s motivation is fairly simple too. He’s employed by the Big Man to take out Spidey. The fights are good and again it’s clear to see that the animators especially have their ideas down about how the fights should work. This episode was probably focused on Peter more than Spidey son developing the villain was not a big issue and the episode doesn’t really suffer too badly from it.

An interesting twist at the end was the encounter between Hammerhead and Norman Osborn. We get a clear sense that we will get much more of these supervillians as Osborn’s tech and the Big Man’s resources will be used to keep Spidey busy while the crime empire is left uninterrupted. It’s a nice twist and it gives a plausible background for more villains.

Osborn is going to become a key figure.

Verdict: 3/5

A good episode with some nice moments but it feels like an episode that is being used as a stepping stone to a lot of stories being developed in future episodes. With more weight on the Peter side of the story, we see that Peter is as important as Spidey is and that can’t be underestimated. It’s cool to see that things from the initial episodes are still there as it looks like the urgency is about to e rammed up in future episodes.