Spectacular Spider-Man: the animated series #5-“Competition” Review

Completely Giant Sand-Monster free!

Credits

Written by Kevin Hopps

Directed by Troy Adomitis
Music by Lolita Ritmanis, Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion
Animation By Dongwoo animation
THE PLOT: Peter and Harry try out for the football team at Midtown. Meanwhile, the wacky scientists of the Big Man are hard at work on their new attempt at playing God codenamed: Sandman

LONG STORY SHORT: Peter beats the Sandman by what I can only assume can be defined as killing him, while purposely throwing the final football tryout so Harry can bask in his poularity glory. Gwen’s forgiven him though, so alls well that ends well.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a thoroughly enjoyable episode that was fun to watch from beginning to end, and I virtually have no problems with it. Okay, I know how boring that must sound, but really it shows how good and consistant this show is in terms of quality and entertainment. What made this fun for me was once again the sense of humanity brought to the characters, in this case the Sandman. This character was given more screen time than he has in the past, and because of that we got to see exactly the type of person he is. Granted, we weren’t given a whole lot. But at the end of the day Flint Marko in the show is really just a petty thief. And thats fine. He’s not especially dumb, he’s not insanely evil, and he’s not megalomaniacal. He just wants the next score, and there are more kinds of those types of criminals out there in real life than one might realize. If we go back to the comics, a large number of Spidey’s advisaries are lunatics, (Green Goblin), mad scientists, (Dr. Octopus) or dorks with a misplaced sense of pride (Kraven the Hunter, Morlun, the Puma, Mysterio). The Sandman doesn’t want revenge despite the fact that he’s been busted on many, many occasions by Spider-Man. He doesn’t want fame. He just wants money. And again, he’s not your typical dopey bad guy who can’t do long division. He made Spidey look bad when he pointed out that Spider-Man took him away from the wheel when they were fighting in the truck. I’m not saying Sandman’s especially great, but he’s an understandable charater. That makes him a more interesting villain to watch, and for Spider-Man to fight.