Spider-Man TV (1967) - Season 3, Episode 1 (Story 1)

Background

This episode marks the beginning of the third season of the series. This is the first "new" episode since January of 1969. A very long wait in between episodes without a writers' strike to explain it.

Story 'The Winged Thing'

This episode is a piecemeal version of previous Vulture episodes from season 1. They mix up segments from "The Sky Is Falling" Spider-Man TV (1967) - Season 1, Episode 4 and "The Vulture's Prey" Spider-Man TV (1967) - Season 1, Episode 16. There was some slight editing performed to remove any specific references to other story-specific elements [Because that wouldn't make sense, would it? These guys are know for their attention to detail.] Perhaps there were a few dialog changes, I'm not going to check. I will assume they did.

The episode opens up with the Vulture robbing a penthouse and knocking Spider-Man off the roof. Spider-Man saves himself with a web parachute.

The Vulture issues a warning for everyone to stay off the streets. This doesn't sit well with Jonah who sends Peter out to take pictures of the Vulture.

Spider-Man's next encounter with the Vulture is at a construction site where they literally go through the same motions as before. Once again the building is wrecked.

The Air Force has developed a new missile that will take out the Vulture. Jonah sends Peter to cover it. The Vulture arrives and steals the missile, explaining what he plans to do afterward. This leads into the helicopter theft (that contains a device that will allow him to control animal behavior).

The next day the Vulture terrorizes the city with his army of vultures. Somewhere along the line Spider-Man attaches his neutralizer device on his head, turning the vultures against their master.

Back at the Daily Bugle, Jonah is amazed that Spider-Man returned the money. I have no idea where this came from, but there it is.

General Comments

This was inevitable. They've been getting away with reusing so much stuff that it should not come as a surprise that they literally reused episodes of the series.

The sad part is, this works at some level. It's almost believable up until the point where they have to bring in the vulture army. Then it quickly goes south. At the end they leave out a huge chunk of the story, i.e. the money that was returned. This was not mentioned at any point, so it leaves moderately attentive people scratching their heads in wonder.

Overall Rating

1/2 web. The remixed version of the Vulture episodes is just lame. I can't believe I'm saying this but it would have served them better if they made this a full-length episode. They cut too many corners at the end and as a result created a confusing mess out of two episodes that had no business being combined in the first place.

Instead of having a peanut-butter-and-chocolate level fusion, they had peanut-butter-and-celery. Not satisfying but at the very least it leaves an odd taste in your mouth.