Spider-Man is a character that has had so many animated adaptations going all the way back to the 60's, and because of that, there's a scale for how things could go. They're either well received to some degree like the 90's series and The Spectacular Spider-Man or they can take the character far away from the norm like Spider-Man Unlimited and Ultimate Spider-Man. With that in mind though, there were two reasons for excitement when a new Spider-Man series was announced. For one thing, it meant that Ultimate Spider-Man was finally ending after four seasons. While it did have its moments, the series was mostly reviled. The fact that it was ending was good too because season four had the show's quality taking a dive again after its improvements; after the slow trainwreck of the Spider-Verse sequel, there was another three-parter that not only ruined Mary Jane by making her Carnage/Spider-Woman, but they even somehow found a way to botch the Clone Saga, and believe me, that's quite a feat. Granted the finale was a good wrap-up to the series though. Still, I somewhat thought that with Spider-Man's debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and his new solo movie coming out, they would have just reformatted Ultimate Spider-Man to match things up. The fact that they didn't do that was the second thing that made a new Spider-Man series cause excitement, particularly the fact that they were going to go back to basics with Peter balancing his superhero and high school lives. While Spider-Man's inclusion in the MCU may have facilitated this new show, don't go in expecting some kind of copy of what we see Peter's life is like in Homecoming. So just how does the new Spider-Man series match up to its predecessors?
Unlike my past Marvel cartoon reviews where I only focused on season premieres, with Spider-Man, I decided to hold off until multiple episodes were released and the show went into its first hiatus. I did this because when it came to Spectacular Spider-Man, it took me a few episodes in for me to make up my mind on that series, so I wanted to give this new series the same benefit. Between August and October of this year, 14 episodes have been released, which was more than I expected considering season orders are generally 26 episodes, which means we're already over half-way through the first one. That said, I won't go into every detail about each episode, but just the things that stand out to me.
The series premiere was the two-part "Horizon High", where we pick up on Peter not long after the death of Uncle Ben. He's just starting out and he's still wearing his rookie suit, which is something I don't think has ever been featured in a past Spider-Man cartoon. Things start to look up for Peter though as he's accepted into Horizon High, a school for geniuses, where he's able to develop the classic Spidey suit. It gets props right away by actually feeling like a Spider-Man show, at least compared to Ultimate. He's not relying on SHIELD or other heroes, he actually has a supporting cast and is fighting his own villains. That said though, part one had a lot of parallels to the first episode of Spectacular, particularly the first villain being Vulture and Peter wanting to help Aunt May as she's going through money troubles. The latter doesn't have much focus on this series in comparison though, as it's quickly resolved by Peter getting a job as a lab assistant. He does lie to Aunt May though by saying he got a partial scholarship; at this point, this hasn't been brought up again, so there's no telling if it will later on. The animation style has more of an anime influence not only in character designs, but it also helps the action become more fluid compared to Ultimate, particularly when he's in a fight with Scorpion in a subway compartment, which limits the space of the battle, but gives us a chance to see some of Peter's acrobatic skills.
One thing you'll definitely notice is Peter's love of science. That's always played a part in past Spider-Man series, but they really notched it up in this one. That's a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, it's nice to show Peter's love of science and how he's able to apply it to his Spider-Man activities. But sometimes it can get a little overboard where he can't stop himself from bringing up something scientific in a regular conversation, and it can get to the point where I feel the need to scream "NEEEERRRRD!" Thankfully as the series went on, Peter's love of science is still present, but he's able to have conversations like a normal person. That said, even though Peter is at a school for geniuses, he's definitely one of the more well-rounded students there. Hell, not only do they scoff at the idea of a school dance, but when he and some of his friends go to Coney Island for fun, they still bring their top secret project with them for some reason. Wait, if they're supposed to be geniuses, why did they take out in the open where it could be compromised?
These episodes also establish pretty early that Harry Osborn doesn't like Spider-Man, which at this point is becoming a cliché for the Spider-Man mythos. They've had several interactions through the series so far and Harry begrudgingly helps him out sometimes; Peter and Harry are still best friends here, and while they have some issues, their friendship remains steadfast, which means I think it's going to hit Harry hard when he eventually finds out. I will say though that I think this is being handled much better than it was in Ultimate.
In addition to Horizon High, there's also a rival school in Osborn Academy, created by Norman Osborn, which is the focus of episode three. I didn't really care for this episode because it has Norman essentially making two teenagers with advanced tech fight each other for a spot in his school, causing tons of collateral damage and putting so many people in danger, and they don't face any consequences. It's here where we're introduced to John Jameson (who is interested in astrophysics in this version and turns into the Man-Wolf in episode 11) as well as this show's version of villains Shocker and Clash, all of whom are teenage geniuses. This is something I'm worried about with this show, that half of the Spider-Man characters are going to come about in this fashion. Besides that, Otto Octavius was introduced in the first two-parter as well, and he's also a teenage prodigy, not to mention Peter's advisor. It's such a weird departure from what I'm used to with the character, but he does have the same arrogance you'd expect from the character, and I'm looking forward to see his transformation into Doctor Octopus.
By episodes four and five, this is when I started to notice the show coming into its own. Not only was it nice for them to showcase the social drama of Peter's life, but it's here we start to notice how the episodes play off of one another and set up future elements, though not to the same level of serialization that Spectacular had.
