‘NEPTUNE’S NOSE CONE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

I know I said the Season 1 episodes are better than the Season 2 episodes, but they really are. At least they had proper Spider-Man villains from the comics for our hero to fight against. It’s been a while since we had a proper Spider-Man villain in the series. All we’ve had so far are the green ones.

In ‘Neptune’s Nose Cone’, J. Jonah Jameson sends Peter Parker to the South Pole to get pictures of a lunar model that crashed back down to Earth earlier. And it’s nice to see J. Jonah Jameson again in the series. I’ve missed seeing him after a very long absence. I wonder where Betty Brant is though. 😐

Peter gets sent along with a pilot called Penny Jones. And yes, I know they couldn’t use Betty Brant since she’s not a pilot and yes, it is good that we have a female pilot in a 1960s cartoon show as this. But I am baffled as to why they didn’t make much use of Peter and Betty’s relationship in the series.

You could’ve had a male or female pilot in the episode and he or she could’ve got killed whilst Peter went off to rescue Betty Brant. At least I would feel something for Betty being jeopardy rather than Penny being in jeopardy. I do not know who she was and it is likely that this is her only episode here.

Backtracking a bit, but when did Peter become a photographer at the Daily Bugle? Last time in Season 2, he was a copyboy in ‘King Pinned’. I know these Season 2 episodes are building up to the Season 1 episodes set afterwards, but I wonder whether we missed Peter becoming a photographer.

Anyway, after crashing the plane they were in, Penny gets captured by the natives – who happen to be green-skinned. I know I keep going on, but this is getting ridiculous! Why do the villains in these ‘Spider-Man’ episodes for Season 2 happen to be green? The villains in Season 1 had more variety! 😐

Eventually, Peter Parker must get Penny back as Spider-Man. There’s a lot of swinging scenes as per usual with Spider-Man in these Season 2 episodes. There’s a point where Spidey fights a monster in the shadows. I did wonder whether that was the Garm from the ‘Doctor Who’ adventure ‘Terminus’.

Gosh, that would’ve been so much more interesting. But no! It ends up being a giant insect-like creature – green-skinned, I might – with red table tennis bats for eyes! Eventually, Spidey manages to save Penny from the natives and are helped rather too easily by the natives in returning back home.

‘Neptune’s Nose Cone’ rating – 5/10