Turning Point (Spider-Man: The Animated Series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Turning Point”
Spider-Man: The Animated Series episode
Episode no.	Season 3 Episode 41
Written by	Marty Isenberg Robert N. Skir James Krieg John Semper
Production no.	310
Original airdate	November 16, 1996
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"Goblin War"	"Guilty"
Spider-Man (1994 animated series) Episode List

Turning Point is the season finale for the third season of Spider-Man: The Animated Series.

[edit] Plot

At OsCorp, Norman Osborn, with his Green Goblin suit on but his Goblin mask off, had just completed changing the Time Dilation Accelerator. Then he gets on his glider and creates a portal with the Accelerator and goes through it. Later he attacks an armored truck and begins stealing all the money, aware Spider-Man would arrive but wondering what's taking him so long. But just before the villain would leave, Spider-Man punches him back down on his back and the villain is pleased at his arrival. The Green Goblin throws a pumpkin bomb towards the wall-crawler to distract Spider-Man and he takes off on his glider. After the villain leaves, Spider-Man goes to OsCorp but doesn't find the Green Goblin there. He goes to Norman Osborn's home but there was still no sign of him. But as he swings off in New York, Spider-Man's spider-sense keeps on tingling. But every time the hero turns around, nothing's there. But secretly, the Green Goblin is following him and every time Spider-Man turns around, the villain goes into one of his portals he creates with the Time Dilation Accelerator and that's why Spider-Man doesn't find anything. Spider-Man then goes into an alley to change back to Peter Parker, and his identity is revealed to Green Goblin as he was still following him around. Then he gets into his portal.

Later the Green Goblin kidnaps Mary Jane. Spider-Man then swings off to save Mary Jane and follows the Green Goblin all the way back to the George Washington Bridge. Spider-Man jumps on the Goblin, knocking off the Time Dilation Accelerator from him. The web-slinger then notices that Mary Jane is half awake and can fall off the Bridge at anytime. When he tries to save her, the Green Goblin, laughing menacingly, throws a few bombs at Spider-Man that knock him off. Luckily, he grabs onto one of the thin ropes that connects to that cord of the Bridge. Meanwhile, the Green Goblin starts climbing to get to the Time Dialation Accelerator but accidentally has the rest of his remaining pumpkin bombs fall off. He ignores it and gets back to getting to the Accelerator. But, unfortunately, for the Goblin, Spider-Man eventually saves Mary Jane from falling off the Bridge. The Green Goblin is furious about Spider-Man beating him to the roof, so he activates his glider by taking out his remote and has it fire out a pumpkin bomb towards Spider-Man and Mary Jan. But the bomb misses when Spider-Man dodged it as he also picked up MJ as it hits part of the ground of the roof and it splits it apart, causing a quake in which both Mary Jane and the Time Dilation Accelerator fall off. Mary Jane falls into one of the portals the Time Dialation Accelerator accidentally created when it fell off, sending her into limbo. It lands on the Bridge itself and Spider-Man jumps into the water to find Mary Jane. He did not go to the Accelerator because he was too late to see her fall in the portal. Meanwhile, the Goblin gets on his glider and grabs the Accelerator. Meanwhile again, Spider-Man tries to find MJ underwater with the help of the red light from the waist of his costume but can't. He then rises from the water and despite not finding her body, the hero assumes her dead.

Spider-Man then blames the Green Goblin for Mary Jane's supposed death. Spider-Man attacks him on his glider. The Goblin tries to create a portal to save himself but the Time Dilation Accelerator glitched and created an unstable portal that will suck anything in its path into limbo, in which he can't turn it off with the Time Dilation Accelerator. The Green Goblin activates his glider again with his remote to have it sneak up on Spider-Man and push both of them into the portal. Spider-Man's spider-sense tingles and he lowers his body to the ground and Green Goblin is pushed in, also destroying the Accelerator on his chest and the portal closes with the Goblin's scream being heard.

Peter, in his Spider-Man costume but his mask off, is last seen standing on one of the roofs of the George Washington Bridge, saying in his mind he failed to save Mary Jane and now, she's gone from him forever. Meanwhile, Mary Jane is seen floating in limbo, asking for help from Peter and everyone else she knows to help her - but now, it's useless and she's trapped in limbo, where no one can hear her.

