This week we’re covering season 3, episode 14 of Spider-Man: The Animated Series – Turning Point!
Madame Web is back with more unnecessarily vague riddles, Harry is making that face, the Green Goblin is a clumsy drug metaphor and Pete is starting fires out of social anxiety.
That’s right, it’s the end of the season.
Listen on Apple Podcasts here
Google here
Spotify here
Stitcher here
Further podcast notes
We’ve covered Norman Osborn and the Green Goblin in previous episodes, so this time we’re looking into some specific issues they brought in for this episode.
‘Turning Point’ is a title taken from the front cover of #121, the issue best known as The Night Gwen Stacy Died. You can find our deep dive into that phenomenal issue here, as well as our look into the origins and the reveal of the two arch-enemies’ identities to each other in our Green Goblin episode here. First, let’s jump into the short-lived The Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine.
George Stacy invites Norman Osborn and others to do some sort of presentation on the Green Goblin – something that sets off Norman again, making Peter more than a little worried that his memory could be returning…
The real tragedy of this whole saga (at least until the death of Gwen) is that Peter keeping this secret for Norman’s own good ends up making things much worse in the long run.
They really lean into Norman’s unstable mental state in this issue as his memories of Green Goblin (and Peter’s identity) begin to resurface.
The way the Goblin is drawn in this issue is really over the top in a way I enjoy – and one that I think is drawn on for his look in the show too.
Norman disappears from his hospital bed, leaving everyone wondering what has happened – while Peter slowly starts to freak out about it.
Leading to a moment where a mere toy plane sends Peter jumping up a tree like a scared cat.
Peter, Gwen, Harry and Mary Jane are invited to Norman’s home for dinner – and while the gang are happy about it, Peter is more than a little worried that Norman might have remembered their previous battles. And he’d be right…
Norman pulls the same weird “secret” conversation with Peter at the dinner table as he does in the show. No way they weren’t directly adapting this scene for the series.
As for Peter’s arsonist tendencies in the show… it makes just a tad more sense in the comic, where he uses his webbing around his camera film to make a makeshift smoke bomb – rather than starting an actual fire.
But this isn’t the only references to the comics the show throws in…
As with the references to The Amazing Spider-Man #39 where the Green Goblin also finds out his secret identity.
While in the episode, the disappearing act of the time dilation accelerator makes Peter think his spider-sense is on the fritz, in the comics it actually is on the fritz – due to some gas GG hit him with unknowingly.
The ending of the episode effectively plays out like the ending of The Amazing Spider-Man #121, just swapping out Gwen for MJ. Might not be the Night Gwen Stacy Died, but it IS The Night Mary Jane Fell Into A Portal and was never seen again?
This of course plays out similarly in the 2002 movie, though in a slightly gorier fashion.
Gorms & Dumb Episode Stills!
As per usual, here are some silly screenshots I took from the episode! If you want some cooler looking ones, you can check out our Tumblr!
That’s all for this week, folks! And of course make sure you check out our Patreon for more bonus episodes!
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