Headscratchers / Spider-Man: The Animated Series

• The ending of the excellent Nineties Spider-Man animated series bugged me for one reason. One of the major plot-threads dealt with Mary Jane disappearing in a Lighter and Softer take on The Death of Gwen Stacy, where Mary Jane is knocked off a bridge by the Green Goblin but falls through a portal into the space between realities and is presumed lost. "Mary Jane" later returns and she and Peter get married. And then it is revealed that "Mary Jane" is actually a clone. In the final episode, after proving Good is stronger than Evil in The Secret War and saving all of reality from a Parallel Universe evil version of himself, Peter is finally judged worthy of getting Madame Web's help in finding just where in the void Mary Jane wound up. And that's where the series ends... totally ignoring the question of just how the heck Peter is going to explain to Mary Jane a) what just happened b) that he is Spider-Man and c) they're now legally married in the other reality.
  • Those issues presumably were going to be addressed. They had planned for at least one more season (I believe there was some plan where Spidey would end up, at least temporarily, in 19th century England where Cletus Kasady would be Jack the Ripper or something) but the show was cancelled.
  • c) I can only guess, but one would think that MJ would come to the conclusion that if her clone (Pete would need to tell her about that to explain the married bit) had made the decision to marry Pete, then chances are she make the same choice, so uses Ascended Fanon; long shot, but maybe Madame Web could pick bits of cloneJ's memories and give them to MJ to make the transition a bit smoother, and so that no one's any the wiser that they're actually different people.
• While we're on this subject. Can someone explain to me how Black Cat found Morbius, and why both of them joined freaking Blade?! There was NO BUILD UP to that.
  • Watch the "Partners in Danger" saga. It explains how Morbius was found and why they team up with Blade.
• And why would they show Captain America locked in neverending stasis battle with Red Skull, when Captain is almost American symbol of American way?
  • Captain America sacrifices himself to stop Red Skull for all eternity. He never gives up and will do anything he can to stop evil. Sounds like a pretty good thing to say about America.
• So Spider-Man escapes his neogetic mutation by dumping it into Vulture (turning him into a man who jumps between young and old and man and Man-Spider, by the way), and yet the next time we see Vulture he's cured himself of the whole Man-Spider thing. Did that happen offscreen? It's so rare that a plot point of this magnitude wasn't resolved (or at least mentioned) onscreen.
• Why is it that both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin say that Gobby miniaturized the time-dilation accelerator... but the damn thing's bigger now?
  • Animation goofs I guess.
• Here's a better question: Why is it called a time-dilation accelerator? That doesn't describe what it does at all. It's a friggin' portal gun.
• I love the hobgoblin 2-parter, but why would Norman Osborn create a halloween theme costume for his hitman just to assassinate one fat guy? He could have just gave the guy a sniper, not a bright orange costume and a loud jet glider.
  • Norman is, in the purest technical terms, out of his goddamn mind.
  • Jason Philip Macendale says he specifically asked for the Hallowe'en costume in order to scare his enemies. Osborne didn't make it so that Jason could assassinate Fisk; he made it to order, and killing Fisk was part of the fee.
• Green Goblin has a big mouth. In his first episode, he tells the board members and Kingpin that they are all guilty for "destroying" Norman Osborn. Seriously, no one put two and two together or wonder why this guy gives a hoot about Norman?? In "Goblin War", GG tells Hobgoblin that he will destroy all of Osborn's enemies RIGHT IN FRONT OF FELICIA HARDY!
• On a similar note, how did Peter keep getting fooled by the Chameleon? His belt was always right there!
• Is there any reason as to why Flint Marko, a.k.a. the Sandman, a much more famous "elemental criminal" in Spidey's rogue gallery, didn't appear in this series?
  • The reason why is because of legal rights. There were plans to have Sandman and Electro in a Spider-Man movie around the time of this series. The movie plans were cancelled near the end of the series, leading to Electro being one of the last episodes of the show.
• You'll see super heroes help Spider-man every now and then. Some of the super heroes seem to have the same voice actors from their respected shows. Does that mean the X-men, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and Fantastic Four cartoons are all in the same universe/continuity? I'm talking about the cartoons that aired on Fox during the 1990s. Does that mean Dr. Doom from Secret Wars is the same Doom from the 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon?
  • Probably, but nothing's confirmed.
  • Yes and no. X-Men: The Animated Series and this Spider-Man show are in the same continuity according to the Marvel Wiki, while Iron Man: The Animated Series, The Incredible Hulk (1996), and Fantastic Four: The Animated Series are a shared continuity with each other, but are a separate continuity entirely from the X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons.
• Here's a big question, why is it when Spidey summon heroes like Storm and the Fantastic Four to battle in the Secret Wars. Then why didn't he think to summon Dr. Strange? Wouldn't he have been a powerhouse perfect for that kind of fight?

• Was the Carnage Symbiote that bonded with Alt Peter to become spider carnage that came out of the dimension portal supposed to be the same Carnage from the normal dimension?
  • I think so, but it stands to reason that there are many dimensions where Carnage fell into a portal, just like there are many dimensions where Miles Warren planned on cloning Spider-Man (the Foreshadowing for that was in the normal timeline but resolved in an alternate one, remember?)
• When they first show Hobgoblin he's depicted as bald when they first show him putting on the mask, but when they later show him unmasked as Jason Phillip macendale he has red hair. Are there two hobgoblin?
  • It's possible he just shaved his head and then stopped later.

• Smythe fired a missile filled with sleeping gas to knock out Spider-Man and Jameson. The resulting blast and shrapnels would probably have killed them both rather than putting them to sleep.

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