I'll admit it's got its flaws but I remember first watching this in the 90s and thinking it was awesome how everyone had crossed over like that. Was still a fairly new concept to me at that point. And honestly, they get points for trying
While your critiques are valid and offer intriguing thoughts, I actually still really enjoy this saga and season 5 as a whole. I just always feel good watching it.
Reason 4 why Black Cat's here: In this series, she's actually juiced up with a version of Cap's Super Soldier formula, so Spidey basically picked Cap twice
I had never read the Secret Wars comics before I saw the 3 parter as a kid, so I didn't mind the character swaps, or the cramming of a longer story into such a short time. I do agree, I wish we had the Hulk instead of the Lizard, given how much I love Neal McDonaugh and Lou Ferrigno in their animated series, but they had to pick their battles at the time when it came to studio meddling.
I love the secret wars saga if I’m being honest the lizard king episode should be an inept toon I mean Peter just revealed his identity to mj and proposed to her and then bam lizards in a gladiator arena I hate this episode it’s fucking stupid it would work if it was from the 60’s cartoon but it feels so out of place in the 90’s cartoon at least this has some interinteresting stuff in it
@ yeah that’s a bit stupid but I consider it a guilty pleasure the lizard being a a ruler to a bunch of gladiator lizards and having to be saved by mj and Connor’s wife is just dumb
Does the episode involve a tablet? I have an audio book called "forever young" where silvermane gets reverted to a child and is warring over the tablet that can fix him with the Kingpin. Its pretty cool . Graphicaudio literally has some if the best comicbook audio books that you will ever hear. They have secret wars and its as faithful to the comics as they could be. Full cast of voice actors and everything. Def worth a listen if you like comic books. They have DC and Marvel books. Civil War, Planet Hulk. Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, 52, Avengers Vs Xmen, Venom: Lethal Protector, etc. I have them all and they are ALL great.
If it helps, i do like blade's character development. He hates the idea of him teaming up with morbius and black cat, but is later more civil and meshes well as a team with them. Also, 90s animated spiderman is the only best era for morbius.
If the MCU makes a Secret Wars with Doctor Doom, what if they have Miles Teller come back as Reed Richards like in the Fan4stic flop, but this time make him the main villain known as The Maker!
Good video. I still enjoy it as a kid, though I can see the criticisms it has. I loved that speech Spider-Man gave to doom and thought it was cool seeing him lead the heroes. It's ok not perfect, but I still have fond memories of it
If you're going to only have one X-Man, Storm is top tier choice followed by Jean. Wolverine is a strict _maybe_ if you've got a second or third slot, since extreme toughness and melee combat skills are much easier to come by than bombastic magic that Storm and Jean bring.
My father collected comics and gave them to me to learn to read. Secret Wars was my version of One-Fish-Two-Fish, Red-Fish-Blue-Fish. So yeah, I was disappointed in this episode when I saw it. But it wasn't terrible, just... disappointing. Once again, licensing screws over narratives. That said, I will accept Curt Connors over Bruce Banner any day.
Personally I think Venom should have come back instead of The Lizard, Secret Wars was Venom’s debut in the comics and in The Lizard King episode it implied a permanent cure for the lizard was used which it was so it makes no sense for Curt to be The Lizard again. Also it would be a good way to explore Venom’s redemption arc he had in Season 3 and show he didn’t die after being sent to the dark dimension. He could even tease Peter and Felicia like he probably would. I also think that maybe The Beyonder would send Eddie back to earth instead of the dark dimension either of his own volition or Peter asks him to and it would conclude Venom’s story. Maybe if we got more seasons it would lead to Maximum Carnage.
This was spectacular in the day. It still is to me. Great review. I still feel the epic ness of it with the voice actors of Spider-Man and whoever did the voice of the beyonder. I think this beyonder is what the MCU should aim for in the movie. Also do you plan to the Spider-verse episodes of this series? If so there is a book (I haven’t read due the cost) that tells us how Pete/Spider-Man wraps up the lost MJ plot, which would have been the final episodes. Had the 65 rule not been in place.
Great review! It is a real shame that they had to limit this arc to just three episodes, but Semper likely did the best he could with his many limitations. I am looking forward to seeing what bevomes of the Secret Wars movie, and even though I know that movie will mainly be based on the 2015 version, I do hope they find a way to bring in elements of the original as well. By the way, just out of curiosity, are we still going to get the fourth part of the Look Back at Star Wars animated? It has been a few months and I am looking forward to hearing him talk about the Siege of Mandalore.
