Episode Review - One is the Loneliest Number
Review and Media by Stu

Episode #11 - One is the Loneliest Number
Original Airdate - March 17th, 2001
Spider-Man faces one of the gravest challenges of his life when he discovers that Eddie Brock and his Symbiote have been separated. Instead of celebrating the end of Venom, Spidey must face off against Carnage and re-create his toughest foe...or Brock will die.

Credits
Written By: Larry Brody, Mark Hoffmeier
Directed By: Patrick Archibald

Review:
The show finally makes use of Venom and Carnage, without having them babble on and on about the Synobtic (without actually explaining it of course!) and gives us the best episode of the series! The episode did get a little confusing, though. It features a very cool flashback to Spider-Man: The Animated Series's "The Alien Costume," but then makes some creative decisions and rewrites what happened to both Venom and Carnage in that series. Despite how the show is sometimes billed, this episode supports the argument that it just might not be. It was super cool to see the black suit again, though! I love that costume, and am always happy to see it pop again, whether it be in the comics, or the cartoons.

I realize there was no doubt a pressure to use Venom and Carnage, as they were the most popular Spidey villains back when the show was in production, but pairing them together was a dosn't work entirely well. I know I'm probably in the minority with this, but I genuinely like Venom and Carnage. Their early appearances in The Amazing Spider-Man are some of my favourite comics ever, with The Amazing Spider-Man #375 probably being one of if not my absolute favourites and here ... well, they aren't treated the best. Their designs are bizarre and a little off-putting (why is Carnage so skinny?), their voices are lame, and there new morphing powers are ridiculous. Their motivation, to bring about the Synobtic, is completely baffling, as no one ever bothered to explain exactly what it was, making both of them completely shallow and useless.

The undoubted highlight of the episode, and perhaps the entire series, is the short scene in which Spider-Man once again dons his black costume. It was actually a pretty cool looking suit, and not at all like Venom's laughable design. Dark, sleek and easy to animate - simple yet brilliant at the same time. It doesn't look as cool as it did in Spider-Man: The Animated Series (what does?) but it's cool all the same.

Not bad, overall. Not bad at all. It's not brilliant, but come on, at this point in the show, no one was expecting it to be.

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