‘THE STING OF THE SCORPION’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

This episode features the first appearance of Mac Gargan a.k.a. the Scorpion in the series. Gargan is hired by J. Jonah Jameson to follow Peter Parker’s trail and discover his secret in taking good photos of Spider-Man. He’s soon recruited to transform and become the deadly Scorpion to destroy Spider-Man.

This is a fun episode to watch from ‘Spider-Man: The Animated Series’. It especially illustrates how Jameson despises Spider-Man so much. He justifies his reasons for it due the tragic loss of his wife. This episode also features the debut appearance of Professor Stillwell who creates the Scorpion villain.

Jameson soon realises the mistake he made when the Scorpion goes out of control in fighting Spider-Man and destroying New York. Eventually, Jameson gets kidnapped by the Scorpion before he and Spidey work together to defeat him. I liked that moment when Jameson still dislikes Spidey at the end.

The episode also features the first appearance of Felicia Hardy, one of Peter Parker’s love interests in the series. Felicia doesn’t seem particularly interested in Peter as he tries to ask her out on a date. There’s also the very first mention of Mary Jane Watson by Aunt May to Peter Parker in this episode.

I should mention that the transmission order of these ‘Spider-Man’ episodes is different to how they’re presented on the DVDs for the show’s first season. ‘The Sting of the Scorpion’ was shown as the sixth episode, not the second episode on TV. I’m going by how the DVD order works for Season 1 here.

Mac Gargan a.k.a. Scorpion’s character is intriguing as it gets developed in the story. Mac Gargan starts off being a wimp who hates being called names by Jameson. Once he’s the Scorpion, he still hates being called names and he goes green and angry once he’s using his scorpion stringer to sweep people aside.

The Scorpion hasn’t appeared in any ‘Spider-Man’ movies by the time of this review. But he has appeared in a number of ‘Spider-Man’ video games including the one for the first ‘Spider-Man’ movie with Tobey Maguire and the ‘Spider-Man’ PS4 game. Hopefully he will star in a ‘Spider-Man’ film soon.

‘The Sting of the Scorpion’ is a great action-packed episode where Spidey faces against a deadly opponent in the Scorpion. I enjoyed how Jameson’s character gets developed in the episode. It was also intriguing to see how Peter Parker’s relationship with Felicia Hardy got touched upon in the story.

‘The Sting of the Scorpion’ rating – 8/10