I get the episode where Spider-Man Gets a Bear Hug, “Like A Bear!” Would be considered bad. But Secret Wars? Out of all the bad Spider-Man TAS episodes, you picked the second to last story arc.
Partners is even worse than the Secret War saga. Seriously, Baby Silvermane feels out of place for a '90s Spiderman cartoon. Anyway FUN FACT: Mr. Sinister was supposed to be one of the villains, but he was scrapped for the same reason as the other X-Men.
My only complaint is that the animation makes ben grim look off to most of the characters having different voices. Yet storm kept her voice. Ben was so out of character too. If you watched the season 2 fantastic 4 series finale and watched this saga its pretty character assassination
Please Don't get mad but I actually like these episodes yes I am aware of their flaws but There are few things more exciting than seeing a group of your favorite superheroes tackle your favorite supervillains. It’s an exciting break from the tragedy that preceded it and a perfectly colorful penultimate story-arc that elegantly leads into the finale.
It’s weird that Marvel Studios took a storyline that was 6 issues long while keeping some of the basic plot elements of it and yet still made an excellent movie out of it and yet this cartoon couldn’t do that. I’ll wait for Avengers Secret Wars to come out, thanks
Hate to be one of those obnoxious nitpickers but there are a couple of points you got wrong in this review Erod. - For starters, the 65 Episode Syndication Rule for cartoons in the 90s was NOT a 100% strict rule put in place a cartoon couldn't break. There were several shows that were popular in terms of views and merch that extended past the standard 65 set where more episodes were ordered. That includes Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Batman The Animated Series and even X-Men The Animated Series. And yeah some shows sadly mucked up later seasons (Goliath Chronicles and X-MEN TAS final season) but they could still have them. Honestly the big reason Spider Man TAS didn't was ANOTHER point you brought up in this review; this was during the era Marvel was going Bankrupt and thus not only having to sell out a lot of their assests but also cancel a lot of their ongoing productions with only scraps of series airing for a couple more years on Fox Kids before that era of Marvel Animated TV ended. - Another thing is you said "throughout season 5 Madam Web was showing up and mentoring Spidey hinting at some great destiny he had to fufill which was this" which yeah that's wrong too. Madame Web first showed up in season 3 "Make a Wish" episode and for THREE seasons has been constantly popping up here and there to hint at Spider Man's big destiny she's preparing him for which is the finale two parter involving aspects of the Clone Saga and FIRST useage of the Spider-Verse concept as even Secret Wars was just a test to show Pete needing to step up as a leader against other heroes for the mission he'd be sent on. As for this 3 parter like most of Spider Man TAS I watched this as a kid and loved it. Like even though as a kid I think I caught a lot of this out of order only first seeing the later half of the first episode then the end of the third and only fully seeing them and the second one later but I did wind up catching this one in full. And yeah still enjoy it. I do feel Erod's right in pointing out some jankier elements like Ben Grimm's characterization (I get a feeling the TAS team were giving him more Wolverine's role from Secret Wars but like that makes sense for Wolverine not for The Thing) the "real" reason Spidey wanted Black Cat back (BTW it does make sense Black Cat wouldn't fully know who Cap is because in Spiderman TAS Cap was literally trapped in a time stream clash with Red Skull for over 50 years and I think really was only briefly disengaged from that for two stories in Spider Man TAS; this and the secret forgotten warriors conclusion. Plus in this continuity Black Cat has a variant of the super soldier serum to explain her powers thus why she would bond with Steve. BTW Pete's a jerko also bringing her back because technically his partner Mary Jane is out there in the multi verse and he had this big heart felt sadness seeing her clone die two episodes previously so him macking on Black Cat now is messed up), how easy Smythe is portrayed at switching sides and how there's a big difference between how Doom got Beyonder's powers in the original Secret Wars compared to here. Which honestly lies at the heart as to why this is a weaker story then the original; Even if allowed to be as big as the comic, it always had to have the focus ON Spider Man which don't work for events like these. What made Secret Wars the comic so compelling is getting to juggle all of these different heroes and villains and seeing how they'd interact with one another. Like Molecule Man messing with Ultron so Galactus would take him out; She Hulk trashing the Wrecking Crew; Magneto trying to flirt with The Wasp as Janet plays along to figure out what Magneto's end game is; and yeah a big uber epic battle between Doom and the Beyonder which is how Doom GOT his powers. Like the comic not only had the time but the scope to play with all of these established characters which is how you TELL these kind of stories. The MCU Proves it can do that too because since it set up films introducing the heroes you can just have the Avengers movies be about the interactions and the higher stakes and feel satisifed. Which is how stuff like Justice League or Avengers Earth's Mighties heroes works as well. But the problem is this 3 parter though taking characters and heroes from other shows, STILL has Spidey as the sole focus above all else. Thus he's the leader who figures out how to stop the forms and behind foiling Red Skull and Octopus's team up and has to be the one to make the speech to Doom. Yeah Ben Grimm I guess did stop Doom in the end but it was still a story told mostly just from Spidery's perspective which doesn't work for these event stories. Like with Events it needs to be either from the main villain driving things or from the heroes trying to stop them but just having Spidey around lessens the scope in a pretty lame way. Speaking of pretty lame..... that's actually NOT what I think of "The Eggbaby" but I know other people do and get why it's been asked to cover in this series of yours.
