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Spider-Man Commentary: Let There Be Lightmaster

As I warned yesterday, today starts a run of silly Spider-Man stories that have nothing to do with BoM.

"S01E22 "Let There Be Lightmaster""  would be a filler episode in an animated continuity, and it's a filler episode here. I'm not comfortable saying that—surely every episode should be special, especially the stand-alone stories that don't have an extended arc to help support them—but it's true. "Let There Be Lightmaster" references the "Sinister Six" plot arc, and it exists in part to keep that plot arc relevant as the season reaches its conclusion, but it mostly exists as padding to separate the last multi-part plot arc from the one that comes next.

At least it's semi-original, being based on a comic book story and not an animated episode. Plot-wise, it somewhat tracks the comic that introduced the villain Lightmaster, so no prizes will be awarded for guessing the villain's real identity. It changes his motivations, though, to make them relevant to the animated continuity.

As for Tarantula, he gets a very different treatment in this story than he does the first couple of times he shows up in the comic books. Like "S01E07 "House of Sand" " , it is intended to have a Batman: The Animated Series kind of a vibe. It's about a fallen hero who is damaged but redeemed, and is meant to be a more somber episode—something that probably doesn't come through in the outline itself. I'm not sure how well a candy-colored superhero show like Marvel's Spider-Man could capture the grayscaled tone of a BTAS episode, but this is a stab at it.

There would be an image to go with it, but since yesterday WdC has decided I have a virus on my machine (though my scanners indicate I'm clean) and I can't even email images. I'll wait a day or two to see if the problem goes away (sometimes the WdC machinery gets gummed up) and try again.