Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man “A Troubled Mind”

Superior Spider-Man (AKA Doc-Ock in Peter’s body) is confronted by the Avengers, who suspect that he is not who he claims to be after the incident where he almost killed Sand-Girl. While this is going on, Spider-Ock plans to actively stop a secret operation A.I.M is attempting to create, while the real Peter who’s consciousness still remains stuck in a Robot tied with the school’s computer database delves into Octavius’ past for a solution in somehow getting out…

Our Take

With Part 3 of this 5-part story, This episode took a psychological approach this time in the form of learning about the past of Doctor Octopus which paints Otto as a somewhat tragic villain whom unlike Peter, it’s clear that Otto didn’t grow up around the best people in his life.

While we don’t know much about what his mother was like, the scene with Otto’s father takes quite a dark direction that delves into some touchy subjects for a Disney cartoon such as child abuse and what most SJW’s often described as “Toxic Masculinity” with his discouraging, mean-spirited & emotionally abusive “Don’t be a wuss” mentality which in its own messed up way, drove Otto to use his science for his own selfish & vengeful purposes and possibly gave Peter a bit of an understanding to Otto’s superiority complex.

Although the focus only had three Avengers in the form of Ms. Marvel, Iron Man and Black Widow (Voiced by anime English Dub legend Laura Bailey) and I thought they did a good job with both Peter’s and Otto’s storylines sharing proper episode space. I was also impressed by the decent reintroduction to the classic Marvel villain M.O.D.O.K. which displayed how much of a threat he can be when he’s taken seriously when the plot calls for it(which is rare because as a villain he’s often treated like a fucking joke due to his large-headed appearance).

The only other thing that bothered me about the episode was despite previously bringing Ghost Spider/Gwen back before this story-arc began, Gwen and Anya have played almost no role in this story. I, at least, liked how Miles handled himself throughout the proceedings, but with the way the episode ends, it looks like Miles is going to play an even bigger role with two episodes left of this 5-part adaptation of Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-man.