Spider-Man The Original Animated Series Season 2 - Volume 2   Starring (voice): Paul Soles, Peg Dixon and Paul Kligman Clear Vision RRP: £14.99 MAR1033 Certificate: U Available 04 January 2010

Spider-Man, Spider-Man continues doing what a spider can... in this new collection of episodes from Season 2 of the original series incorporating six 20-minute stories with an accumulative running time of 2 hrs 4 mins.

If the first season was tightly-scripted and action-packed, then season 2 just kept getting increasingly weird. Gone are the standard criminals and costumed super villains, to be replaced with mole men, giant insects, sorcerers, sentient plants, crazy magicians, cats and gold cities in the sky. It kind of makes you wonder what the writers might have put in their tea (allegedly!).

In Spider-Man Battles the Molemen, much of the animation from the first volume story is re-used as the same story of buildings being taken below ground and somebody controlling subterranean dwellers is rehashed in a drawn-out tale of too much swinging. In Phantom from the Depths of Time, a small island appears to be lost in time. However, the giant insects and prehistoric creatures are actually robots controlled by an individual who is using the indigenous people as slaves. In The Evil Sorcerer, an academic tutor from the museum is fired for his obsession of an old sorcerer called Kotep. To prove himself he manages to bring Kotep back, but it is a mistake that Spider-Man has to clean up by going head to head in a battle to stop a demon horde.

In Vine, a pod is discovered in the loft of a house, and when subjected to light, grows increasingly large, rampaging through the town on its way to the heart of New York. In Pardon Presents, the evil magician returns, this time using a giant shadow cat to do his bidding, including hypnotising a room full of dignitaries. Finally, in Cloud City of Gold, Peter Parker is on a light aircraft which becomes lost and damaged in a storm. It crashes on a strange land in the cloud with an ancient city of gold. Of the three other men, no one questions the fact that Peter Parker goes missing and Spider-Man shows up to help them.

I know the Spider-Man comics have done the Savage Land stories, but I consider these tales to be far too outré for the character. Nevertheless, they remained in the minds of a generation.

5

Ty Power