If I had to guess what my first introduction to Spider-Man was I would safely assume the 1994 animated series, and then the Sam Raimi’s, the Garfields, and the Hollands followed by the new Disney+/Marvel Animation Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series. When I was reading comics regularly Dan Slott’s Spectacular Spider-Man was one of the few Marvel titles I followed with issues and not just trades and collections. I genuinely think Spider-Man was the first comic book character I was introduced to, or at least simultaneous to Batman with the animated series. Now this is not to say that there haven’t been fresh fantastic versions of Spider-Man in the past lord knows how many years, but even with Spider-verse this is the freshest, most original and organic take on the character since arguably 94. Would I have preferred a continuation of that series like X-Men – before seeing what we got absolutely, now after seeing all of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man I am so glad this is what we got; no question asked this is the most fun and free Spider-Man has been since Sam Raimi.
While I am not going to outright spoil anything, the plot is simple, we follow Peter Parker (Hudson Thames) as he is trying to learn how to become Spider-Man. He doesn’t have an MJ but he is joined by some friends in Nico (Grace Song) and Pearl (Cathy Ang) and of course some familiar names like Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson). We thankfully don’t need another origin story where poor Uncle Ben dies again, but we do have a younger Aunt May (Kari Wahlgren). However, this isn’t the typical Spider-Man story, since there’s no Uncle Ben, and the universe is a little chaotic, someone else takes young Peter Parker under their wing and its none other than the sinister Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo). Without getting into motives, and other characters who come out during the season (and even the first few episodes) this requires practically no Spider-Man knowledge as everyone is fleshed out, presented with reason, and explained – some knowledge will get you more excited but regardless just a fresh brilliant wonderful take on Spider-Man is what this new series brings to the forefront.
The animation style here is also different than any other incarnation of the character, and what it is reminiscent of and strikes a resemblance to is the original Spider-Man comics from Steve Ditko, which is a breathtakingly fresh take on the character, the presentation and overall architecture of the character we’ve learned to love and know for the past 60 plus years. With this art style combined with the incredibly voice acting presented by the entire cast, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is hands down the best incarnation of the character in years. Despite Spider-Verse existing, the first Holland and the Raimi’s being benchmarks something so fresh, unique, and completely untied to quite literally anything is so refreshing and wonderful that this 10 episode season is the best Marvel TV show, X-Men 97 withstanding, since Disney bought Marvel.
