Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

Tombstone
Review by Stu, Media by Kolbar

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Episode #34 - Tombstone
Original Airdate: October 12th, 1996

Robbie Robertson is losing his son Randy Robertson to a gang led by Tombstone, a thug that Robbie has history with. Tombstone promises to release Robbie's son if he kills Alicia Silvermane's news story.

Credits:
Story By: John Semper and Mark Hoffmeier
Written By: Sean Catherine Derek
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, Ed Albert as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Nick Jameson as Richard Fisk and Roscoe Lee Brown as The Kingpin

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Review: The first thing that is noticeable is that this episode uses an extraordinary amount of repeated animation, most of which only serves to confuse the viewers. A good example would be when Spider-Man is scaling a wall, then is crawling along a pipe in the sewer, then is seen scaling the wall again. The odd scene of Spidey swinging is almost acceptable, but to the model and backkground are completly different from each! If you're going to animate on the cheap, at least have the decency to change backgrounds so you don't confuse the hell out of your viewers. Even the 1960's Spider-Man animated series wasn't as bad as this!

The animation and music took a dip in quality from the previous episode. In actual fact, the animation in most episodes wasn't too bad, but it was so awfully put together, it didn't really make a difference. It's incredibly distracting to see Spider-Man swing fast, using first season animation, then at a snail like pace with season two animation, and season three animation mixed somewhere in between. The constantly changing colours and light sources didn't work in the shows favour either. The best thing to do? Find one damn model, keep the colour the same and use that! It's not rocket science!

The story of the episode is a very good, and spotlighted Robbie Robertson, who was always seen as the opposite of J. Jonah Jameson. It also told us of his connection with Tombstone, who was a hit man for Silvermaine in a previous episode, and was in need of some good developmen, as he was falling under the 'lowly thug' banner, which this show already had far too many off. I've always liked seeing the villains origins, and this was no exception. If they have no motivation to commit crimes I find them to a waste of time, most of the time. The Batman serves as a fine example.

Aside from how incredibly annoying Randy Robertson was, and how Madame Web had to save the day again, this episode served it's purpose. Multi part stories are fun but it's nice to just sit back for 20 minutes and enjoy a good old-fashioned superhero cartoon.

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