Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

Six Forgotten Warriors, Chapter One
Review and Media by Stu

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Episode #54 - Six Forgotten Warriors, Chapter One
Original Airdate - September 19, 1997

Keane Marlow, an old friend of Uncle Ben, reappears in Aunt May's life and is introduced to Peter Parker. Peter discovers that his parents were involved in international espionage and sets out to investigate at the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Meanwhile, the Kingpin and Herbert Landon hire the Insidious Six to retrieve a mysterious item called the Doomsday Device. The first step of the plan: to break Chameleon out of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters!

Credits:
Written By: John Semper
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)
Guest Starring: Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Doctor Octopus, Jack Angel as Nick Fury, Jim Cummings as The Shocker, Richard Moll as The Scorpion), Don Stark as The Rhino, Alan Johnson as The Vulture, Roy Dotrice as Keene Marlow, Mira Furlan as Silver Sable and Rachel Davies as Agent X

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Review: This episode kicks off the "Six Forgotten Warriors" arc, one of the biggest arcs of the series. The arc was one of the more daring stories this show did, as a lot of it went into unexplored territory with Peter's parents and introducing a wealth of new characters.

The opening episode was a little slower than most of the episodes of this show. A lot of this was because it was simply setting up what was coming next, such as introducing Silver Sable and The Wildpack. They weren't really in this arc a lot, but with all the other characters, which were quite frankly a lot more interesting, it's easily forgivable. One of the more interesting points was the new Insidious Six line up. With Mysterio now dead, The Vulture has replaced him. I've never thought much of this version of The Vulture; he just never really stood out.

The fight in S.H.I.E.L.D. was pretty cool, but nothing too great. Fisk has attacked S.H.I.E.L.D. before in "The Black Cat," but thankfully, some very good storyboarding work here keeps it moving nicely. At this point in the series, the animators had finally learned to replace the backgrounds when using older animation. They didn't do it all the time and it was still noticeable, but it was a hell of a lot better. The new animation in the episode is reasonable, nothing too bad, but nothing to the standard of the first season.

The best scene in the episode, as often the case, involves J. Jonah Jameson. Ed Asner, his voice actor, once again steals the show. Him believing ridiculous claims that Spider-Man was heading to Russia in an attempt to take over the world was hilarious.

It was a little weird seeing Spidey in Russia, if only because of the different backgrounds. They'd been using the same scenes over and over since the show began, so it was refreshing to see something new for a change.

Overall, this episode is one of the weaker parts to the arc, but still, it proves entertaining and adequately sets up the rest of the story.

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