Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

The Mutant Agenda
Review by Stu, Media by James Harvey

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Episode #17 - The Mutant Agenda
Original Airdate: September 30th, 1995

Spider-Man's progressing neogenic mutation is making him ill. He approaches Professor Charles Xavier to help him find a cure. In doing so he meets the X-Men but is disappointed to learn that Xavier does not 'cure' mutancy, and only teaches mutants how to control their abilities. But before Spider-Man leaves, Beast tells him about Dr. Herbert Landon who is working on a cure for mutants. Desperate for a cure, Peter Parker attends one of Landon's demonstrations only to find himself in a death match between himself, Wolverine and the Hobgoblin!

Credits:
Story By: John Semper and J.M Dematties
Written By: Micheal Edens
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, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, Alyson Court as Jubilee, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Lenore Zann as Rogue, Norm Spencer as Cyclops, Chris Potter as Gambit, Catherine Disher as Jean Grey, Cedric Smith as Professor Xavier, George Buza as Beast, David Warner as Herbert Landon, Mark Hamill as The Hobgoblin, Roscoe Lee Browne as Kingpin, Maxwell Caulfield as Alistair Smthye, Laurie O'Brien as Genevieve and Brian Keith as Uncle Ben

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Review: When this first aired, I remember thinking how insanely cool it was. These where the days before guest stars in shows where common, so, it was nice to see Spidey and The X-Men meet each other. What was even better was, it established continuity between two of my favorite cartoons. I remember seeing a preview that aired a few hours before the episode started and seeing Spidey on the floor, and the camera panning up to The Sentinal. I was just shocked. A Sentinal! On Spider-Man! Untold.

For me, the beginning was the highlight. As a fan of the X-Men cartoon, one of the main things I liked was the danger room. It wasn't used as much as I'd have liked in their cartoon so I was pleased to see it here. It also gave Spidey the opportunity to fight some of my favorite X-Men villains, The Sentinels, without having to explain why. The opening chase sequence through the Mansion was pretty cool too. Some of the X-Men's designs didn't translate over to Spider-Man too well. Beast and Gambit looked terrible due to this show's use of black (they usually replaced it with blue, which looked too damn weird on Gambit!). They also couldn't colour Cyclops correctly in any of his shots at all, it seems.

The main plot, with the Landon foundation was a nice way to link their worlds. It was especially cool that Beast and Wolverine where the main focus of the episode, because they're my favorite X-Men, and Beast was missing from most of the first season of X-Men, because he was in jail, so it was great to see him in a bigger role.

This episode get bonus points because it brought back The Hobgoblin, in a useful way that remained true the brilliant character introduced in his own two-part episode. He was his usual scheming little self, after everyone else's money. Considering they had a helluva lot of characters here (just look at the cast list!) I'm glad to see the villains weren't forgotten about. I'm glad that they managed to get a small scene with Peter in too, and thought it was great to see Uncle Ben again. The late Brian Keith gave a great performance as Uncle Ben.

Overall, as most of the two-part stories did in this show, it set up the climax nicely. Bring on the conclusion!

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