25 years later, what are your thoughts on Spider-Man: The Animated Series?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

As an adaption I think Spectacular was much stronger on several fronts, but got cut down in the prime of it's youth. At the same time, I think Spider-Man: The Animated Series was groundbreaking for era it came out in and was a major turning point for the franchise as far as media adaptions. I know it's what made me a Spider-Man fan.

I understand that. That's cool. It's definitely quite important in the overall franchise sense.

I still think it's a fairly weak show overall.

The 90s was a big time for animation on TV. On WB, you had Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, you had Batman the Animated Series, then Superman, Batman Beyond, which continued into Justice League. Walt Disney had Darkwing Duck, Duck Tales'87 and other stuff like TaleSpin (which I think was late '80s). And of course this was the decade of The Simpsons.

I just don't think any Marvel cartoon in that time measures up to that. Whether it's Fox Spider-Man and for that matter Fox X-Men. The only ones that did came in the 2000s -- X-Men Evolution, and then Spectacular Spider-Man. 0

What do you guys think of how TAS handled the use of outside, non-Spider elements?

I honestly didn't care about it. I still think Spider-Man works best when it focuses on just him. The wider-Marvel Universe with its largely garbage-fire characters always needed Spider-Man more than he needed them.

The Fox Cartoon gave us a Punisher who uses laser rifles...I mean a Frank Castle who doesn't kill people, what's that all about that. You could have used Luke Cage if you wanted a non-violent vigilante who opposes Spider-Man only to become friends later since Luke Cage played that role once.

And even the Fox Cartoon didn't give people the Spider-Man in MU stories that's great...no Spider-Man v. Juggernaut, Spider-Man v. Firelord.

I felt like the one thing that held Spectacular back was that it didn't have the rest of the Marvel Universe due to legal reasons

That's more or less why I liked Spectacular and indeed prefer it.

Spider-Man works best without the Marvel Universe. The less integrated he is the better his stories are. The MU always diminish him and rarely add to him.

[Hybrid]

That's one way to look at it, but I always looked at superhero universes as a shared space and that's why I prefer them to be in the same world. It's the same reason I heavily oppose the idea of segregating X-Men from the rest of the MU and dumping them in their own universe, especially because that kind of "separate, but equal" mentality is supremely ironic. I could see how someone only interested in Spider-Man thinks SSM works best without the MU, but for me, I read Spider-Man in addition to a lot of other comics and got the good feel of a wide world that lives and breathes.

So for me, I thought TAS did the right balance by making it regular enough to not surprise you, but irregular enough for you not to expect it every time. That's how it should be.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

That's one way to look at it, but I always looked at superhero universes as a shared space and that's why I prefer them to be in the same world.

The shared universe as a concept went from being a cool what-if mash idea to being something that waters down some characters at the expense of others, at the detriment of real values of storytelling. These days it's become something quite opposite to what it once was...some bizarre status symbol. Like apparently if you don't step up and shine Iron Man's shoes, or polish Cap's shields or rub Mjolnir's handle, you are apparently lower than a serf in the superhero community.

The reality for the Marvel Universe as a shared universe, the hard Doylist reason is, Lee wanted to sell as many titles as he could and he shilled as many guest star cameos with heroes that crossed over to get that across. There was no grand shared storytelling involved, no big concept, just simple hucksterism. The same was true of the original Justice Society and Justice League. They didn't feature Batman or Superman, or featured them if at all, in minor parts. The reason is Batman and Superman were big characters which sold well, so when they made cameos, it was a favor for the League.

The shared universe was basically a pity gig that big time heroes did once or twice. And everybody knew that and understood that. Then the MCU comes along, and now the shared universe is this thing it wasn't intended to be. Spider-Man and the X-Men had a wealth of stories to tell without needing crossovers. The same's not true for Iron Man or Captain America. Tell a story of either of them without the Avengers and you lose a great deal. Tell a story of Spider-Man and the X-Men without crossovers and shared appearances, and you have the characters and story at the purest, distilled, best essence.

