In Subtext, Liz Allan's brother, Mark Allan (Eric Lopez) has a gambling addiction. After getting deep in debt, Mark gets sold out by his bookie, agreeing to "call it even" if Mark acts as the subject of a scientific experiment. Specifically, Green Goblin uses him as a new test subject for his super-power procedure, which uses nanobots to modify a subject uniformly. The procedure turns Mark Allan into Molten Man, with skin as hot as molten lava and the ability to create and throw balls of molten lava. Mark didn't ask for these powers, nor does he want them; all he wants is to gain control over them. Green Goblin offers to give him that control, but only if he destroys Spider-Man. This episode is presented out of sequence, starting with one scene, then filling in some backstory, then fleshing out the original scene a bit more, and so forth. It is an interesting technique that heightens appreciation of certain parts, but will likely be confusing for some people. If you gave up on watching the movie Memento because you couldn't keep track of what was going on, then Subtext is likely to be at least a little annoying.
Opening Night is just that... opening night for the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring Liz Allan (Alanna Ubach), Gwen Stacy (Lacey Chabert), Mary Jane Watson (Vanessa Marshall) and several other friends of high school student Peter Parker (Josh Keaton), Spider-Man's nerdy secret identity. It also happens to be the night that a new, high-security, specifically-intended-to-contain-super-villains wing called the Vault at Ryker's Prison is brought online. Spider-Man has volunteered to test it out and see just how escape-proof it really is. Spidey's plan is simple... give it his best shot, then success or no, make it out of there in time to make it to the play. However, Green Goblin takes control of the prison and lets the inmates out, making it Spidey versus, well, everybody. The web-head does at least get a little help from Black Cat (Tricia Helfer), who just happens to be breaking into the prison at the time. This particular episode was interestingly lyrical, with rhyming lines coming from onstage and off - as Green Goblin waxes poetic during the prison fiasco.
Final Curtain is the final curtain in more ways than one. For one, Peter Parker ends his relationship with Liz, in order to be with Gwen Stacey. Spider-Man decides to unmask and take out Green Goblin, first thinking that Harry Osborne (James Arnold Taylor) was juicing again and had become the Green Goblin, then, after finding that he couldn't have been the Goblin, and that Norman Osborne (Alan Rachins) also couldn't be the Green Goblin (as he had been seen at the same place and time as Green Goblin), leading to one confused neighborhood Spider-Man who has his work cut out for him. This episode is the last episode in Volume 8, and the last episode in Season Two. Currently, it looks like Final Curtain could very well be the last show in the series, period, making this episode's name, sadly, very apt indeed.
Volume 8 was definitely entertaining, but possibly more for direction choices, such as the chronology approach in Subtext and the rhyming in Opening Night, rather than direction, perhaps. Some things seem unresolved, such as the fate of Mark Allan/Molten Man, which will be more acceptable if the series gets picked up and continued, but as it stands, with the rights to making the show going from Sony back to Marvel, it may not be continued.
