Review: Marvel’s Spider-Man “The Day Without Spider-Man”

(Possible Spoilers Below)

The Blood Gem is an old artifact that is said to contain mystical energies and is delivered to Peter Parker’s school Horizon High after being found at an ancient dig site. It’s here when we see Gwen Stacy who is trying study it while also attempting to contact Peter who is not answering her calls until it is stolen by Scorpion on Tinkerer’s behest as part of a plot to enhance Scorpion. With Peter still missing, All that’s left to defend New York is the Miles Morales Spider-Man, and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl). Consequently, their youthful arrogance is what drives this plot forward as they don’t even bother to hear Gwen out when she has a legitimately smart plan to track down the damn thing.

But like most superhero stories, a freak-accident occurs when Gwen attempts to get the Gem back herself, causing Gwen’s dormant spider-powers she briefly got during the “Spider-Island” storyline to reawaken by a Blood Gem-powered device the Tinkerer made, turning her into Ghost-Spider. Now it’s up to her, Miles Morales, and Anya/Spider-Girl to take out Scorpion and Tinkerer where they have plans to draw Spider-Man out…

Our Take.

The story itself is pretty simplistic in how it’s told and It’s possible none of this would’ve happened if Miles & Anya actually listened to what Gwen had to say, rather than treat her like a random civilian they just blindly scoff at and tell to be away from danger. The action and pacing were decent, the writing was corny at times with the typical dynamic of Scorpion being a large dumb brute and the Tinkerer being an evil super-genius who’d rather selfishly invent robotic death machines than cure cancer, but the episode does give these three their moment to shine while Peter’s away yet never makes us forget that these are still teenagers behind the masks, so of course they’re going to make more mistakes compared to Peter who’s had to regularly deal with such dangerous scenarios.

At it’s core, what this episode basically boils down to is the writers coming up with an excuse to bring back Ghost-Spider (AKA “Spider-Gwen” by the fans.) into the story with some call-backs to “Spider-Island” where everyone for a short period of time (including friends within Peter’s circle) got Spider-powers, but to Gwen’s credit, she remains quite competent despite immediately getting her powers back long after “Spider-Island” ended.

The next episode will start an arc that will be loosely based on one of the most infamous Spider-Man stories ever written by Dan Slott (worse than the “Clone Saga”) and I’m curious how this animated series will handle this upcoming adaptation given the nature of what it’s about.