‘PHANTOM FROM THE DEPTHS OF TIME’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This ‘Spider-Man’ episode is a little better than the previous one, but that’s not saying much. For one thing, I don’t know whether the episode takes place in an alternative dimension or an asteroid like it said. Things aren’t very clear by this point in the series and I’m guessing reality doesn’t count in this.

In the episode, on an island far away, Dr. Manta releases evil bug-like robots that go into its city to freeze and take away all its people. In fact, weren’t those evil bug-like robots in the previous episode? I’m sure the flying bat-like bird monsters in this episode were in the Molemen episodes. 😐

The people of the city get taken to Dr. Manta at his castle where they’re to work as his slaves. Manta also has a Frankenstein-like servant that can talk called Igor. He also put me in mind of another character called Condo in the ‘Doctor Who’ story ‘The Brain of Morbius’. He also has a funny big eye.

One of the slaves in this story sends out a secret distress call, which Spider-Man picks up by chance. He’s able to pick it up via his spider-sense. I don’t think that’s how Spidey’s spider-sense works with picking up secret distress calls. I think the makers of this show place Spidey’s spider-sense too highly.

Spidey goes to the Depths of Time city and its castle by travelling in his own version of the ‘Batmobile’ – the ‘Spidermobile’ if you like. I’m not even kidding. Spidey just picks up this vehicle from a New York dock to help him to fly to this Depths of Time city which he does manage to get to.

On his journey, Spidey has to battle a number of monsters before he gets to defeat Dr. Manta and Igor and set everyone free. Some of these monsters are created out of the rocks of this island by Dr. Manta, including a rhino-elephant like monster that attempts to pursue Spidey off from this big cliff.

I do think that Spidey gets to defeat Dr. Manta and Igor pretty easily, especially when he uses vehicles at his disposal to destroy the big monster at the end. I currently wonder if the Japanese ‘Spider-Man’ TV series or the live-action 1970s ‘Spider-Man’ series from the US is better than this. 😐

The episode concludes with Spidey saving the people of the Depths of Time island and returning home to New York in his ‘Spidermobile’. Wait! Wasn’t that destroyed upon his arrival to the island by the bug-like robots? How come it’s repaired quickly? Did Spidey repair it? It doesn’t make sense!

‘Phantoms From The Depths of Time’ rating – 5/10