After Sony Pictures bought the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel Entertainment in 1999, the character experienced many ups and downs. However, the Webhead is still one of, if not the most popular, comic and fictional characters of all time, having been adapted into many comics, games, movies, shows, and more.
Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has been added as the newest Spider-Man TV series on Disney+. However, people weren’t as excited about this show due to the past iterations of the character on TV. The last proper Spider-Man show, “Marvel Spider-Man,” was released on August 19, 2017, on Disney XD.
The show was received poorly by fans for its bad animation, voice acting, and story, and it didn’t capture many elements of Peter Parker and Spider-Man. The show lasted three seasons and ended on October 25, 2020. Since it was targeted towards a younger audience, it wasn’t as successful as previous iterations.
Fast-forward a whole year, and Disney and Marvel announced a series, “Spider-Man: Freshman Year,” in November 2021. The concept was going to be about exploring the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Spider-Man’s origin story, following him through when he got his powers, and an overall prequel to the MCU movies in which Spider-Man has already appeared.
However, things started to get confusing when pictures were shown at San Diego Comic-Con, showing off the show’s first looks. The photos didn’t seem like an MCU Spider-Man origin. Until a reporter interviewed a Marvel producer, asking, “How does Spider-Man: Freshman Year fit into the main MCU timeline?” and getting an answer that, “It does not.”
Many fans, like myself, were very disappointed but confused about why. They decided to do something completely new, both with the story and the animation style.
The animation style for this show was like a blend of a comic book look with a 3D animation with a 2D aesthetic, and the stacked, new cast of characters they were planning on introducing, while avoiding any connection to the MCU’s Peter Parker.
Even with an executive producer and the head of Marvel Television, Brad Winderbaum. Explaining in an interview with Phase Hero on why they decided to go a different direction and not go to the MCU timeline. “It started as, ‘Okay, it’s Spider-Man’s freshman year, he’s going to be a freshman, can we get away with this being entirely in the MCU?’ and very early on in the development process, we realized how locked in that made us.” He also stated that if they made it in the MCU, the story opportunities wouldn’t be as exciting as they wanted them to be.
The show was renamed “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” and released on January 29, 2025. Although I was not hyped for this, I was willing to give it a watch since I was curious to see what kind of Spider-Man story they could tell. I expected it to be decent at best, and I thought fans and the general audience would hate it.
However, I am happy to say that “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” is a blast and, in my opinion, is a top-three Spider-Man show behind Spectacular Spider-Man and Spider-Man: The Animated Series. The show has 10 episodes, each a standalone storyline that connects to the central storyline, a gang war, and the origin of how Peter Parker got his powers in the first episode, which features a slightly different take.
Starting with my positives, the show is very focused on both Peter Parker and Spider-Man (Hudson Thames). This adaptation of the character does things that I wish the MCU would’ve done with their version of Peter Parker.
I love how we see him build his tech, being late when he can’t make it to a party with his best friend, being late to class, struggling to get a girlfriend, and all that is because of his decisions as Spider-Man.
Something different that they do in this show is they don’t make Peter an outcast; he attends a different high school, Rockford T. Bales High School, which is different from where most know him, going to Midtown High School. This is a big reason why he is surrounded by a different cast of characters and isn’t being bullied as other versions of him from the past.
That’s not all the changes. This is a very different take on Spider-Man, and it feels more like a “What if MCU Spider-Man was owned by Marvel rather than Sony?” In these changes, we see, the Avengers don’t work with Spider-Man or know who he is, Iron Man isn’t Peter’s mentor, but rather Norman Osborn, and he also makes Peter’s suits.
Usually, in Spider-Man media, the spider bite happens to Peter in a lab, but for this version, it’s done by multiversal elements. And there is no Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy love interest, and no Flash Thompson.
All these changes do feel weird since I know I and many others have grown up with characters like Mary Jane, Flash Thompson, or even Eddie Brock. However, I do think that these changes aren’t as bad and make this Spider-Man show more unique than its predecessors.
So if you’re expecting a lot of original Spider-Man characters – seeing Uncle Ben getting killed, Harry and Peter going to the same school, Mary Jane, Gwen, or even J. Jonah Jameson – you might be disappointed. However, if you are willing to see how different characters interact with this version of Peter, see some different ideas that have never been done before. You might have a good time with this one.
I also really liked the supporting cast, and while there are some new faces, there are also some reappearances. Some examples are: Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo), Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson), Lonnie Lincoln ( Eugene Byrd), Otto Octavius (Hugh Dancy), Mac Gargan/ Scorpion(Jonathan Medina), Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Doctor Strange (Robin Atkin Downes), and Aunt May (Kari Wahlgren).
While these character arcs are written a little differently from other media, they don’t at all feel like completely different characters from their previous counterparts. As for the new faces – Nico Minour ( Grace Song), Pearl Pangan (Cathy Ang), Jeanne Foucault (Anjali Kunapaneni), and Amadeus Cho (Aleks Le) – hey are all Marvel comic book characters, but aren’t necessarily in Spider-Man comics. The writers introduce these characters and make them around 15 years old (except for Norman, Otto, Gargan, and May). But still give them depth and development for future seasons.
In my opinion, the main standout is Colman Domingo as Norman Osborn. His portrayal as this character is very cunning and very soft-spoken, and it brings a fresh take on the character that I have never seen be adapted in any Spider-Man media. Since this version of Norman knows who Spider-Man is and becomes a mentor for him throughout the season. However, don’t expect him to stay good for long.
Initially, the animation looked ugly, and the characters would move very weirdly. Since the animation style was 3D animation, with techniques to emulate a 2D look, and I still felt could’ve done it like “X-Men ’97,” but later on, I got used to it and appreciated how they could tell so much in just a frame or how the camera moved during the suspenseful scenes. Overall, I like how different this story is from the different iterations we have gotten before.
Negatives: I don’t have many, other than I don’t like how Peter’s identity was revealed so easily. Half of his supporting cast already knows he’s Spider-Man. Also, Spider-Man lets a big gang in the show go by in the second-to-last episode, and while there is a reason, since Lonnie is in this gang that he’s been a part of for the third episode.
The gang war plays a huge role in this season since it’s the transformation of how Lonnie Lincoln rises to power, starting with Mac Gargan’s gang, which is a big war that both gangs have throughout the season. I find it upsetting how Peter threw Gargan’s gang in jail, but not any of Lonnie’s gang members.
The show is very well-written; its themes and concepts are like past Spider-Man shows, and are also very breathtaking at the same time. And while the animation is still not for everyone, it grew on me, and now I’m looking forward to what they could adapt or do differently in later seasons.
Overall, I can’t wait for the future seasons that might come out around next year since Disney and Marvel have already renewed the show for seasons 2 and 3 before its actual premiere. That just goes to show how confident the creators were about the show, and it was very well earned.
In the end, this is a very entertaining Spider-Man tale that I could not wait to see more of. I’ll give this show a 9/10. This show is truly “Amazing.”