I disagree with the series getting worse at the last season, the stories got better and we had more multi part episodes that felt more epic and serialized, i really don't think I can even believe your takes because this show has great quality
I agree that this show could be corny and goofy at times, but I feel X-Men was just as guilty of those things. You admitted as much in your honest review of it in 2010.
I'll admit it's got its flaws but I remember first watching this in the 90s and thinking it was awesome how everyone had crossed over like that. Was still a fairly new concept to me at that point. And honestly, they get points for trying
While your critiques are valid and offer intriguing thoughts, I actually still really enjoy this saga and season 5 as a whole. I just always feel good watching it.
I love how fair and entertaining InepTTooons is. Your reviews are entertaining and interesting.
Killer Croc: it wasn’t even that big of a rock…
Dude it's so great to see you still making content
The best way to describe this episode: It's good... but could be better.
My work week begins and so does my marathon. Thanks for making this vid man. Starting it off right 🙏🤩
I am definitely enjoying InepTToons! Great work, ERod!
Maybe I’m alone in this, but I genuinely loved the Secret Wars episodes of Spider-Man. They’re some of my favorite episodes of the show.
Not alone, I love them too
Too bad most of the characters are voiced by different actors And look kinda different
Reason 4 why Black Cat's here: In this series, she's actually juiced up with a version of Cap's Super Soldier formula, so Spidey basically picked Cap twice
I had never read the Secret Wars comics before I saw the 3 parter as a kid, so I didn't mind the character swaps, or the cramming of a longer story into such a short time. I do agree, I wish we had the Hulk instead of the Lizard, given how much I love Neal McDonaugh and Lou Ferrigno in their animated series, but they had to pick their battles at the time when it came to studio meddling.
I love the secret wars saga if I’m being honest the lizard king episode should be an inept toon I mean Peter just revealed his identity to mj and proposed to her and then bam lizards in a gladiator arena I hate this episode it’s fucking stupid it would work if it was from the 60’s cartoon but it feels so out of place in the 90’s cartoon at least this has some interinteresting stuff in it
Don't forget Partners. Another dumb episode where Spiderman and Black Cat were captured by Baby Silvermane.
@ yeah that’s a bit stupid but I consider it a guilty pleasure the lizard being a a ruler to a bunch of gladiator lizards and having to be saved by mj and Connor’s wife is just dumb
Does the episode involve a tablet? I have an audio book called "forever young" where silvermane gets reverted to a child and is warring over the tablet that can fix him with the Kingpin. Its pretty cool . Graphicaudio literally has some if the best comicbook audio books that you will ever hear. They have secret wars and its as faithful to the comics as they could be. Full cast of voice actors and everything. Def worth a listen if you like comic books. They have DC and Marvel books. Civil War, Planet Hulk. Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, 52, Avengers Vs Xmen, Venom: Lethal Protector, etc. I have them all and they are ALL great.
I remember watching this once so many years ago on Disney and i thought it was pretty good. I had no context for what the comic was I was a young kid
If it helps, i do like blade's character development. He hates the idea of him teaming up with morbius and black cat, but is later more civil and meshes well as a team with them. Also, 90s animated spiderman is the only best era for morbius.
Secret War Of The Ooze!
"Beneath one hundred and fifty billion tons, stands the Lizard... And he's not happy!"
If the MCU makes a Secret Wars with Doctor Doom, what if they have Miles Teller come back as Reed Richards like in the Fan4stic flop, but this time make him the main villain known as The Maker!
