The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) - The Captive Tower

Die Hard with Spider-Man.

After 1988's Die Hard brought us the story of a lone hero battling a group of terrorists who had taken control of a high-rise building, theatres and video store shelves were flooded with movies that either directly ripped off the concept or moved the set-up to a different location. There were movies described as "Die Hard on a plane", "Die Hard on a boat", "Die Hard on a train", etc. But a decade before Die Hard was released, the Amazing Spider-Man television show gave the world "Die Hard with Spider-Man" in the first episode of its second season.

Directed by Cliff Bole and written by Gregory S. Dinallo (who was working from a story by Bruce Kalish and Philip John Taylor), The Captive Tower finds Daily Bugle newspaper photographer Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) attending a special event where the company behind a soon-to-open high-rise office building, which will eventually be filled with 16,000 employees, is honoring the people who helped make the construction of this building possible. One of those people being honored is Parker's boss, Daily Bugle editor-in-chief J. Jonah Jameson (Robert F. Simon), and Peter has to make sure he gets better pictures of this shindig than his competition, a young woman named Julie Masters (Ellen Bry), who will even go so far as to step in front of Peter's camera and/or elbow him in the ribs so she can get the better shots.

The competition between Peter and Julie becomes very unimportant when the building is taken over by former military man E.W. Foster (David Sheiner), a "battle-hardened pro" who was in the service for 18 years and was highly decorated before being dishonorably discharged for dabbling in the black market. Now Foster and his goons are holding the occupants of this building hostage and demanding that the authorities hand over $10 million. When they first take control of the place, Foster uses the building's P.A. system to announce that the place is "under siege"; which also happens to have been the title of one of the most popular Die Hard cash-ins, a Steven Seagal vehicle that was "Die Hard on a battleship."

Foster and his cohorts find it easy to trap their hostages in the building because this place is hi-tech, controlled by a computer so sophisticated that it can monitor itself and usually operates unattended. Now it's being monitored by a tech-savvy lackey of Foster's, who tricks the computer into shutting all of the fire doors.

Peter is a smart fellow, so he might be able to figure out how to work the computer, but the trouble is that it only responds to direct input and it's located up on the 18th floor. While the authorities on the ground outside try to negotiate with Foster, Peter has to go into Spider-Man mode and climb up the side of the building like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. But of course solving this problem isn't just as simple as busting through a window and typing some commands into the computer. Especially since Foster's men have placed explosives all over the building.

The Captive Tower is a decent, action-based episode of The Amazing Spider-Man that moves along at a quick pace, but it never fully lives up to the potential of the concept. It holds back, having Spider-Man do a lot of climbing and swinging around the building but not having him confront the villains often enough. If there were more sequences of Spider-Man subduing Foster's goons, it would have been quite entertaining. Die Hard's John McClane definitely handled the "terrorists have taken over the building" scenario in a more thrilling way than Spider-Man does here.

Although this episode deals almost entirely with building-set action, there is a nice moment in the beginning that reminds us how down-to-earth and relatable Peter Parker is supposed to be. He arrives at the building with his co-worker Rita Conway (Chip Fields), who borrows his car and leaves - and as she's leaving, Peter reminds her that the handbrake doesn't work, and implores her to pay attention to the temperature gauge. This is the cheapest car he could find, and he can't have it being messed up. He's an amazing hero, but he's also a regular guy with car troubles.