Spider-Man Season 2 Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnEtDERtH2M

Episode Guide

Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 1: The Insidious Six
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 2: Battle of the Insidious Six
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 3: Hydro-Man
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 4: The Mutant Agenda
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 5: Mutants Revenge
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 6: Morbius
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 7: Enter the Punisher
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 8: Duel of the Hunters
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 11: Tablet of Time
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 12: Ravages of Time
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 9: Blade the Vampire Hunter
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 10: The Immortal Vampire
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 11: Tablet of Time
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 12: Ravages of Time
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 13: Shriek of the Vulture
Neogenic Nightmare Chapter 14: The Final Nightmare

Back for a second season, Spider-Man returns with an endearing, overarching story revolving around Spider-Man’s mutation causing him to begin losing his powers. Featuring cameos from an impressive array of Marvel heroes, Spider-Man’s second season is chock full of surprising, well written episodes. Although there are some re-used backgrounds and a couple of lacklustre episodes, Neogenic Nightmare is a more intricately developed story than the first season’s episodic format making for a much more absorbing watch.

The story begins with an explosive two part episode that sees Spider-Man (voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes) take on the infamous Insidious Six. With Rhino (Don Stark), Doctor Octopus (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), Shocker (Jim Cummings), Mysterio (Gregg Berger), Chameleon and Scorpion all going up against the web crawler at once, Spider-Man finds the odds stacked against him further through his mutation, causing his powers to fade. As the episodes progress, Spidey tries to find a cure for his condition  that sees him travel to the X mansion, battle the Punisher and even become entangled in the new feud between Silvermane (Jeff Corey) and Kingpin (Roscoe Lee Browne). Each singular episode does work as a stand-alone piece but ties into the overarching story that sees an ingenious solution to Spiderman’s mutation come to light in the climactic episode.

With more action than ever before, the episodes do feel a little overcrowded with numerous villains wrestling for screen time and a frenetic pace gripping large periods of the season. The romantic love triangles between Peter, Mary-Jane (Sara Ballantine), Morbius (Nick Jameson) and Felicia (Jennifer Hale) are explored in far more detail this year too with an interesting juxtaposition between Morbius’ mutation and Spider-Man’s forming the spine of this season’s issues.

The colourful art style from the first season returns again with some awkwardly rendered CGI of New York’s skyscrapers that are re-used a little too often throughout the series. Still, the action is explosively shot and manages to show off a variety of moves from the different villains to impressive effect. Although it would have been nice to see a broader range of animation rather than re-using the same chunks here and there, the series is still enjoyable and it doesn’t detract too much from the enjoyment.

With a more intricately told storyline and a series chock full of action and memorable encounters, the second season of Spider-Man improves over the first in every way. The personal life of Peter Parker is explored in much greater detail this time around too and mixed with the growing threat of his spider mutation, raises the stakes through vast periods of this series. The over-used CGI assets and a few average episodes do drag the season’s quality down a little but there’s enough here to confidently say Spider-Man has hit its stride with this animated iteration of the web-crawler.