As a co-winner of our (almost!) recent poll, here is your Scorpion retrospective, as requested. Electro will follow shortly after. For newer readers, more characters retrospectives can be found here. Images, as always, appear courtesy of Marvel Animation Age. Enjoy!
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Debuting in The Amazing Spider-Man #19 as a mysterious figure stalking Peter Parker, the man who would eventually become known as The Scorpion is one of the original Lee/Dikto villains from the positively awesome run from the Spider-Man co creators and had been a relatively persistent 'B' grade villain ever since.
His unique origin and the inclusion of J Jonah Jameson in said origin has made for some great stories over the years and while he's never really been a massively, mainstream popular villain, he has made numerous appearances in various cartoons and video games. In fact, he is one of the antagonists in the recently released Amazing Spider-Man video game, and I am immensely looking forward to laying the smacketh down as soon as I get to him!
As you might imagine, being one of the old school villains meant he was pretty much a guarantee for an appearance in the wall crawler's first animated series, 67 Spider-Man (and because he didn't appear in the Marvel Superheroes segments, his rights weren't taken up elsewhere).
Ah, 67 Spider-Man. The cartoon shows no shame in being an action comedy and is chock full of juvenile humour but unlike a certain Spider-Man cartoon of recent times, this cartoon is actually funny. The show was typical of the time, so don't ever expect much in the term of character development or stunning plot twists. Indeed, this was an age when only men were allowed to read the news and cartoons were aimed strictly at children.
I am personally fond of the show. I enjoy it more than the Marvel Superhero Show from the same era. It is a low budget affair to be certain, with simple designs intended for easier animation which I actually really like. Spider-Man himself is missing the webs on the torso of his suit and there's no attempt to shade the characters to make them look slightly more 3 dimensional but in my opinion it works - I find the show pleasing to the eye. I especially like the colourful backgrounds - while I think this type of look would die a horrible death if it were presented today, I dig the old school style. It's clean and simple. I especially like when they animate the panels from some of the old Dikto comic books. It was a nice gimmick that wasn't used frequently enough to become annoying (think along the lines of the paintings used in the animation in Batman: The Animated Series). Plus, I've always adored Dikto's work - his and Stan Lee's run on Amazing is yet to be matched in my opinion. It's simplistic look fit it's simplistic tone and the somewhat naff visuals do help the tone of the show, so they do act in service to the stories the show told.
The show is goofy, but uses humour to its advantage. It features a small cast of actors who usually provide the role of all the characters throughout the film. The cast is lead by Paul Soles who must be lauded for his outstanding comic timing and the enthusiasm he shows for his razor sharp putdowns towards the villains and J Jonah Jameson. He manages to be humorous without playing it over the top, which a certain current Spider-Man voice actor would do well to learn, and I am not talking about Sam Regal, who's done a decent job in the previously discussed video game.
The music is also very, very good. The theme is far more famous than the show itself but the rest of the score is just as awesome. It uses jazz mainly and it really soars - the scores to this need to be made available on iTunes without further delay.
Anyway, onto The Scorpion. He debuts in the episode Never Step On A Scorpion, which is mainly an adaptation of The Amazing Spider-Man #20, in which Mac Gargan becomes The Scorpion.
You will see the design, while keeping in with the models simplicity, is very faithful to the original Dikto costume. While the animator rarely outright tried to animate Dikto's somewhat awkward style, the designs did indeed usually pay tribute to the original Spidey artist. These little nods, however small they be, are always appreciated by me, as a fan of Dikto's somewhat awkward, quirky work. I firmly believe it is his artwork that sets it Spidey apart from the other characters in the Stan Lee era. I am probably one of few, but I much prefer Ditko over Jack Kirby, who's attempts at Spider-Man were rejected by Lee and then passed onto Ditko to draw and later, plot.
The episode in question is a fairly odd one. The episode opens with Professor Stillwell having created The Scorpion for Jameson and pleading with Jameson to allow him to complete his tests as he dare not unleash The Scorpion on the world for fear of what he might do. Jameson has little time for precautions and sends Scorpion out to find and capture Spider-Man. They do eventually meet and Jonah suddenly realises that The Scorpion is a far bigger threat than Jameson ever imagined... Scorpy hadn't really done anything to deserve Jameson's immediate 180 turn in opinion of him and Scorpion's heel turn comes a little too quickly for my liking - however, I had the same opinion of Amazing #20. He reverts to a life of crime a bit too suddenly. He is (rather easily) defeated by Spider-Man and sent to jail. He then immediately breaks out and seeks revenge on Jameson. In a nice twist, Spidey realises what a dumb ass he's been when he leaves The Bugle as Parker as soon as the radio announces that Scorpion has been released and has essentially left Jameson as an open target. He of course returns to Jameson's office, the giver of all light and warmth in this show, and again defeats The Scorpion in the same manner he did earlier. Presumably they had a cell with stronger bars waiting for Scorpion at the slammer otherwise Spidey and Jameson could've found themselves in a very vicious continuing cycle.
Jameson being Jameson, and I assure you, this shows version of Jameson is nothing short of outstanding, the mornings paper tells the story of J Jonah Jameson, fearless publisher of The Daily Bugle single handedly defeating The Scorpion while Spidey does his ever awesome swing off, the signature ending to every episode of the first season. He does not seek approval for his life as Spider-Man and there is no Uncle Ben at this stage in the show to consider that Spidey seeks redemption - nope, in this show, action is his reward.
Things would get even stranger in The Scorpion's final appearance in the show. The episode shows Scorpion digging his way of out of his prison floor (this episode, to my knowledge, is not the direct inspiration for the Shawshawnk Redemption, but I could be mistaken) and upon his release, Scorpion returns to Dr Stillwell for more of the super scorpion formula as its starting to lose its effectiveness. Stillwell, realising that he has made a terrible mistake, refuses to give Gargan anymore of the serum so Scorpion drinks random chemicals found in Stillwells home/lab. It is not recommended that any readers of this piece repeat Scorpions actions!
Spider-Man arrives later and helps Stillwell and retrieves the cure and follows The Scorpion's trail of destruction (aren't you all proud Of me for avoiding that potentially really awful pun!) and sees Scorpy grown to 20 feet tall before his very eyes!
Scorpion naturally goes after Jameson but arrives too late, finding only Betty and giving us this classic Soles Spidey exchange.
BETTY: Spider-Man! The Scorpion took Mr Jameson, you have to save him!
SPIDER-MAN: Jameson or The Scorpion?
Such a deadpan delivery, delivered with razor sharpness. Bravo Mr Soles.
The rest of the episode wraps up rather quickly as they only tend to last 10 minutes each and fit tel stories in one episode. After giving Jameson the cure, Spider-Man wraps him up for the military and Jameson returns to his office, boasting about how he beat the Scorpion, and only screamed as loud as he did so Spidey could help defeat him!
Looking at the (really poor!) episode review on MAA make me long for the return of the funny quotes. Oh, the fun we could have.
The episode ends as always, with Spidey swinging off, having received no appreciation for his work.
While neither Scorpion episode is the strongest of the show, it still remains a childhood favourite. I imagine the younger generation of Spidey fans would love to have them on DVD. The show is what first turned me to Spidey and will always hold a place amongst my fondest and earliest childhood memories.
