Spider-Woman, Damsel in Distress

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

Confession: I talked about this scene once before on another account, so I understand if this gets removed. I didn't really do the scene justice though, so yeah

In episode 7 of the Spider-Woman Cartoon, A villainous film director named C.B., who previously tried to kill Spider-Woman and Spider-Man with a giant spider for a movie, is now attacking Paris with a robot spider he is remote controlling. He is doing this specifically in order to lure out Spider-Woman, so he can kill her with the robot spider for the finale of the film. Notably, he does not seem interested in luring out Spider-Man at this point. Spider-Woman seemed to be the one he was more focused on before anyway. Spider-Woman, as Jessica Drew, is alerted to this via a spider sense while she is riding in her personal helicopter (she has one of those) with her friend Jeff and nephew Billy on her way back home. Jessica asks Jeff to fly there, using the excuse that she wants to buy some expensive perfume in the area (Jeff and Billy don't know her secret). When they get there, they find the robot spider rampaging. Jessica discreetly exits the helicopter and changes into Spider-Woman. She fly's off to try and defeat the Giant Robot and stop C.B. once and for all.

She fails spectacularly.

Spider-Woman lands on a platform on the Eiffel tower, which the robot is climbing up. She confidently states that it's time is up. She webs the robots two front claws (it has more though, being a spider and all). Spider-Woman...doesn't really follow up on this immediately. Maybe she's just seizing up her opponent? The camera cuts to C..B., who appears happy with Spider-Womans appearance, as this was all meant as a trap for her. He says "now for the ending of the film, and the end of Spider-Woman". He has the robot chew the webbing off it's claws. It then reaches it to Spider-Woman, who is...staring off into space in the opposite direction. Uh, lady, what the hell are you doing? You think the giant robots done cause you threw some webs at it? This is absurdly incompetent on her part. Because she is distracted, she doesn't notice the giant robot claw reaching up at her until it's almost grabbed her. Once she finally sees it a look of pure horror crosses her face, and she flails her arms aimlessly. The robot spider grabs her, and pulls her in, while she still looks terrified. Because she foolishly let her guard down completely, Spider-Woman has been captured.

Jeff and Billy see this and try to help her, but they are quickly captured too in another of the robots claws. Looking absolutely deranged, C.B. declares "I'll destroy them all". Spider-Woman has been captured by and is at the mercy of a total madman, who is clearly about to kill her. It's not hard to see how he could do this. Perhaps he will have the robot squeeze her to death, or slam her against the pavement. This version of Spider-Woman has no super strength, so the robot could kill her in seconds. Because of her foolishness, Spider-Woman and her friends are about to die, and she is completely helpless to stop it.

It is at this moment that Spider-Man appears. He begins climbing the Eiffel tower, and the camera cuts back to Spider-Woman. She looks notably despondent in this shot. As nice as seeing her fruitlessly struggle might have been, she seems as though she is resigned to the fact that she is about to die, and has given up hope. Not very super heroic, especially when your friends are in danger too. She's saved the world multiple times at this point, and now she has seemingly accepted some weirdo trying to make a movie is gonna be the death of her. She then turns her head when she hears Spider-Man say "hey little lady. Have no fear: Spideys here!". He quickly pulls a pin out of the robots claw, causing it to collapse in freeing Spider-Woman. Spider-Man has saved Spider-Woman from certain death.

Spider-Woman thanks Spider-Man for saving her, and then tells him to stop the robot while she frees her friends helicopter. This is not exactly an equal divination of tasks. Spider-Woman will free a helicopter from one robot claw of many, while Spider-Man must somehow defeat a giant rampaging robot. Perhaps Spider-Woman is afraid of the robot after she failed so spectacularly to stop it before and was almost killed by it, or maybe she just has no idea how to stop it and is hoping Spider-Man can. Regardless, she's given Spider-Man a far more difficult and deadly task than herself. Spidey doesn't seem to mind though, and tells her to leave it to him.

