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Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Episode Review

Episode #108, "Law of the Jungle"
Original Episode Airdate - July 18th 2003
Peter Parker earns much needed cash by working at the lab for his professor, Doc Connors, a world class scientist. Doc Connors is studying reptilian DNA for its regenerative powers. This is extremely important to Doc Connors because he lost an arm in an industrial accident at Oscorp years before. Meanwhile, as the year anniversary of the death of Norman Osborn approaches, Harry Osborn reluctantly asks Peter and Mary-Jane Watson for help sorting through his father's personal effects. Back at the lab, Doc Connors secretively injects himself with reptilian DNA that not only stimulates his arm stump to grow again but also has the undesired effect of slowly changing Doc Connors into an angry, vengeful Lizard. As the serum effects the Doc's brain, he begins seeking revenge on those who have harmed him and next on his list is Harry unless Spider-Man is able to stop his beloved professor in time.

Credits
Screenplay By: Greg Johnson
Directed By: Alan Caldwell
Music By: John Digweed, Nick Muir and William Anderson
Animation By: Mainframe
Guest Starring: Rob Zombie as Doc Conners/The Lizard and Ed Asner as Officer Barr.

Review and Media by Stu::
After seeing the 'On the next episode of Spider-Man clip from The Party, I was eagerly anticipating this one, despite the fact the clip was only a few mere seconds in length, the episode looked stunning. Just that shot of Lizard leaping on Spider-Man and the two of them falling from the top of the building had me pumped for this one. Luckily, I only had to wait a day! With the possible exception of the two-part finale, "Mind Games," this episode is arguably the highlight of the entire series.

One of the major plus points for me, is that this is probably the only episode of the series which feels like it the show is a spin off from the movie. The main focus of the story is so closely entwined with the original motion picture that it felt like a sequel of sorts, which most of the episodes lacked, in my opinion

One of the weirder complaints of the series was how fast Peter changed to Spider-Man. I personally dug a few of them, but some of them were just daft, and lacked any logic (the morphing scene in "Mind Games" being the prime example). This episode had the coolest changing sequence in the police station room, with thge light flashing on and off. It's still a little too fast, but damn, it was a nice visual.

As seen in the previously mentioned police station an unusually dark fight takes place, which was actually pretty creepy for a cartoon in all honesty. Scary moments aren't usually done well in animation in my opinion as if you do it too well; you've scared the censors and the soccer moms start protesting. One day these so called "protectors" will learn how to use a bloody remote.

Again, much to my disappointment this time, we see the villain dealt with in a permanent way. If this show has one flaw it's that the villains are too 'villain of the week' and there's no real theme to the villains. I would have loved to see them hype up a big villain and use him in the finale, but nope, most of the villains come and die within the half hour. Ironically, the returning villains episodes are a step above the introduction ones.

The fight scenes were absolutely astonishing. I wasn't too fond of The Lizard's look when I saw the image online, but damn, he truly was a great, creepy villain. Whilst a lot of this episode seems to do a great job building Harry up into a supervillian which we have no idea if he'll become or not, it's still arguably his greatest episode.

Whilst one, if not the major aspects of this show was the love triangle between Spider-Man, Peter and Mary Jane, a lot of the time, it simply felt too forced (the ending of "Heroes and Villains") , or was tedious to watch ("Head Over Heels"), here it was portrayed perfectly. This is before Indy came into the mix, and well confused everything. This is also after the series has been viewed in correct (DVD) order, so the show actually makes sense. The kiss at the end wasn't a cheap ploy that was completely inconsequential. It was actually a great little scene and gave a dark episode a nice ending for our hero.

Screenshots