The Final Episode #78: Spider Man (1994 - 1998)

Well we'eve been doing several Spider-Man shows in the history of this column. We started with the original 1960s show. It ended on a fucking clip show. The worst way to end a show. A cliffhanger might be annoying but at least it showed people cared about the tv show they were creating a little bit. A clip show was like "eh we are throwing this out because we can".  Like I understand why they made clip shows but  I don't think anyone really watched them. It was a cheap tactic to make a episode easily. Clip shows are even worse for silly columns made by weirdos about last episodes of tv shows. There's very little to discuss with a clip show. It's oh hey a quick easy set up to throw clips from old episodes into. That's pretty much what can be said for just about every clip show. So far 2 other tv shows I've done ended on a clip show. It's never fun.

Then I did the 1981 Spider-Man show. It was a show I never saw as a child. It was a buck wild tv series that ended on a hoot and a half of a tv show. Medusa is being controlled by the Wizard to do evil deeds. It was a suitable ending to that series. I then did Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, a series where he teams up with Firestarter and Iceman to fight crime. It's Final Episode was the same damn thing as the Medusa episode except done way worse. First off we don't have a silly obscure villain but some random dickhead SHIELD episode named Buzz. Unless you are a CGI toy voiced by Tim Allen or a military guy from some movie like An Officer and a Gentleman guys named Buzz can fuck off. Secondly they just pull Iceman's sister character right out of their asses. I'm sorry but most of the people worked on the 1981 show and Amazing Friends and we should have gotten a different damn plot for the Final Episode, damnit.

So 11 years later the next Spider-Man show came out. This one was much different than the other two just because they added in continuity, a thing that pretty much started in 90s cartoons. It was less a random adventure of a week. Stuff that happened in one episode would carry over to other episodes. You even had two, three and even five parters. There's fun to be had within random adventures of the week kinda stories of the 1970s and 1980s but I can tell you that I did not want to miss a single episode of this show because I didn't want to be left out. It felt like you had to watch every episode of this show. Sure I would have been sad if I missed an episode of the 1960s series but I would have been PISSED if I missed an episode of this series. Remember this was the 1990s and sometimes the only way to see an episode you missed was to hope it came out on VHS. That's one thing I'm glad doesn't exist these days. The fear of missing out is clearly gone from television these days. 

This Final Episode could easily have been the entire season because it all connects into one. I did not rewatch the entire season but I remember this very well. It starts out with Spider-Man connecting with several old timey Golden Age Heroes to fight some organization. We get to see Electro for the first time in this show in this series if I recall correctly. We even get The Red Skull and Captain America. Then after this series we jump into a 3 part Secret Wars series that brings in all kinds of characters. Like Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Storm from the X-Men. It's really neat. The only problem is that I like 1980s Beyonder that looks like Bert Convy way more than this shows version of the Beyonder.

It then turns to the Final Episode, which is a two parter. Which involves parrellel dimensions, the attempted destruction of the entire multiverse, Madame Web, The Beyonder, several different Spider-Men, The Hobgoblin and The Green Goblin teaming up, and Spider-Carnage. All Amazing Friends gave us was a dipshit named Buzz. Lame. So yeah it starts out with the Beyonder bringing Spider-Man to this destroyed as FUCK version of New York City. First thing Spider-Man does is freak out about Aunt May. The Beyonder comes to tell him about this version of New York City when BLAM The Green Goblin and Hobgoblin are seen attacking the Daily Bugle because Spider-Carnage wants some fancy doohickey to amplify the fancy doohicky he has. A lot of fancy doohickies in these last two episodes. They get the Fancy Doohickies and Spider-Man is brought before Madame Web. She and the Beyonder show him the future which is Spider-Carnage blowing up the entire damn multiverse. The Beyonder used his power to turn back time.