In the case of Spider-Man, since he was for the longest time Marvel's biggest crossover character, he was used to promote lesser known characters. Daredevil and the Punisher for instance are characters who have never had, and probably never will have, their own cartoon series. The Punisher is inherently a very violent character. Daredevil is maybe someone you can get away with a Batman Animated Series story (which was PG in letter but PG-13 in spirit) but the concept of a blind superhero who fights mostly street-crime and whose day job is a lawyer is not something that is marketable. So the Fox Spider-Man cartoon was used to give them exposure, albeit to a certain detriment, since Kingpin got associated with Spider-Man again which is always a bad thing for both Fisk and Parker. Luckily the Daredevil Netflix series rescued Fisk from that.

It's the same reason I heavily oppose the idea of segregating X-Men from the rest of the MU and dumping them in their own universe, especially because that kind of "separate, but equal" mentality is supremely ironic.

The X-men are so above any other superhero team in comics, leave alone Marvel, that it's not even funny. When I read an X-Men story, I want to read their story and characters. I don't want to know what they think of the latest Avengers roster or whatnot.

So for me, I thought TAS did the right balance by making it regular enough to not surprise you, but irregular enough for you not to expect it every time. That's how it should be.

The reasons for that again are mostly commercial.

There's a way to organically build a series on a single character's domain and gradually expand that, like Bruce Timm did that with Batman and Superman. He did series focusing largely on Batman as a standalone hero (with the exception of episodes featuring obscure characters like Zatanna and Jonah Hex), and then one season of Superman as a solo hero before crossing over Batman into his series, and then continuing from there.

That doesn't happen with Spider-Man. It's always one extreme or another. And even then the minute the Avengers show up, it's like that scene in Goodfellas where that guy tells Joe Pesci to get his shoe-shine box, except instead of Spider-Man beating the crap out of Iron Man, stabbing him, putting him in a trunk and going to Aunt May for wheatcakes before killing him and burying Stark alive...Peter instead meekly gets his shoeshine box.

[Frontier]

I understand that. That's cool. It's definitely quite important in the overall franchise sense.

I still think it's a fairly weak show overall.

The 90s was a big time for animation on TV. On WB, you had Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, you had Batman the Animated Series, then Superman, Batman Beyond, which continued into Justice League. Walt Disney had Darkwing Duck, Duck Tales'87 and other stuff like TaleSpin (which I think was late '80s). And of course this was the decade of The Simpsons.

I just don't think any Marvel cartoon in that time measures up to that. Whether it's Fox Spider-Man and for that matter Fox X-Men. The only ones that did came in the 2000s -- X-Men Evolution, and then Spectacular Spider-Man.

I disagree. I feel like Spider-Man: The Animated Series and especially X-Men: The Animated Series are very well up there with those other cartoons in their own right, especially in what they set out to do in adapting the properties they were working from.

The Fox Cartoon gave us a Punisher who uses laser rifles...I mean a Frank Castle who doesn't kill people, what's that all about that. You could have used Luke Cage if you wanted a non-violent vigilante who opposes Spider-Man only to become friends later since Luke Cage played that role once.

That was the censors though. He was still pretty much exactly The Punisher from the comics, which is pretty impressive for a kids show.

And even the Fox Cartoon didn't give people the Spider-Man in MU stories that's great...no Spider-Man v. Juggernaut, Spider-Man v. Firelord.

But we got Spidey and the X-Men, Spidey and Dr. Strange, a fun Iron Man team-up, and Secret Wars .

That's more or less why I liked Spectacular and indeed prefer it.

Spider-Man works best without the Marvel Universe. The less integrated he is the better his stories are. The MU always diminish him and rarely add to him.

I think the only time I feel like the shared universe aspect is a hindrance to Spider-Man is in the MCU where it dominates so much of his narrative.

In and of itself I think it can be something that's fun to acknowledge so much as it doesn't detract from Spider-Man's own corner. That's the appeal of any shared universe.

