There was an episode of the ’90s Spider-Man cartoon that had Robert Farrell in it. They never actually call him “the Rocket Racer” in the episode, but he does all the usual Rocket Racer stuff. It’s got to be the most prominent appearance of the character outside of the comics so far, and it’s likely to remain that way for a long time.

In the fifth episode of the third season, titled “Rocket Racer” we meet Robert Farrell, voiced by Billy ‘Pop’ Atmore.

Watching the episode, I find that we get a lot of the things I want to see in a Rocket Racer story. There’s subtle commentary on race and how ex-criminals aren’t given a fair shot at finding their way back into society. We’re shown Bob struggling to help out his sick mother, whose illness is never identified. We’re shown that the neighbourhood where Bob lives is on his side (a pharmacist gives him a discount on medicine). Bob shows no signs of romantic interest in anyone. We even get the Big Wheel making an appearance. All in all, this is about as faithful an appearance to the comics version as possible. So here’s where I pick out what is different about Rocket Racer here and his usual portrayal in the Marvel Universe.

• Bob is young here. I’ve mentioned this one before, but usually Bob is depicted as being at least as old as Spider-Man, but in this episode he is a teenager who is actually a student being tutored by Peter Parker. I don’t mind that he’s aged down for this (as I’ve said, you’d expect a skateboard-themed character to be young), but I don’t like that he knows Peter Parker. That makes the world feel very small.
• Bob’s story is backwards. In the comics, Bob was an upstanding and smart young child who had to resort to crime because he couldn’t afford to take care of his family when his mother got sick. In the cartoon, Bob was a criminal child who turned his life around to help his mother when she got sick. There’s a place for each kind of story, sure, but I prefer the original, because it casts the broken aspects of society as the impetus.
• Bob’s family doesn’t exist here. In this cartoon Mrs. Farrell (never named Emma, but we can assume) is shown to be a single mother, but instead of having seven children, she seems to only have Bob. I do feel that Bob’s siblings represent untapped potential for Rocket Racer stories, but this isn’t a Rocket Racer story. This is a Spider-Man show that only goes to the Rocket Racer well one time, so it doesn’t need all those other kids around to complicate things. It is understandable to have excised them. (Also, Mrs. Farrell is depicted as much thinner and more conventionally attractive than her comics counterpart. That I don’t like. Let’s have more representation of large people, please. But I guess having six fewer children made a difference.)
• Mrs. Farrell owns a grocery store. We’re never told what Mrs. Farrell did for work in the comics, but in this cartoon she owns Farrell’s Grocery. Maybe the comics version has this store too. Maybe it’s manned by Bob’s adult siblings we never see. We simply don’t have the information.
• The Big Wheel’s story is also backwards. In the comics, Jackson Weele was an embezzling businessman who was conned by Bob when the Rocket Racer did crimes on corporate types. That caused Jackson to create the Big Wheel persona for revenge. In the cartoon, the Big Wheel is an existing criminal mastermind with a gang of henchmen in power-suits called the Rocket Raiders. I’d guess maybe this was changed to make Bob a more sympathetic character, since blackmailing someone so hard that they become a supervillain isn’t a great look if you want the kid to be a poor wretch who deserves better, right?
• Bob steals equipment from the Rocket Raiders to create his own Rocket Racer equipment. In the comics, Bob gets his equipment from junkyards and the Tinkerer. This is a very minor change, given that we’re still shown Bob assembling the equipment himself and Peter admits that Bob knows a lot about gyroscopic science or whatever it is. Sure, it seems like it’d be less impressive to build a rocket skateboard from pre-made equipment than from scratch, but it’s only really done to drive the conflict here. I’ll allow it.

So that’s my report on the Spider-Man Animated Series episode Rocket Racer. Let’s see what the people on the Internet have to say about it. “This episode and The Spot are considered by most fans to be the two worst episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series.” Ah. Well. At least it’s a tie, and not dead last.

If I have a series called “Rocket Racer Thoughts” on my site, I should at least offer my thoughts when the character appears in the comics. He recently did. In the most recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man (from either this week or sometime within this month anyway) our boy Bob gets a whole panel!

There’s a Big Event Crossover Story going on in the Marvel Universe right now and it’s all about a giant space god that is attempting to judge every person on Earth to see if they’re “worthy” or not. Usually this entails it appearing to the person being judged in some form that means something to the person being judged (a dead relative, a symbolic figure, even the person themselves, and cetera). The space god watches them for a bit, then gives a thumbs up or down to indicate it’s findings. A lot of people in the world have not reacted well to this whole situation. One of those people is Robert Farrell.

We’re only told that Rocket Racer “flipped his lid” and had to be stopped by Miles Morales. As the biggest fan of the character, I declare this appearance a good one. Yes, this comic in which Bob doesn’t get to say a word and in which he is presumably badly beaten off-panel is entirely in keeping with what I consider to be in character for Bob.

How would Bob react to knowing that he’s being judged by some cosmic being? Well, Bob is definitely, painfully aware that he has not lived up to his potential in life. He’d probably try to argue about how he couldn’t live up to that potential because of his circumstances, what with having to take care of his family and all that. But then he’d feel bad for blaming his family for his own failures. Then he’d deflect again, blaming society, but then he’d remember how he’s tried to improve society in the past, but absolutely failed to follow through with it (or gone about it in stupid ways). And this back-and-forth would go on for a while (I guarantee he’d make fun of himself for having a childish gimmick) and then, yeah, he’d probably flip his lid. And yeah, he’d probably get punched in the face a couple times as a result.

Typical Rocket Racer.