Good video. I still enjoy it as a kid, though I can see the criticisms it has. I loved that speech Spider-Man gave to doom and thought it was cool seeing him lead the heroes. It's ok not perfect, but I still have fond memories of it
I thought the episodes were very cool as a kid. Given the circumstances the creative tean were under, I think they really rose to the occasion.
If you're going to only have one X-Man, Storm is top tier choice followed by Jean. Wolverine is a strict _maybe_ if you've got a second or third slot, since extreme toughness and melee combat skills are much easier to come by than bombastic magic that Storm and Jean bring.
The creators maybe just wanted to wrsp it up quickly
My father collected comics and gave them to me to learn to read. Secret Wars was my version of One-Fish-Two-Fish, Red-Fish-Blue-Fish.
So yeah, I was disappointed in this episode when I saw it. But it wasn't terrible, just... disappointing.
Once again, licensing screws over narratives. That said, I will accept Curt Connors over Bruce Banner any day.
Personally I think Venom should have come back instead of The Lizard, Secret Wars was Venom’s debut in the comics and in The Lizard King episode it implied a permanent cure for the lizard was used which it was so it makes no sense for Curt to be The Lizard again. Also it would be a good way to explore Venom’s redemption arc he had in Season 3 and show he didn’t die after being sent to the dark dimension. He could even tease Peter and Felicia like he probably would. I also think that maybe The Beyonder would send Eddie back to earth instead of the dark dimension either of his own volition or Peter asks him to and it would conclude Venom’s story. Maybe if we got more seasons it would lead to Maximum Carnage.
Honestly if the chess board became a reality id buy it
This was spectacular in the day. It still is to me. Great review. I still feel the epic ness of it with the voice actors of Spider-Man and whoever did the voice of the beyonder. I think this beyonder is what the MCU should aim for in the movie. Also do you plan to the Spider-verse episodes of this series? If so there is a book (I haven’t read due the cost) that tells us how Pete/Spider-Man wraps up the lost MJ plot, which would have been the final episodes. Had the 65 rule not been in place.
Great review! It is a real shame that they had to limit this arc to just three episodes, but Semper likely did the best he could with his many limitations. I am looking forward to seeing what bevomes of the Secret Wars movie, and even though I know that movie will mainly be based on the 2015 version, I do hope they find a way to bring in elements of the original as well.
By the way, just out of curiosity, are we still going to get the fourth part of the Look Back at Star Wars animated? It has been a few months and I am looking forward to hearing him talk about the Siege of Mandalore.
I get the episode where Spider-Man Gets a Bear Hug, “Like A Bear!” Would be considered bad. But Secret Wars? Out of all the bad Spider-Man TAS episodes, you picked the second to last story arc.
Man whoever wrote this really hated The Thing
ERod, can you do an InepTToons on the Avengers EMH episode, Yellowjacket.
I'll wait for the movie.
Partners is even worse than the Secret War saga. Seriously, Baby Silvermane feels out of place for a '90s Spiderman cartoon.
Anyway FUN FACT: Mr. Sinister was supposed to be one of the villains, but he was scrapped for the same reason as the other X-Men.
Also the og voice actors of the 90s fantastic 4 cartoon was suspose to reprise their roles but jr didn't like the voices
My only complaint is that the animation makes ben grim look off to most of the characters having different voices. Yet storm kept her voice. Ben was so out of character too. If you watched the season 2 fantastic 4 series finale and watched this saga its pretty character assassination
New Sub
Please Don't get mad but I actually like these episodes yes I am aware of their flaws but There are few things more exciting than seeing a group of your favorite superheroes tackle your favorite supervillains. It’s an exciting break from the tragedy that preceded it and a perfectly colorful penultimate story-arc that elegantly leads into the finale.
Personally, I feel "Rocket Racer" would have been a better pick for a bad/weird episode of the show.
It’s weird that Marvel Studios took a storyline that was 6 issues long while keeping some of the basic plot elements of it and yet still made an excellent movie out of it and yet this cartoon couldn’t do that. I’ll wait for Avengers Secret Wars to come out, thanks
it was called marvel animation or marvel entertainment before
marvel studios didnt start till iron man
Hate to be one of those obnoxious nitpickers but there are a couple of points you got wrong in this review Erod.
