Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

The Vampire Queen
Review and Media by Stu

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Episode #48 - The Vampire Queen
Original Airdate: May 17th, 1997

While hunting a vampire in Eastern Europe, Blade discovers that Morbius is still alive. Meanwhile, Mirium flies to New York to seek out the Neogenic Recombinator. Spider-Man, Black Cat, Morbius, Blade and others must try to stop Mirium before she turns everyone into vampires.

Credits:
Story By: John Semper and Sandy Fries
Written By: Sandy Fries
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, Nick Jameson as Morbius, Jim Cummings as The Shocker, Patrick Laborteaux as Flash Thompson, Oliver Muirhead as Whistler and Bob Bergen as Ned Leeds

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Review: And Morbius returns. Great. Season four had a lot of standalone episodes, and lacked any real kind of story arc to it. There was some great chemistry between Spider-Man and The Black Cat and it helped tie up a few nagging loose ends from the previous seasons, but overall, not a lot happened in season four. Partially, it's because the show kept bringing back characters that arguably didn't need another appearance, such as Kraven, and in this episode, Morbius and Blade.

I've always dug Blade, especially from his appearances here to the badass Wesley Snipes live-action movies. This episode dug into his origins a little more, and actually gave him a little more development than I was expecting. His mother, Miriam wasn't very interesting, and her role as the episode's main protagonist is a little underwhelming.

In Morbius' "Neogenic Nightmare" appearances, the thing I liked most about him was that his origins were tied directly to Spider-Man (his blood specifically), which gave Spider-Man a stake in what happened to his character. Unfortunately, most of this was completely lost along the way, starting with these Morbius episodes. The Neogenic Recombinator also now being able to magically create vampires came right out of left field. For a series that usually liked to add a little something extra to make it's stories unpredictable, it was a little disappointing. It's ending was a bit of a shocker, though, with The Black Cat just up and leaving. Poor Spidey, he had it rough this season. Of course, MJ returned in the next episode so it wasn't all bad for ol' Petey.

Not a bad episode, as it does move the series away from the vampire stuff, but it feel slike some of these latter episodes could have been better utilized.

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