The shared universe was basically a pity gig that big time heroes did once or twice. And everybody knew that and understood that. Then the MCU comes along, and now the shared universe is this thing it wasn't intended to be. Spider-Man and the X-Men had a wealth of stories to tell without needing crossovers. The same's not true for Iron Man or Captain America. Tell a story of either of them without the Avengers and you lose a great deal. Tell a story of Spider-Man and the X-Men without crossovers and shared appearances, and you have the characters and story at the purest, distilled, best essence.

Cap and Iron Man have had plenty of solo adventures to where you can tell stories with them without needing The Avengers.

In the case of Spider-Man, since he was for the longest time Marvel's biggest crossover character, he was used to promote lesser known characters. Daredevil and the Punisher for instance are characters who have never had, and probably never will have, their own cartoon series. The Punisher is inherently a very violent character. Daredevil is maybe someone you can get away with a Batman Animated Series story (which was PG in letter but PG-13 in spirit) but the concept of a blind superhero who fights mostly street-crime and whose day job is a lawyer is not something that is marketable. So the Fox Spider-Man cartoon was used to give them exposure, albeit to a certain detriment, since Kingpin got associated with Spider-Man again which is always a bad thing for both Fisk and Parker. Luckily the Daredevil Netflix series rescued Fisk from that.

DD got close to cartoon in the 80's. I also think his appearance in the 90's show was somewhat of a pilot for a Daredevil cartoon.

I don't see how Fisk's use in the 90's cartoon was a detriment when the show had such a strong take on Kingpin.

The X-men are so above any other superhero team in comics, leave alone Marvel, that it's not even funny. When I read an X-Men story, I want to read their story and characters. I don't want to know what they think of the latest Avengers roster or whatnot.

But they might have some really interesting opinions on that roster .

[Batman Begins 2005]

Grew up on the show, still have a soft spot for it. When it comes to Spider-Man cartoons, it's second only to The Spectacular Spider-Man. Same goes for Christopher Daniels Barnes to Josh Keaton's Spider-Man. I actually watched yesterday when Spidey meets Stan Lee and how Madame Web was voiced by Joan Lee, Stan's wife.

[Hybrid]

I feel like we could be seeing a lot of new Marvel animated series coming later on Disney+. In part because Disney+ itself is the platform for premium content owned by Disney, but also they finally got rid of the millstone that is Jeph Loeb and have scrapped Marvel TV because it was just totally redundant now that Marvel Studios is making TV shows. Marvel Animation is now a subsidiary of Marvel Studios, itself run by Feige, rather than answering to Marvel TV. That's exciting.

So I'm hoping Marvel will finally get animation that can rival DC. It's actually gotten embarrassing how bad Marvel had it in the animated department. They were churning out forgettable schlock at the same rate DC was making animated classics. I kind of alluded to what the future holds before, with the "inevitable future Disney+ original Spider-Man animated series" bit, because it's obvious that will happen eventually just like with X-Men. I feel like they can only be a step up from what Jeph Loeb was making. It also makes sense, because if Disney+ is supposed to be premium, are we really to accept the crap that Loeb put out as "the best of Marvel" on the service? This couldn't have happened at a better time.

So maybe we'll see a Daredevil animated series? Who knows. We're very likely to see high quality animation going forward though.

[Prof. Warren]

The consensus is that they have indeed aged well and they remain influential and widely quoted and discussed decades later.

The consensus is that it's a classic. But even classics become dated and B:TAS is not immune to that.

So much so the voice-actor of Batman recently got a chance to play the character in live-action in the recent Crisis event on TV...and that was treated as an event.

You know, you would save yourself a lot of time by simply remembering that you're on a comic book message board and you can just take it as a given that certain information is already commonly known.

Honestly, for who do you think Kevin Conroy appearing on the Crisis crossover could possibly be news to here that you have treat it like some kind of big reveal to support your case?

Conroy's appearance on Crisis, by the way, was sadly cringe-worthy. Vocally he might be my favorite Batman but CW should have not gone for stunt casting to appease a handful of fans who wet themselves over this sort of thing and actually got someone who could embody the role physically. But I digress...

Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about it all the time as well. Edward Gorey was also an admirer. So it had a reach and impact that was much bigger than anything. The hugely influential Arkham games that came out had the voice cast of the series while also borrowing whole storylines from episodes like Heart of Ice, Over the Edge, and other things.The character Harley Quinn created for the show is now played by Hollywood's biggest young female star.

The Fox Spider-man show isn't remotely like that.

No, it isn't. The reach of the Fox Spider-Man show isn't like B:TAS but I'm just talking about the fact that all these shows have aged.

B:TAS's greatest asset was that it was made with a timeless quality. It's not locked into any particular period. It's a mishmash of eras whereas Spider-Man is very much a '90s-set show. But that's to be expected. DC's universe lends itself to being portrayed in timeless terms whereas Marvel is always very much rooted in whatever the here and now is.

But whereas the settings and fashions of B:TAS are not evocative of the '90s, the sense of pacing and approach to storytelling is still unavoidably of its time and that's what betrays its age twenty five plus years later.

And again, remember you're on a comic book message board.

"The character Harley Quinn created for the show is now played by Hollywood's biggest young female star."

Everyone already knows where Harley Quinn comes from. Everybody. You don't have to explain that she was created for the show. We know. No one's going to wonder what you're talking about if you just mention Harley Quinn. And we all know that Margot Robbie plays her in the movies. We also know that Robbie is a big star, for that matter. That isn't news either.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I feel like we could be seeing a lot of new Marvel animated series coming later on Disney+.

Right now, they have What IF... which looks quite interesting. It has an animation style closer to ITSV than anything done before.

So maybe we'll see a Daredevil animated series? Who knows. We're very likely to see high quality animation going forward though.

Disney Plus is largely for family audience so that's a big strike against Daredevil. In fact that was always the main barrier for Daredevil to cross over, his stories are set in a very violent background, and characters like Bullseye, Elektra, Kingpin among others are brutal murderers.

You can fence Spider-Man in PG well enough, Batman is versatile enough that you can do PG in letter but PG13 in spirit, the X-Men likewise did that with X-Men Evolution...but Daredevil and Punisher not so much.

DD got close to cartoon in the 80's. I also think his appearance in the 90's show was somewhat of a pilot for a Daredevil cartoon.

Didn't know that. Fact is that Daredevil has never had a cartoon to himself, and aside from some tie-in to DS, never a major game either. Netflix Daredevil was the first crossover success Matt has had.

I don't see how Fisk's use in the 90's cartoon was a detriment when the show had such a strong take on Kingpin.

Because it's still a nerfed Kingpin. Kingpin unleashed is Daredevil's Kingpin and that character doesn't work with Spider-Man. Any story that featured that Kingpin can only lead to one story...Back in Black, which is the best Spider-Man/Kingpin story, and also one which finished him for good as a Spider-Man villain for all intents and purposes.

[Hybrid]

Disney+ allows for PG-13/TV-14 content though, and some not-so family friendly works that fit PG-13 are on there like The Simpsons. I'm sure they can do a TV-14 Daredevil just fine, same with The Punisher, though I'd vouch for Pun to get a TV-MA animated movie or show that isn't tied to the service -- admittedly tricky because they made a big deal about how Disney+ will be the exclusive home for Marvel going forward.

[Agent Z]

The writing and voice acting still remain strong especially for Peter, Felicia and Jameson. The effects haven't aged well sadly but I think that can be overlooked. I really did enjoy the neogenic nightmare and Black Cat arcs.

Not to mention that such au stuff and so on is against the spirit of Spider-Man’s stories.

The award-winning Spider-Man animated movie says otherwise.

If you compare the show overall to stuff like Bruce Timm’s work at WB with Batman and Superman, it’s aged even less well. Marvel is supposed to be relatable and grounded and more experimental than DC but in animation, it was and remains far more conservative than DC/WB, at least until ITSV. Time and Others made Batman, Superman and others into relatable characters with depth and shade whereas Fox Spider-Man is not a very complex character and fairly simplistic yet on the whole.

