This week we’re covering season 2, episode 11 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series – ‘The Tablet of Time’.
Spencer Smythe is rolling in his grave after his son makes a humanoid ultimate battle robot, J3 is back on air, Hammerhead is butting into a gang war over a magical artifact and Silvermane is… old. Super old.
The Kingpin shows off his glorious fat muscles and we get side-tracked talking about his diet. Meatballs aside, we’ve got an all-new monstar making this cavalcade of characters even more jam-packed: the jive-talking Tombstone. Truly, everyone is here.
We then move on to a trilogy of comic origins (pray for Jack), including 1969’s tablet of time story, 1972’s Hammerhead debut, and the appearance of Smythe’s patented mega-slayer/mk. 14 robot in 1992 (check out the further notes for some comic panels).
Listen on Apple Podcasts here
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Further podcast notes
First up, here are some episode stills:
Starting off, here’s a dumb one of Spidey after he takes a dunk in a container full of fish…
Here’s ol’ Silvermane, whose main character trait/motivation is that he is old as hell.
Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin and the eponymous meatball:
And here’s Hammerhead, making an unnecessarily violent introduction to the Kingpin… and then begs him for work.
Eventually, Alistair’s newest (and first non-insect related) spider slayer is up and running, with the patented ‘mega slayer’ looking a lot like the spider slayer mk 14 from the comics (scroll down to the comic origins section to see what that looks like).
It makes quick work of the wallcrawler, including basically drop-kicking him across the room. All that tech just to kick things, I guess.
It doesn’t go well… and the egotistical Alistair Smythe makes his presence known on one of the three screens on the slayer. This is a running theme for these robots, for whatever reason.
This one’s just for fun. The goofery continues.
It soon chases Spider-Man to Curt Conners‘ home, smashing the hell out of his home with reckless abandon.
The stress of this situation causes a change in Conners, and we see a return of the Lizard.
He joins the fray, making for a fun three-way fight between Spider-Man, The Lizard, and a very confused Alistair Smythe.
Meanwhile, Silvermane meets with Tombstone – a new villain on the block who talks… jive, more or less.
Spider-Man follows the Lizard to the subway tunnels after Smythe takes Conners’ wife hostage and demands that the good doctor is brought to him – not knowing the creature wearing his clothes is the same man.
We see another great shot of Peter’s spider-sense, a psychedelic rending that I’ve always wished would make its way into live-action.
They fight around the subway tracks – in yet another action scene crammed into this episode.
With Conners transformed back, you’d think everything was back in order – and then this guy shows up…
Tombstone might be a (literal) stone-cold killer, but he does have a friendly smile, doesn’t he?
Now for some comic origins!
This arc is loosely based on a storyline from 1969, but this week we’re focusing on the first part of it in The Amazing Spider-Man #68-70 (1969), written by Stan Lee and with art by John Romita.
It also includes a trademark Kingpin goon fight, in which he trains by beating the hell out of a bunch of thugs
Just like he does in the episode:
This issue is also one of the many Stan Lee Spidey issues where a student protest happens over a social issue while Peter Parker watches from the sidelines.
Kingpin steals the tablet of time, which is being held at Empire State University – aaand the whole thing gets blamed on the students protesting being kicked out of their accomodation.
Robbie Robertson’s son gets arrested too, prompting a heart-to-heart between ol’ Robbie and his kid, with some serious in-your-face ’60s politics from Stan the Man.
Who said politics in comic books is a new thing?
Kingpin ends up getting arrested, but knowing he can easily weasel his way out – he drops Spider-Man in on it, leaving him on the run to protect the tablet.
Getting shot at by the cops doesn’t make him too happy. This is the kind of thing I would’ve loved to see in the PS4 game, if I’m honest.
Meanwhile, Pete is firmly in the coward arc™ and Gwen isn’t too happy with him.
Later, JJ and Ned Leeds accidentally stop Spider-Man from taking down Kingpin.
At this point, he loses it and takes JJ to task… leading to a heart attack. Yikes.
Don’t worry, he’s fine in a few issues time.
Hammerhead made his first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #113-114 (1972), created by Gerry Conway and with art by John Romita.
As mentioned on the podcast, Hammerhead is introduced eating chicken out of a bucket. No real comment to make on that. Hey, I thought it was notable.
Spidey ends up meeting Hammerhead after his fight with Doctor Octopus is interrupted by ol’ flattop and his goons, since he’s in a turf war with Doc Ock.
In the next issue they come to blows, leading to this excellent panel (the power harness was made by Ock… it’s a long story).
He ends up kidnapping a worn-out Spider-Man (who is wearing a Halloween mask… another long story). Spidey says he needs a gun to be tough – leading to this great moment.
Yep, he can take a gun to the head.
This is when he describes his origin to Spidey.
Mad scientist Jonas Harrow also worked on some crazy science upgrading The Kangaroo, the Living Laser, and even Will o’ the Wisp.
Also, Hammerhead has a crazy rotating office which I think is real neat.
Moving onto the origins of ‘The Mega-slayer’, the Mark XIV slayer was built by Alistair Smythe in The Amazing Spider-Man #371 (1992), written by David Michelinie and with art by Mark Bagley.
In this comic, it’s made by Smythe but designed by Max Young, who had three different personalities represented on the three screens.
Here’s a comparison between this one and the mega slayer in the cartoon:
I love the image of them fighting below – something I believe was used in the Ultimate Guide to Spider-Man hardback I had as a kid.
He’s defeated after Spider-Man gets the personalities to argue with one another and the robot blows up its own head.
This when the new-look Alistair Smythe appears, but we’ll get into that more later…
As for the future of the tablet of time and the evolution of Alistair Smythe… we’ll be covering that later this season.
That’s all for this week, folks. If you missed the last episode – be sure to check it out here.
That '90s Spider-Man Show 