So Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends showed up as a Recommendation on NetFlix and, well, how could I deny what the good people at NetFlix went through the painstaking process of suggesting for me based on my previous viewing history.

The long and short is that this show is crazy, but crazy in a way where you are never quite sure if it was earnest goofiness or the writers plainly not thinking things through, or just saying “screw it, lets have Spider-Man punch a dinosaur”. In many ways, it kind of feels like a prototype for Batman: Brave and the Bold. Except that the special guest star is always Iceman and Firestar (who was actually made up for the show, presumably because Iceman had the exact same personality as the Human Torch, and because Mary Jane didn’t have any super powers and was also never actually mentioned as existing)

And I opted to start watching the show with the second episode; The Crime of All Centuries, with special guest villain Kraven the Hunter, because if there is anything that will catch my attention faster then an episode description that includes the phrases “Kraven the Hunter” and “Dinosaur army”, then I shudder to think of what kind of life I have been leading that I have not yet heard it.

The episode begins with Spider-Man and Firestar on a date/platonically watching a monster movie with a girl that looks exactly like his girlfriend where they announce that the reason that the special effects are so realistic because Kraven the Hunter had supplied the film studio with actual giant fire-breathing monsters that he had been hunting (For the uninformed, Kravens entire thing is that he likes hunting stuff). As they leave the theatre they also beat up a motorcycle gang, presumably because the episodes been on for a minute or so and nobodys had Firestar incinerate anything yet. And then we cut over to The Savage Land for Kraven to explain his evil plan to his henchman “Skeleton”.

Note that the henchmans name is Skeleton. He is not a skeleton-henchman, he does not even look thin. He is a humble man named “Skeleton”, helping a Russian big-game hunter who wears a lions ENTIRE FACE as a shirt capture dinosaurs in the middle of the arctic.

Anyway, it seems that capturing and selling giant fire breathing monsters to film companies to make big-budget science-fiction movies with wasn’t quite enough for Kraven, so he decides to go to the next step and steal a bunch of dinosaur eggs from the Savage Land, then use the mystic gem to make them grow to maturity more quickly, with the help of the Single Greatest Source of Heat on the planet (That would be Firestar. Who’s photo he keeps tucked safely in his crotch. No comments.) then use those same dinosaurs to take over New York City.

So he immediately sets out to lure Firestar into a trap by driving his van into Times Square and secretly releasing his already-captured LIVE ACTUAL DINOSAURS into the public. Which really begs the question of why he’s even bothering with the rest of his plan, since his end game is to get LIVE ACTUAL DINOSAURS to make a DINOSAUR ARMY when he already has a literal truck load of them.

Anyway, as it would happen, Firestar was walking around and reacts to AN ACTUAL LIVING PTERODACTYL flying around, unseen ‘pon the living Earth for millions of years in the same way she reacts to absolutely every-damn-thing: She immediately sets it on fire.

Kraven is impressed by her quick thinking and gives her a ticket to his museum show where he is going to reveal some more dinosaurs he captured. She goes, and Spider-Man and Iceman follow her because she sees nothing wrong with going to a public showing of LIVE DINOSAURS being held by a guy who constantly tries to hunt her best friend like a wild animal. Which… err… considering the location and her tendency to incinerate anything that could possibly be construed as a threat (in a kid-friendly, TV-Y kind of way) is kind of sensible of her, really. But they sneak off anyway, since the show isn’t called [I]Firestar has no Friends[/I]

At the show, Kraven has Skeleton go ahead and open the cages to the dinosaurs which you might THINK is part of his plan to capture Firestar, but no… her being there had nothing to do with anything. He released the dinosaurs so they would serve as a distraction so that Kraven and Skeleton could steal that magic gem I mentioned before and which everyone forgot about up until now, and which ill not get mentioned again.

Firestar realized at this point that Kraven is up to No Good and decides to head off and thwart him herself while Spidey and Iceman fight dinosaurs, but it seems that this HERE was the plan to capture Firestar and he puts his evil plan into action by throwing a Heat-seeking Boomerang full of Liquid Nitrogen at her.

I do not even know how that is supposed to work.

Anyway, Firestar wakes up back in Kravens Secret Tropical Volcano Lair(?), hidden in an old Zepplin hanger(??) where he explains his evil, stupid plan to her. She responds by SETTING HIM ON FIRE. Expecting this, he reveals that the volcanic vents are all chock-full of freezing gas, so she just gets knocked out again.

Fortunately, after all this time, Spider-Man and Iceman show up in Kravens hideout, which they were able to correctly guess was hidden in a Zepplin hanger, which probably would have served as a better hideout if he didn’t have his custom Semi truck parked outside it, with the words “KRAVEN THE HUNTER” stenciled in bright red on the side. They get captured pretty much immediately after setting foot inside, because they are not good at their jobs.

Anyway, Kraven threatens to kill Spidey and Iceman unless Firestar helps him with his sinister plan to make different dinosaurs then the dinosaurs he already has and… I guess hope she doesn’t just decide to set him on fire a third time. Honor system I guess. Anyway, she agrees to make some dinosaurs for him, while Iceman wakes up and breaks out of his death trap cage by shaking it really hard. Iceman doesn’t have super strength or anything, and his freezing powers were canceled out from the fact that he was in a volcano, so I guess it was a really shoddily made cage. Iceman then sets Spider-Man free, but not before Kraven gets his hands on a T-Rex, which immediately knocks Iceman back into the volcano, which then erupts. Firestar stops the volcanic eruption by doing the only thing she knows how to do; SHE SETS THE LAVA ON FIRE.

I want to type that sentence again, please indulge me.

“FIRESTAR SETS THE LAVA ON FIRE”

In less then twenty minutes Firestar has become my new favorite character in the Marvel universe.

Oh, and then they knock the T-Rex into a tar pit, and also toss Kraven into the tar pit, and Firestar puts the magic crystal into reverse and turns the dinosaur into a baby, and Kraven goes to jail, and the ACTUAL LIVING DINOSAURS go back to the Savage Land (rather then doing absolutely anything else, at all) with them, and we finally have closure on the running joke about Iceman hitting up everyone he sees for rent money with the revelation that he already paid and just plum forgot about it.