Now that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is firing on all cylinders, I guess it’s not going to hurt to start dropping in some superhero cameos here and there because if your hero doesn’t get into a couple of fights with a future ally, can you even call yourself a superhero adaptation? We’ve already had a Doctor Strange from another universe show up (at least, I think he was from another universe) and we’ve been told repeatedly that the Avengers are still a thing in this world; but seeing as Marvel really does seem to want 2025 to be the year of the devil, it’s time for Matthew Murdock to enter the frame.
At the time of airing, we are literally around half a month away from finally seeing Daredevil enter the MCU properly with Daredevil: Born Again, after numerous cameos and guest spots in other properties (lets not forget that he’s had sex with She-Hulk), but does his appearance here continue to add to the momentum of the man without fear?
While Peter Parker has been tangling with some pretty dangerous characters recently, such as a human flamethrower and a women with a laser on her head, it seems like his greatest challenge lay before him as he tries to force a friendship between Nico and Harry. Obviously, Nico is jealous of the fact that this vapid, rich boy influencer has seemingly come out of nowhere and bogarted her best friend, but there’s something about Osborn that just doesn’t trust. However, in an effort to smooth out the crinkles in their relationship, Pete stages a movie night at his place in order to get the two to bond over boardgames and a viewing of Predator (good choice).
Of course, his double life as the wall crawling vigilante known as Spider-Man is bound to intrude and after his mentor/sponsor/father figure Norman Osborn calls him from a charity dinner to tell him that Oscorp is bring burgled by a mystery assailant, Peter has to ditch his own night off to intercede. However, what he finds is Daredevil; a black clad dude with the skills of a ninja and the unnerving ability to dodge virtually anything that Spider-Man can throw at him. Obviously outclassed, can the web-slinger go toe to toe with a superior opponent and discover what his issue with Oscorp is?
Meanwhile, the trials and tribulations of Lonnie Lincoln just keep getting ever more desperate as the deeper he sinks into his new gang life, the more it’s eroding his old one. His class cutting has lead to the former football star being kicked off the team and it seems like his relationship with Pearl is all but through too. However, when a member of the Scorpions follows him back to the hideout of the 110th Gang, the vicious gang leader Mac Gargan does a deal with tech dealer Otto Octavius to make sure this escalating gang war has a sting in its tail.
I have to be honest, after the last two episodes Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man managed to scale to new heights as it’s numerous plot threads united to created a vast, complex and detailed world for Peter to blunder his way through as he scrambles way way through his existence as a fledgling superhero, but while episode 6 still manages to keep this going, there’s a sense that the show is maybe taking on the same approach to its storytelling as Andor. But what possibly could an animated Spider-Man cartoon and Star Wars’ most serious entry possibly have in common – well, the gritty series that dealt with the birth of the rebellion in a galaxy far, far away seemed to deliver its various story arcs in clumps that tied matters up by delivering a big set piece every three episodes or so. In comparison, YFNS-M just came off its own mini-arc that introduced Octavius as a power broker to a quartet of Russian criminals, cemented Peter’s union with the Osborns and detailed the first major step in the downfall of Lonnie Lincoln as he suddenly found himself in the middle of a gang war.
As a result, there’s a feeling that Duel With The Devil resets some of the momentum that the previous three episodes managed to build in order to add yet another wrinkle to the rapidly expanding plot. However, if you’re going to slow the roll of a superhero show to add something new, it helps if you do it using a blind lawyer who moonlights as a vigilante and as a way to gradually integrate Spidey into the superhero fraternity, there isn’t a much better way to do it than introducing a fellow, street level brawler. However, better yet, he’s voiced by MCU Daredevil actor Charlie Cox too and while his fight with Spider-Man on top of the rotors of a parked Oscorp helicopter doesn’t really move the story along a great deal – although I do feel that it’s an amusing nod to the see-saw fight from the 2093 Daredevil movie – it does prove to be a nice icebreaker between the two heroes and Daredevil’s black costume is pretty badass.
However, the real meat of the episode here is Peter having to endure one of the most stressful social actions that exists – introducing friends from different social groups and hoping for the best and while it isn’t as gripping as spending more time with Octavius or introducing more revamped villains from Spidey’s stacked villain rosta, it this exact type of character interaction that is part and parcel of the entire Peter Parker experience. Besides, not only is it good that Nico’s being brought into inner circle, but the fact that she now has discovered Pete’s identity throws up some interesting issues. For a start, in the absence of a MJ, a Ned or even a Gwen, it’s a great way to blur the lines between Parker’s civilian and superhero lives, but it also reveals that the rather loose lipped Harry could potentially be something of a liability moving forward as the character throughout all of his incarnations over the years have been something of a screw up.
Elsewhere, the ballad of Lonnie Lincoln takes another creep towards disaster as his personal life outside of the 110th Gang gets worse, however in an act of impressive convergence, the episode ends with the Scorpion’s leader Gargan, being the latest shifty customer to visit Octavius and leave with some sort of weapon of mass destruction grafted onto his person after discovering where the 110th hide out.
The final piece of the puzzle lies unsurprisingly with Norman Osborn as he has something of a tense conversation with Secretary of State Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross concerning maneuvering Spider-Man through the legal issues of the Sokovia Accords and is even willing to give up Parker’s identity to the government to keep Spider-Man on the streets legally.
So with both Osborns throwing Peter’s name out with reckless abandon, the all the gargantuan cogs of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man once again move on another notch towards a constantly expanding bigger picture. But thankfully, this world is now set up in such a way that even a slower episode has enough moving parts that interlock in various different ways.
Spider-Man has always spun a sticky web, but few have been stickier than this.
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