- For starters, the 65 Episode Syndication Rule for cartoons in the 90s was NOT a 100% strict rule put in place a cartoon couldn't break. There were several shows that were popular in terms of views and merch that extended past the standard 65 set where more episodes were ordered. That includes Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, Batman The Animated Series and even X-Men The Animated Series. And yeah some shows sadly mucked up later seasons (Goliath Chronicles and X-MEN TAS final season) but they could still have them. Honestly the big reason Spider Man TAS didn't was ANOTHER point you brought up in this review; this was during the era Marvel was going Bankrupt and thus not only having to sell out a lot of their assests but also cancel a lot of their ongoing productions with only scraps of series airing for a couple more years on Fox Kids before that era of Marvel Animated TV ended.
- Another thing is you said "throughout season 5 Madam Web was showing up and mentoring Spidey hinting at some great destiny he had to fufill which was this" which yeah that's wrong too. Madame Web first showed up in season 3 "Make a Wish" episode and for THREE seasons has been constantly popping up here and there to hint at Spider Man's big destiny she's preparing him for which is the finale two parter involving aspects of the Clone Saga and FIRST useage of the Spider-Verse concept as even Secret Wars was just a test to show Pete needing to step up as a leader against other heroes for the mission he'd be sent on.
As for this 3 parter like most of Spider Man TAS I watched this as a kid and loved it. Like even though as a kid I think I caught a lot of this out of order only first seeing the later half of the first episode then the end of the third and only fully seeing them and the second one later but I did wind up catching this one in full. And yeah still enjoy it. I do feel Erod's right in pointing out some jankier elements like Ben Grimm's characterization (I get a feeling the TAS team were giving him more Wolverine's role from Secret Wars but like that makes sense for Wolverine not for The Thing) the "real" reason Spidey wanted Black Cat back (BTW it does make sense Black Cat wouldn't fully know who Cap is because in Spiderman TAS Cap was literally trapped in a time stream clash with Red Skull for over 50 years and I think really was only briefly disengaged from that for two stories in Spider Man TAS; this and the secret forgotten warriors conclusion. Plus in this continuity Black Cat has a variant of the super soldier serum to explain her powers thus why she would bond with Steve. BTW Pete's a jerko also bringing her back because technically his partner Mary Jane is out there in the multi verse and he had this big heart felt sadness seeing her clone die two episodes previously so him macking on Black Cat now is messed up), how easy Smythe is portrayed at switching sides and how there's a big difference between how Doom got Beyonder's powers in the original Secret Wars compared to here. Which honestly lies at the heart as to why this is a weaker story then the original;
Even if allowed to be as big as the comic, it always had to have the focus ON Spider Man which don't work for events like these.
What made Secret Wars the comic so compelling is getting to juggle all of these different heroes and villains and seeing how they'd interact with one another. Like Molecule Man messing with Ultron so Galactus would take him out; She Hulk trashing the Wrecking Crew; Magneto trying to flirt with The Wasp as Janet plays along to figure out what Magneto's end game is; and yeah a big uber epic battle between Doom and the Beyonder which is how Doom GOT his powers. Like the comic not only had the time but the scope to play with all of these established characters which is how you TELL these kind of stories. The MCU Proves it can do that too because since it set up films introducing the heroes you can just have the Avengers movies be about the interactions and the higher stakes and feel satisifed. Which is how stuff like Justice League or Avengers Earth's Mighties heroes works as well. But the problem is this 3 parter though taking characters and heroes from other shows, STILL has Spidey as the sole focus above all else. Thus he's the leader who figures out how to stop the forms and behind foiling Red Skull and Octopus's team up and has to be the one to make the speech to Doom. Yeah Ben Grimm I guess did stop Doom in the end but it was still a story told mostly just from Spidery's perspective which doesn't work for these event stories. Like with Events it needs to be either from the main villain driving things or from the heroes trying to stop them but just having Spidey around lessens the scope in a pretty lame way.
Speaking of pretty lame..... that's actually NOT what I think of "The Eggbaby" but I know other people do and get why it's been asked to cover in this series of yours.
Hope you'll have a good day
I disagree with the series getting worse at the last season, the stories got better and we had more multi part episodes that felt more epic and serialized, i really don't think I can even believe your takes because this show has great quality
I agree that this show could be corny and goofy at times, but I feel X-Men was just as guilty of those things. You admitted as much in your honest review of it in 2010.
Avi arad hated fantastic 4 cartoon? I understand season 1 but season 2 was epic
Dude please buy a microphone