[edit] Cast

• Christopher Daniel Barnes — Spider-Man/Peter Parker
• Neil Ross — Norman Osborn/Green Goblin
• Sara Ballantine — Mary Jane Watson
• Gary Imhoff — Harry Osborn
• Joan Lee — Madame Web

[edit] Trivia

• This episode takes elements from three Spider-Man comic stories:
  • The first is Amazing Spider-Man #39 when the Green Goblin figured out who Spider-Man was, kidnapped him and flew him around in the sky on his glider in public with his Spider-Man suit on but his mask off.
  • The second is Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine #2 where Norman Osborn held a dinner party with the intention of exposing Peter Parker as Spider-Man but the latter staged a diversion and fought Osborn.
  • The third is Amazing Spider-Man #121-122 when after the Goblin had maintained the knowledge of Spider-Man's identity after suffering amnesia, he kidnaps Gwen Stacy, and takes her to the Brooklyn Bridge (though Spider-Man refers to it as the George Washington Bridge). During the ensuing battle between the villain and Spider-Man, Gwen fell off the Bridge. Spider-Man caught her with a web from landing but her neck broke and Spider-Man blamed the Goblin for her death. When Spider-Man would kill the villain for revenge, he stopped himself from doing so, knowing he'll become just as bad as the Goblin. The Goblin died anyway when he tried to have his glider impale Spider-Man but when he dodged it, the glider instead impaled the Goblin (he managed to have survived the incident, however).
• Due to the show's censorships of characters not getting killed and since the show's creators didn't want to introduce a character like Gwen Stacy who would die, they replaced her with Mary Jane Watson and instead of killing them off, they simply had them fall into limbo, caused by portals created by the Goblin's Time Dilation Accelerator. It also made it easier for younger kids to understand that the Goblin actually contacted Harry in the episode "The Return of the Green Goblin" instead of having Harry go insane, as those young kids would not understand, and it makes up for the drama about Spider-Man and Madame Web going to find Mary Jane at the series finale, in which that point was never finished. Peter Parker and Mary Jane were seen reunited and married in Spider-Man Unlimited for an unknown reason.
• Oddly enough, even though the show's censorship clearly states that they can't have characters killed off, this show killed off a few like Hydro-Man, Mysterio/Quentin Beck, Miranda Wilson, the clones of Hydro-Man and Mary Jane, likely Alistair Smythe, the Green Goblin and the Hobgoblin of the Scarlet Spider's reality and Spider-Carnage.
  • Also, when Spider-Carnage died, he threw himself into an unstable portal which would vapourize anything that would go in there. They could have the unstable portal the Goblin was sucked in vapourize and kill him. But then again, it would not make sense for the young kids on how Harry contacted the original Goblin when he became the new one.

• At the end of the previous episode, "Goblin War!", the Goblin mentioned that he'll get revenge on all of his enemies: the Kingpin, the Hobgoblin and (especially) Spider-Man. At the beginning of this episode, the Goblin mentioned he'll get revenge on the Kingpin and Spider-Man, leaving out the Hobgoblin. It is unknown why he left him out, but it is very most likely he figured out the Hobgoblin was sent to jail in the previous episode.

• Strangely, at the end of the previous episode, the Goblin threw himself into limbo, stating to Spider-Man he'd rather be trapped there (the Time Dilation Accelerator was too low on power, as Spider-Man threw one of the Goblin's sharp boomernags to the Accelerator to damage it) than to be defeated by Spider-Man. When Spider-Man first sees him in this episode when the villain was making an armoured truck robbery, he then states he thought he was killed (he was about to say he thought he was dead but the dead part was cut off (because they thought the kids would be terrified of hearing the word, or kill, death or die).

• Strangely, Anna Watson was there when the Green Goblin had knocked both her and MJ with his knock-out gas and when the villain kidnapped Mary Jane. In the next episode, when Anna was in the hospital, she blames Peter Parker for MJ's disappearance when nobody knew she fell in limbo. Anna could have just assumed that the Goblin had kidnapped MJ while she was out so why blame Peter?

• This episode was reviewed by many fans and critics as being the best episode of the entire series, because of the good acting made by the performers, the drama and emotions about how Spider-Man thought Mary Jane was dead and tried to kill The Goblin, the intensity due to the action, and the episode made a turning point (hence the title) in Spider-Man's life, as Mary Jane fell in limbo and Spider-Man would never see her again, which also adapted the famous storyline in the comics, The Night Gwen Stacy Died (as already mentioned).