The idea that Marvel is more relatable and grounded than DC is and always has been a crock. When people say this they are usually talking about the original Justice League members and even then it ignores a lot of nuance for those characters. Marvel being more grounded than DC comes from the former not relying on fictional cities as much as the latter but the characters and stories told aren't any more or less relatable than the other.

Uh-huh, since the original comic version just had Peter reject the symbiote on account of being disgusted that it was alive and sapient, which made him look kind of like a jerk,

I've never understood this argument. Why is Peter wanting to retain his autonomy as an individual entity a bad thing? Even if the symbiote wasn't corrupting his conscience in the comics, it was still violating his consent.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The consensus is that it's a classic. But even classics become dated and B:TAS is not immune to that.

I need to ask you what you consider aspects of BTAS that have become dated, because from your post I gather that you haven't watched it recently.

Conroy's appearance on Crisis, by the way, was sadly cringe-worthy.

I actually liked it. I mean he's playing an older alternate take on Bruce. The costume choice is a little weird (like that tie-suit thing underneath a metal harness feels too social) but it's a dark take that allows Conroy to show chops.

B:TAS's greatest asset was that it was made with a timeless quality. It's not locked into any particular period.

That changed with the sequel show The New Batman Adventures which was done with the same art style as Superman and Gotham looks more like the 90s there. Superman the Animated Series was done with a more modern looking style, being set in the 90s and the Justice League was a very 2000s show, often having commentary on the Dubya Bush administration. Likewise, Batman Beyond.

Some of the best Batman shows were done in this time. Like Over the Edge which is a favorite of Ed Brubaker and which he cited as an inspiration on his run on Batman, and which supplied major plot elements for the Batman Arkham Knight game. Mad Love which adapts Timm/Dini's OGN published in the '90s.

DC's universe lends itself to being portrayed in timeless terms whereas Marvel is always very much rooted in whatever the here and now is.

The Fox Spider-Man, also the Fox X-Men, are mostly set in a fantasy take on New York and America with very little in believable social detail, rarely touching on social themes, whereas Batman the Animated Series in its many episodes dealt with stalking, crazy fandom, teen violence, domestic abuse, gentrification and other issues across the original series, and the sequel series and well in Batman Beyond, much of which was topics of concern in the 90s. The Justice League show likewise dealt with the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 fears.

I mean even compared to Superman the Animated Series also by Bruce Timm, the Fox Spider-Man doesn't hold up. That episode where Dan Turpin gets killed on-screen by Darkseid, and Superman couldn't save him in time, is a spiritual adaptation of the Death of George Stacy and Gwen Stacy only done with Superman. That's stuff that the Fox show didn't touch on. And the final fight there between Superman and Darkseid is the best superhero battle in animated cartoons and in any media until Raimi's Spider-Man 1 with the final fight between Goblin and Spider-Man.

[Agent Z]

And even the Fox Cartoon didn't give people the Spider-Man in MU stories that's great...no Spider-Man v. Juggernaut, Spider-Man v. Firelord.

The former is an unimportant MU story and the latter is largely considered a joke.

[Hybrid]

The former is an unimportant MU story and the latter is largely considered a joke.

Many fans, myself included, have a soft spot for Spider-Man vs. Firelord. Yes, it's a nightmare feat for battle forums but it's also a great moment for Spidey and a great showing of his characterization, along with some nice artwork the perfectly captures the frenetic nature of the attack. I'll take it over Miles Morales beating Blackheart for sure.

[Mutant God]

My favorite Spider-Man cartoon

[Revolutionary_Jack]

...the latter is largely considered a joke.

It shows up in a lot of lists of best Spider-Man fights and stories and is considered a great story by Chip Zdarsky among others.

Maybe in one tiny corner of the internet congregated by especially rude people, it's considered a joke. But that doesn't mean anything.