They both created the Secret Wars on several different planets to find the Spider-Man worthy of leading this set of Spider-Men to destroy Spider-Carnage before he blows us all the smithereenes.  The Spider-Men include The Scarlet Spider, a powerless Spider Man, a Spider Man with Dr. Ock's arms, A Spider Man in the fancy suit from Web of Spider Man #100, and a Spider Man with several extra arms. They all go to the Kingpin's building to stop Spider-Carnage. He's apparently a clone of The Scarlet Spider or maybe not. It's not really clear but they really were just pokin fun at the Clone Saga that had taken up a good amount of Spider-Man stories from the 1990s. Several of the Spider-Men have to be brought back to Madame Web and the Beyonder. It's down to three and this is where part one ends with the Six Armed Spider-Man turning into the damn Man-Spider that has to be stopped. He's got Spider-Man and The Scarlet Spider in his grasp!

Anyway, it's easily stopped when The Beyonder sends the Powerless Spider-Man into confuse the Kingpin and Spider-Carnage while also using the last of his power to bring the Man Spider back to him and Madame Web. He does this and then disappears I guess back to his original universe with the Man Spider. This is the last we see of the Beyonder in this cartoon. No, Spider-Man did not teach him how to poop in this cartoon unlike in the comic book, and no I am not joking about that. Comic books are fucking weird and silly. Anyway this gives the main Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider time to stop Spider-Carnage but not before he escapes using his fancy doohicky into ANOTHER universe. 

This universe happens to be the universe of the fancy armored Spider-Man. The one thats a big obnoxious jerk. I liked him. It was fun to see a jerky Spider-Man. Anyhoo, he's getting married to Gwen Stacy. Spider-Man even freaks out when seeing an alternative universe Mary Jane before realizing its not her. He's really attempting to ruin this Spider-Man's life but thankfully Armor Spidey has already told everyone he's Peter Parker in this universe so it's no big deal when literally every person Spider-Man knows just pops into this room. It's pretty funny actually. Oh I forgot he even fought a giant Spider-Man robot before this happened. A lot of stuff happened in this two episodes. You can see why you'd hate to miss an episode of this show at like 11 years old. 

Anyway the Kingpin in this universe is Peter Parker's lawyer and he takes him away just to show that yes this version of the Kingpin is evil too and has joined up with SPider-Carnage. You think he'd not listen to a crazy man who somehow has a weird hobo beard on his mask. Seriously look up a picture of Spider-Carnage from this show and tell me that's NOT a hobo beard. It's kind of amazing and I love it. I've really grown to kinda honestly love Carnage man but that's for a different post. So SPider-Man realizes that this is him, even if he's gone crazy and feels lost and angry so he decides to find the one man who could talk to him, the man that might be alive in this universe.

That's right mother fuckers. He brings Uncle Ben to talk to Spider-Carnage and he finally gets him to realize who he is and this causes him to try to remove the Carnage symbiotie. However he has to use the fancy alternative universe doohicky that he fiddled with to make DESTROY universes instead and just jump into it destroying himself. Man I didn't realize how fucking dark cartoons from the 1990s could be. It's pretty messed up man! The powerless Spider-Man brings Spider-Man to HIS universe to meet some old guy by the name of Stanley Lee. What a dopey name. I don't think anything came of that guy AT all.

The episode ends with Madame Web telling Spider-Man that they will find the real Mary Jane Watson who was sent into an alternative universe in a previous season and yep the show ends on a cliffhanger. It always sucks when a show ends on a cliffhanger but it's clearly better than ending on a clip show because it showed that they people clearly cared and wanted to continue doing the show and not like "AW FUCK IT". Still it's very annoying when anything ends on a cliffhanger and I'd have loved to see Season six of this show instead of the Spider-Man cartoon that we did get, however we won't be discussing that right now.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Cliffhanger or not this show ended on a very fun note. You get all kinds of wild and wacky shit to enjoy within these last two episodes. It kept you invested and you clearly wanted to see a season six. That's the way you know that you made a good TV series. Anyway there are many many many more Spider-Man shows made between this show ending in 1998 and 2021, however to be honest there's only two of them I want to discuss. We will get to them soon.