Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

Secret Wars, Part 2: The Gauntlet Of The Red Skull
Review and Media by Stu

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Episode #62 - Secret Wars, Part 2: The Gauntlet Of The Red Skull
Original Airdate - November 14th, 1997

Spider-Man, along with Iron Man, Captain America, the Lizard and Storm teleport the Black Cat to the alien planet where she reveals her origin. As the villains grow stronger, Spider-Man and his new allies gather the rebels of the alien planet and prepare for an all out attack against the evil forces plaguing the planet!

Credits
Written By: Virginia Roth
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)
Guest Starring: Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man, Robert Hayes as Iron Man, Joan Lee as Madame Web, Earl Boen as The Beyonder, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Doctor Octopus, Earl Boen as The Red Skull, Maxwell Caulfield as Allistair Smythe, David Hyter as Captain America, Iona Morris as Storm and Joseph Campanella as The Lizard

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Review:
Whilst it's true that part two is easily the weakest part of "Secret Wars," it's still entertaining. One odd point is the beginning of the episode with The Black Cat, Blade and Morbius. I wasn't expecting to see them here (the voices must have already cost a fortune!), but thankfully the extended cameos were important to the plot, as Spider-Man used the last of the machine's power to transport The Black Cat to Battleworld in order to help him and his team.

Speaking of The Black Cat, she does get a neat, small scene with Captain America while they are heading to their next battle. There's a neat discussion between the two and their connecton with the Super-Soldier Serum. That said, it was a little annoying to sit through an extended retelling of her origin. For an episode which bridged the beginning and ending of arguably the biggest story the series, I don't see the point of telling that story again, especially as time is limited. Surely the time could've used on something anything.

Despite the fact there was a hell of a lot of characters to animate, this was a very nice looking episode, as were all "Secret Wars" episodes. The designs of the aliens were a little generic and tall robots built by Alister Smythe seemed as generic as they could possibly be. As much as I love this show, I don't think I could stomach more Slayer-bots. The original Spider Slayers were the best, the rest of them were dull, generic robots, most of them defeated far too easily.

The guest stars were still handled pretty well, specifically Iron Man, who revealed a little about himself. Despite the fact I'd seen all of season one of his own 1990s animated series at the time, I knew relatively little about him, as none of the writers of his show bothered to develop him. I was a little disappointed we didn't see the Fantastic Four, but they were basically the stars of the next episodes, so it made for it.

Spideybeing the leader is a little unnatural for the character, but it works so well here, even with Captain America's logical arguments and actually added some growth tot he character so late in his own show. Whilst this episode did waste some of its runtime, and was nowhere near as entertaining as part one or it's conclusion, it was still an entertaining endeavour.



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