1x06 The Sting of the Scorpion

[7.4/10] Holy crap! I can’t believe they got then-recent Oscar winner Martin Landau to voice The Scorpion! I didn’t recognize his voice at all, and he does a nice job of going from a meek nebbish to a snarling monster vocally.
I think we pretty well know the formula for Spider-Man: The Animated Series in its first season by now. There’s some kind of villain of the week, some kind of personal problem, and a character-establishing flashback. There’s nothing wrong with having a blueprint, it just makes how you construct the episode all the more important.

And this one is constructed well! Scorpion is the usual Frankenstein business, with the monster rebelling against his creators. But I like seeing Spider-Man challenged by a stronger, crazier reflection of himself (Scorpion:mental instability::Spider-Man:wisecracks). The episode escalates Scorpion’s insanity and monstrousness nicely as the episode goes on, and the “don’t call me names” bit is foregrounded pretty hard, but it works.
I actually really liked Jameson here. Sure, the flashback is a little easy, but I like that there’s a reason why he’s suspicious of people in masks (after a mob guy tried to take him down for pursuing a mafia story and Jameson’s wife being killed in the attempt). The viewer has to really project and extrapolate from what’s actually on the screen, but there’s an interesting idea at play about Jameson trying to create his own monster to take down another and realizing that some men in masks can be the good guys (if only, in his view, in limited circumstances), an epiphany which causes him to put his own life on the line to help save Spider-man and the city. The “what have I done” shtick is, again, hit a bit too hard, but it adds depth to Jonah’s otherwise monolithic sourpuss qualities.

Overall, a nice rendition of the now-familiar formula. (Though I could have done without the sexist stuff with Felicia Hardy that was pretty extraneous anyway.)