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Close Adaptations

I don't have much to say about today's Spider-Man entry—"S01E05 "Ghost in the Machine"" —except that it is very closely adapted from an IRL episode. The big difference is the excision of the Symbiote, which played a big role in episodes 6 and 7 of the series and played a similarly big part in episode 8, "Stark Expo." But the Symbiote to me feels like too big an element to be accorded such a small part in the animated continuity, so I took it out, which meant I had to take it out of this episode, which I otherwise preferred to leave in my reimagined series. (Not because it's awesome, but because it's inoffensive and pretty good padding.)

Taking out the Symbiote meant having to fiddle with other elements. So Octavius gets a bigger role; the Kingpin makes an appearance; and Harry tries to be a hero only to be pre-empted by Spider-Man. But the Ghost and most of the other plot elements and developments are taken straight from the episode.

Oh, and Flash is toned town and made much less of a buffoon. In the IRL episode, he's the one who enters the baking-soda volcano.

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Yesterday involved some more mulling of plots for the second half of the first. I need to start writing again, though. "Mulling" is beginning to turn into procrastination, and I think I've got enough settled that the rest of the details can be worked out in the treatments.