The latest Disney+ MCU series takes on the origin of Spider-Man in a fun and unique way that blends nostalgia with new twists.
Plot: An animated series that follows Peter Parker on his way to becoming a hero, with a journey unlike we’ve ever seen and a style that celebrates the character’s early comic book roots.
Review: Since Tobey Maguire swung through Manhattan in Sam Raimi’s 2002 film, we have had four major takes on Spider-Man’s saga in feature films, with dozens in animated form on the small screen. The recent What If…? series introduced a Tom Holland-esque take on Spider-Man that fans resonated with, leading to Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, the first official MCU series starring Peter Parker. Set in an alternate timeline from the Homecoming trilogy, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man boasts a nostalgiac look that harkens back to the original comics from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko while playing with elements introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to give us a version of the arachnid superhero that has a distinct voice and style that comes pretty close to the acclaimed Spider-Verse films from Sony. Diving into a serial story with a more mature tone than prior series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is a welcome treat for fans looking for more substance from their animated fare.
Consisting of ten episodes, the first season of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man opens with Peter Parker (Hudson Thames) preparing for his first day of high school orientation. This version of Peter looks very much like the 1962 comic book incarnation, complete with dorky attire and nerdy personality. Aunt May (Kari Wahlgren) is modeled after Marisa Tomei’s version of Peter’s guardian. When May drops Peter off for his orientation, Midtown is besieged by Doctor Strange as he battles a symbiote-like alien. While Strange does not look like Benedict Cumberbatch’s version, he does share the same theme music. Strange (Robin Atkin Downes) battles a symbiote-like alien creature and seems startled when he realizes which universe he is in. Peter steps up to save Nico Minoru (Grace Song) from the alien, and as Strange takes the monster away, a spider sneaks through the portal, which leads to Peter getting bitten and earning his powers. Fast-forwarding several months, Peter has built his homemade Spidersuit and is fighting crime outside school. Peter and Nico are best friends at school, which takes the place of Peter and Ned but does not copy that dynamic. Peter pines for Pearl Pangan (Cathy Ang) in this world and befriends her new boyfriend, Lonnie Lincoln (Eugene Byrd). Very quickly, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man straddles the line between what happened to Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming while shifting things slightly for this branch in the timeline.
The connections between the MCU films and the series are plentiful, with references to the Sokovia Accords and a shot-for-shot replication of Peter meeting Tony Stark from Civil War, this time with the billionaire replaced by Norman Osborn. Voiced by Colman Domingo, Osborn is a suave businessman and genius who takes on Peter Parker as a protege. Helping shape Peter’s development as a hero, the dynamic between Osborn and Parker changes how Spider-Man arrives at his pivotal evolution; something handled brilliantly in this story. As Peter’s friendship with Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson) develops, the series makes room to follow how Peter’s alter egos must contend with balancing school, romance, friends, family, and being a superhero. While Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man devotes a lot of time to Peter’s character development, there is a lot of attention given to Lonnie Lincoln’s path to eventually becoming the supervillain known as Tombstone, a character we have yet to see in live-action. The multiple story arcs keep the series lively, even with episodes only clocking in at half an hour each. Taken together, the ten episodes feel like chapters in a movie rather than the more episodic structure we typically get with animated series like this.
The voice work is excellent throughout, with Hudson Thames sounding so much like Tom Holland that it is scary. Thames nails the dweebish Peter Parker in equal measure with his whip-smart delivery of wisecracks when fighting bad guys. Colman Domingo is also quite good as a different take on Norman Osborn than usual. While Norman’s expected route to becoming Green Goblin has been seen on screen before, this series avoids repeating that by not making it a central element of this show’s first season. Instead, we get an origin for Spider-Man that defies convention while still being faithful to the source material. There are a few MCU connections, with Charlie Cox reprising his role as Daredevil as the most substantial. While some MCU plot elements and characters factor in, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gives us unique origins for many villains, including Scorpion, Chameleon, Rhino, Tarantula, Butane, Speed Demon, and Otto Octavius. Every villain is directly or tangentially connected to the series’ overarching plot structure, which is deliberately built and layered to give us a solid Spider-Man tale sprawling in scope and potential.
Developed by Jeff Trammell, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man feels most closely aligned with the fan-favorite series Spectacular Spider-Man but with a more mature feel. This series’s thematic tone and feel come across as closer to Into the Spider-Verse and its sequel in giving us a realistic look at Peter and his friends while not shying away from the life-or-death stakes of superheroes. Trammell and writer Charlie Neuner and directors Mel Zwyer and Stu Livingston approached this series with a level of detail that Kevin Feige has brought to the live-action side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Brad Winderbaum and Feige gave Trammell enough freedom to build this story using the comic book source material while not being beholden to the Sacred Timeline of the main MCU projects. This allows this series to utilize a wide open canvas, including characters on different paths than we have seen while leveraging elements in their personalities and plotlines. In short, this series is much like an expanded What If…? storyline but with a completely new aesthetic and feel.
As impressed as I was after watching the premiere episode, I was beyond excited by the end of the tenth. Everything introduced in the premiere is paid off in the finale, with the table set for an even more ambitious second season and the potential for a slew of spin-offs and supplemental series following different heroes and villains. Disney and Marvel Studios have successfully set up their second Spider-Man franchise since partnering with Sony to bring Tom Holland’s films to the MCU. As we wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse to hit theaters, we have the best animated web-slinger to keep us entertained for the foreseeable future. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is a blast from start to finish, chock full of smart twists on familiar characters and the best alternate timeline in the MCU. This is not just another cartoon but another brilliant animated project that may even be better than X-Men ’97.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man premieres on January 29th on Disney+.
