Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

The Haunting of Mary Jane Watson
Review and Media by Stu

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Episode #50 - The Haunting of Mary Jane Watson
Original Airdate: July 19th, 1997

Mary Jane finally gets her big break in recreating the movie role made famous by an actress, named Miranda Wilson. But when Mary Jane starts hearing her father's voice, she finds herself trapped in the catacombs below Wonder Studios in the clutches of a vengeful Miranda. To save Mary Jane, Spidey must team up with one of his greatest enemies...Mysterio.

Credits:
Story By: John Semper
Written By: Gordon Kent
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)
Guest Starring: Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Saragota Ballantine as Mary Jane Watson, Ed Asner as J. Jonah Jameson, Roscoe Lee Brown as The Kingpin and Greg Berger as Mysterio/Quentin Beck.

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Review: This episode gets major bonus points simply because Mysterio is in it. Some of the Spider-Man writers (and video game developers) have attempted to turn The Master Of Illusion into something of a joke over the years, but here, like The Shocker, the crew did a great job of making Mysterio a cut above his comic book counterpart. Mysterio has always translated well to animation, and this version was quite clearly the best.

An above average episode for season four, this episode was certainly an odd one, filled with a lot of twists. A lot of it came as a surprise, especially the stuff with MJ's dad. It had a great little mystery going too, like why was Mysterio helping Spider-Man? As I said, I always liked Mysterio. I think he has a great gimmick, a very cool design and a brilliant voice - they really nailed him here.

The fact he died in at the end of the episode is a bit of a shocker. I believe this is the only time the show outright killed someone other than the MJ clone and Uncle Ben. Everyone else was sucked into another dimension or brought back. Mysterio died in the comics, but it was nothing like this. He was even replaced in The Insidious Six with The Vulture. I like that he was given genuine motivation this time other than simply killing Spider-Man.

So basically, Mysterio is awesome. All you really need to know!

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