Spider-Woman is able to free the copter in about two seconds. This didn't really do anything to stop the robot, so it would make sense for her to try and take it on with Spider-Man. Instead, she proceeds to stand around looking pretty for the rest of the final battle of an episode of her own show. Spider-Man proceeds to smoothly infiltrate the robot spider, and takes control of it from the inside, apparently overriding C.B.S remote control (Parker intellect at work). He has the robot trap C.B. and his crew, and shuts it down for good. Spider-Man made taking down the robot that captured and nearly killed Spider-Woman look like child's play. He jumps out of the robot and lands next to Spider-Woman. Jessica is notably power posing, despite not really having done, like, anything. She does seem to recognize this, as she says "That was beautiful Spider-Man!", sounding absolutely amazed. Spider-Man actually asks her out to lunch, which has a real "hero saves the girl, does the hero get the girl?" vibe to it, only the girl is a super heroine and is supposed to be the protagonist. She declines however, as she needs to get back to Jeff and Billy. The episode ends on a scene of the three of them together, and that's the last we see of Spider-Man in the series.

Quick note: Spider-Man actually saved Spider-Woman once earlier in the episode as well, though she was in her civilian identity of Jessica Drew at the time. She was stuck in a web with Jeff and Billy and about to be eaten by the original spider. Going by her inner monologue, Jessica apparently could have salvaged the situation by changing into Spider-Woman, but refused to as it meant revealing her identity to her friends. In other words, she would rather let herself, her best friend, and her nephew die rather than reveal her identity to them. What an amazing heroine. Luckily Spider-Man showed up and freed them before they became spider food. And while Spidey himself got captured after that, it was only because he was out in the open from saving Jessica and so he could be bait for Spider-Woman, and while Spider-Woman does come to help him, he seems to actually free himself from the rope he was tied up with. In short, Spider-Woman needs Spider-Man to save her twice in the episode, both times because she was being an idiot

I love this sequence. A cocky superheroine who has and will go on to save the world many times gets absurdly careless and is captured by a madman as a result, and needs a man to save her before she is killed. Better yet, even after being saved she does next to nothing and the man who saved her stops the bad guy and save the day, Despite BEING THE PROTAGONIST OF THE SHOW. The fact that this is Spideys last appearnce makes it even better. For as powerful and independent as she is generally presented from that point forward, the last time she was with Spider-Man she needed him to save her and defeat the villain for her. She was made to look like a novice next to Spider-Man and a damsel in distress for him to rescue, while being the star of the show. So good.

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

Here's the contrast of Spider-Man working hard to shut down the robot, and Spider-Woman just standing there watching

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

Here's the episode in its enitrity...in Italian. It used to be on YouTube but they have cracked down since the show came to Disney plus. Peril starts around 17 minutes

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

The part I mentioned where Spidey saved Jessica Drew is a decent little peril itself. Jessica is clearly frustrated and desperately trying to come up with a way to save herself without giving herself a way, but there just isn’t one…which, again, you would really think is better than DYING, but what do I know?

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

Theirs also a bondage scene mixed in before the robot spider stuff where Spider-Woman and Spider-Man are tied up. It doesn’t do much for me personally since Spider-Woman gets them out of it by telephaically commanding the spider to let them go. That is a thing she can do in this show. Thought others might like it though

[KOJIMAISGODKOJIMAISGOD]

The whole episodes online in English now!

https://www.bilibili.tv/en/video/2046025944

[Evil Spider]

Theirs also a bondage scene mixed in before the robot spider stuff where Spider-Woman and Spider-Man are tied up. It doesn’t do much for me personally since Spider-Woman gets them out of it by telephaically commanding the spider to let them go. That is a thing she can do in this show. Thought others might like it though

Well I sure want to get tied up with Spiderwoman as Spiderman, but just tightly against her amazingly sexy spandex clad spiderlicious body, spidertastic bondage indeed!