Now would be a good time to start talking about this show's version of Gwen Stacy. Like Peter, she's definitely more well rounded compared to the other students, and she really reminds me to some degree of Emma Stone's portrayal of the character from the Amazing Spider-Man films, particularly in that she may actually be smarter than Peter. While romance was pretty much non-existent in Ultimate, I sense one slowly blooming between Peter and Gwen here. In episode four, while Peter's in a rush somewhere, he stops when Gwen says hi and they talk for a bit, and in episode five, Peter's there to comfort her after the events of that episode (which I'm not going to spoil here though). And later on in episode 14, she actually helps Peter when he's having a hard time decoding a flashdrive with information on Hammerhead, which he says is a school project, and I got a warm feeling when he said "I think what I was missing was you." It would be hard to not miss the double meaning of that line. On that note, I have a strong feeling that Gwen knows Peter is Spider-Man. Like I said, she's a smart girl and should be able to figure it out, but she also doesn't really question why Peter has a drive with info on Hammerhead. I know it may seem weird how I'm wishing for romance on a kid's show between two teenagers, but that's always been a part of Peter's life in almost every version of the character, and he's supposed to represent the everyman. To take that out like Ultimate did is a disservice to the character. It's the relationships that Peter himself has with family and friends that make him the kind of man he is and in turn the hero Spider-Man is.
Episodes six through eight are our requisite symbiote/black costume arc. I know it may seem early for that, but let's not forget that the 90's series had this happen around the same time in its run as well. My main complaint is that it was much shorter compared to how long both the 90's series and Spectacular had it last. While Spectacular still did it the best in my opinion, this show's version of the story did a good job at showing how aggressive the symbiote made Spider-Man, and if you listen closely, it actually distorts Peter's voice the more he wears it. Another problem though is that when it came to how the symbiote affected Peter himself, he was acting cooler than he thought he was. Did they learn nothing from Spider-Man 3? Let's just be glad we were spared a dance number.
Something nice is that much like in the comics, there's a space between Peter wearing the black suit and when we're introduced to Venom. This comes to some fruition when a sample of the symbiote had bonded with Flash Thompson (as a majority of it had been taken by Iron Man to contain at Avengers Compound), but it only transforms him into Venom when he's feeling angry and he loses control. I didn't mind how it was done here, as not only is Spider-Man able to destroy that symbiote sample, but still opens the door for a proper Venom later on. I still have hope that we'll be introduced to Eddie Brock in this series and that he eventually creates a true bond with the symbiote with the goal of destroying both Peter and Spider-Man. When and if that does happen though, I think it would also be nice to see Eddie's more heroic side, i.e. Lethal Protector, something that hasn't been done before in animation.
Following the symbiote arc, but before Venom's appearance, we get a bit of a surprise in Miles Morales, who has only been one of Peter's friends at Horizon at this point, is bitten by another OsCorp spider and becomes a Spider-Man in his own right. When this first happened, I was a little taken aback. I've always seen Miles as the young protégé to Peter's more experienced Spider-Man. To have Miles be around the same age as Peter and already get powers a few months after Peter can be a little too much. But still, setting aside the time between Peter and Miles initially get their powers, having them be close in age isn't that much of a bad thing. It kind of reminds me of Barry and Wally on the Flash TV series. They're also closer in age, but there's still a learning curve one has to teach the other; it's also similar because the newer one has some extra strength compared to original (Wally being faster compared to when Barry first got his speed, and Miles having the cloaking and venom blast techniques). Despite Miles also having powers though, Peter still has his own solo stories, which is nice because I still want this to be Peter's show. And I also hope they both can be called Spider-Man; no more of that "Kid Arachnid" crap from Ultimate.
The last episode that aired before hiatus involved a very minor character from the comics named Screwball. In the issues I've read with her, she's an annoying internet prankster that has messed around with Spider-Man from time to time. The last time I remember her showing up, she pulled her usual shtick on the Superior Spider-Man, when Doc Ock had placed his mind in Peter's body; not having the same patience as Peter did, Ock paid her back with a severe beatdown. So when this character was said to appear, I expected to hate this episode. But imagine my surprise when they gave her actual depth; granted they had to make her Liz Allan (which she isn't in the comics), but it was worth it. She actually had a goal in mind with her pranks but lost sight of that when she noticed messing with Spider-Man got her more attention, eventually learning her lesson by the end of the episode. I may make this episode sound better than it actually was compared to others so far, but if this show can give us a better version of a character than the comics did, I think it's earned its spot among great animated comic shows.
When it comes to the current slate of Marvel animated series, also including Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers Assemble, Spider-Man is definitely on top. Guardians of the Galaxy is still good, but I think it kind of lost some of its luster after the film's sequel came out. The animated series is its own continuation of the first film with no real connections to the MCU, but after the sequel as well as the current Telltale game, I see characters like Yondu and Nebula in a different light compared to how they're portrayed in the show. As for Avengers Assemble, I finally gave up on the show after the season four premiere. With all the opportunities the show has had to improve itself over its run despite some stand-out moments, I get the sense that they're comfortable sitting in mediocrity, and I'm done supporting that.
So with fourteen episodes in, I can definitely say that this new series is a welcome addition to the Spider-Man animated legacy. Of course, it's not as good as Spectacular Spider-Man, which I don't think will ever be topped, and it does suffer from some of the same problems Marvel cartoons have had since Ultimate Spider-Man. However, it still has many opportunities to improve, and it may be presumptuous to say it at this point, but I believe the 2017 series can join both Spectacular and the 90's series as the Spider-Man shows that will stand the test of time, as they all showcase the world of Spider-Man and introducing new fans to a somewhat accurate depiction of the character.
No comments:
Post a Comment