The Amazing Spiderman Season 3 Ep. 5: Rocket Racer

"This is beginning to sound like the plot of a bad comic book!" Spidey once said. That sums up this episode in a nutshell. The episode that aired right after one of the most involving and exciting in the series. 

One recurring trend in most of the worst Spiderman episodes (not to mention the infamous third Sam Raimi movie) is that they try to tell too many stories at once. In this episode's instance, there's one hardly-developed story involving a relationship with the girl who, by the end, moves on to date one of Spiderman's archenemies, a giant mechanical wheel of destruction (used by a group of bank-robbers that barely appear in this episode), and of course….Rocket Racer.

"Rocket Racer" is often considered to be one of the least desirable bad guys (who later becomes a not much more desirable good guy) in the Spiderman franchise. His backstory involves him stuggling to support himself and his mother, and eventually figuring that the best option is turning to a life of crime (Well, I wonder how often I've heard that before...). But the real kicker is that he decides to do it immediately after he's been bailed from being arrested for being falsely accused of a burglary committed by other villains (who, one again, are barely in the episode). 


No, scratch that, the real kicker is that after he's created his costume and villainous image and broken into the bank, he immediately decides to give it up. Underveloped character arc much?

The episode's animation, for the most part, is as good as the episodes of the series, but it has two particular instances that boost points for low production values: the opening bank sequence re-uses footage six times and the final action sequence features a noticable continuity error.


Cringe-Inducing Audio: 0
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 0
Lackluster Writing: 6
Annoyance:3
Disturbing Content (Out of Place): 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morals: 1
Low Production Values: 4
Unfortunate Implications: 2
Character Derailment: 0

Atrocity Points: 16