‘MENACE FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This ‘Spider-Man’ episode has our webslinger venturing deep underground in New York when banks get stolen under people’s feet. I will admit, it’s nice to have Spidey out of New York City for a change and we don’t have to put up with him swinging around the city with so many swinging shots shown.

But it gets annoying when the swinging shots are now underground instead. Some of the swinging shots don’t make sense. I’m getting a sense that the animators were reusing many of the swinging shots featured for the ‘Spider-Man’ series because they didn’t have time to animate anything else. 😐

Also, it takes too long for Spider-Man to find the people of the stolen banks trapped by their captors, the Mole Men. I’m guessing the stories were originally meant to be 15 minutes but they were extended to 30 minutes instead. I wish that more story elements got focused instead of the action. 🙁

But yeah, the ‘villains’ of this story happen to be the Mole Men. They’ve been in the Marvel comics; albeit they debuted in ‘Fantastic Four’ #22 in January 1964 and they were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They have been variations of these Mole Men over the years, also known as the Moloids.

Spider-Man also fought against a Goliath-like monster underneath New York called Golem. So wait…Golem. That could easily sound like Gollum. Gosh, I wish this episode was rewritten where Spidey had to have a riddles game with Gollum as in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ film. 😀

The leader of the Mole Men is of course…Mole Man. And he happens to be Mugs Reilly, who was a criminal who escaped from jail. I’m mentioning this to you because the episode didn’t make it clear as far as I’m concerned. I will give this episode credit. At least Mole Man in this has a secret identity.

I wish other Spider-Man villains like Doc Ock, the Green Goblin, Electro and the Vulture had that opportunity. Mysterio was revealed to have a secret identity. And he wasn’t Quentin Beck! Also, Mugs Reilly happens to be green-skinned. Again, I’m sensing a pattern with these Season 2 villains. 😐

Are Master Technician, Skymaster and Mugs Reilly related to the Hulk at all? J. Jonah Jameson appears in this episode as well as Betty Brant, who has strange hand movements at the start. Peter Parker also seems to be sleeping at first when Betty Brant’s talking to him. Wake up, Peter Parker! 😀

‘Menace From The Bottom of the World’ rating – 5/10