Ladies and Gentlemen The Spectacular Spider-Man! Appreciation

[Alastor]

I honestly don't think that this show's Liz Allan was a combination of Liz from the comics and Michele Gonzales from BND. Michele was introduced in 2009 and Spectacular Spider-Man has been in production since 2007. It was probably more of an effort to have a cast with ethnic diversity instead of most characters being Caucasian.

[stingnewell]

Speaking of changes, I actually did enjoy most of the changes.
It was clear that Spectacular took the best of both worlds of the Ditko and Lee with Ultimate Spider-Man.

Heres my list of best changes:
Spider-Man's rogues having a diverse origin of their creation besides majority of freak accident.
The balance between telling the separate lives of Peter and Spider-Man
The villains forming a super villain community
The banter between Green Goblin and Spider-Man
The diverse ethnicity change
Finally the simplicity of the animation design to give Spider-Man that true Spider like agility,
made me realize that the fluid animation was more important than overly detail design cartoons.

[The Ice-Guy]

This has to be my all time favorite cartoon, I really wish josh was still voicing spidey...
and am I the only one who likes Montana shocker better? he gave the mantle a little more personality

[Beacon]

You could tell the creators really respected the source material from all the easter eggs they planted in the series, with practically every voiced character being someone from the comics. Little elements like Jean DeWolff's partner- who was the Sin Eater in the comics- saying that Spider-Man doesn't go far enough in his methods is something that the average viewer might not focus on, but the people who know a lot about Spider-Man it was great fanservice.

Or that every single minor character from May’s doctor to Mark Allen’s bookie are lifted from the comics.

They really went out of their way to make the supporting cast both likable and helpful. I was surprised when JJJ tried to protect Pete when Rhino showed up at the Bugle, that was a great character moment.

Its really the only time I can remember the more nuanced JJJ showing up outside of the comics. Generally he doesn’t get much characterization beyond “bad boss” and “sensationalist media mogul”. His comic counterpart is so much more than that and its nice to see that guy in Spectacular.

Well, they wanted her to have an annoying voice and Grey delivered...

Mission accomplished then. I have no idea what Peter and Randy see in her. That voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

1) Blasphemy! J.K. Simmons was the best!

Yeah, yeah, each to his own, I know...but, but, it's J.K. Simmons, dude...he's like a legend...

JK may well have been born to play JJJ. He’s easily the best thing about the original Spider-Man trilogies. However his character never gets developed all that much.

2) Wait, who was Black Cat combined with? I don't recall her exhibiting many non-Black-Cat-esque traits.

spoilers:

Jessica Carridine, the burglar’s daughter

end of spoilers

As for me, the show was great, except for two things:

1) Josh Keaton as Spider-Man. I'm sorry, but I just didn't dig him as the web-spinning superhero we love.

Blasphemy

2) Season 1. I get that it's the starting point and all that, but Season 1 episodes were really unrefined and it shows. A lot of them seemed to boil down to:

1st Half: Peter Parker's normal life. Once that's out of the way, we jump to...

2nd Half: ...the rest of the episode being Spider-Man figuring out a way to defeat the villain of the week. This was especially annoying in the episode where Rhino showed up, where it seemed like 3/4 of the episode solely consisted of Spidey fighting Rhino.

Yeah, the first half of season one suffers from adhering too much to a set story structure. I’d still take a “bad” episode of this over a good one of any of the other Spider-Man cartoons.

Solid effort from Weisman, though. And combining Liz Allan with Michele Gonzales was a stroke of genius, in that it gave us a character who was more interesting and well-rounded than either of those characters on their own.

Liz wasn’t combined with Michele. They just made her Hispanic to better represent the diversity that exists in the real NY. It’s the same reason Ned Leeds became Ned Lee. I thought it was a pretty good move.

Her brother, on the other hand, is a composite of Mark Allan and Bennett Brant.

[stingnewell]

Interesting fact Josh Keaton was supposed to voice Spider-man in the Avengers EMH ep. Along came a spider. Even did a recording for that episode! Jeph Loeb being so classy decides to record over with Drake Bell of Ultimates.

[Alastor]

In my book, Drake Bell can't hold a candle to Josh Keaton in terms of voicing Spidey. I do however think that Bell did a better performance in EMH than in USM, perhaps because of better voice direction. The tracks recorded by Josh Keaton should have been included as an extra on the DVDs.

[RobertMacQuarrie1]

In my book, Drake Bell can't hold a candle to Josh Keaton in terms of voicing Spidey. I do however think that Bell did a better performance in EMH than in USM, perhaps because of better voice direction. The tracks recorded by Josh Keaton should have been included as an extra on the DVDs.

I think the key difference is that Josh Keaton has range and knows how to work as a voice actor and Drake Bell doesn't.

I hate to make assumptions about his acting experience, but I don't think that Drake Bell was really hired for his most well known roles based on his acting talent. Josh Keaton, on the other hand, had to develop his craft as an actor and really develop a good range to work with in any given role. Granted, he may not be able to alter his voice the same way that people like Scott McNeil or John Dimaggio can, but he does try to make his characters distinct in the way he acts. His Peter Parker is nothing like his Jake Darby which is nothing like his Hal Jordan.

[stingnewell]

I love this show. I have been meaning to buy the Blu-Rays, but if I do, I'll marathon it and be sad when it's over.

I can't put myself through that. Not again.

Trust me its worth the buy, you'd be doing a disservice to yourself.
Instead think of it as buying for posterity so the next generation knows what
this great cartoon was like aired.

In my book, Drake Bell can't hold a candle to Josh Keaton in terms of voicing Spidey. I do however think that Bell did a better performance in EMH than in USM, perhaps because of better voice direction. The tracks recorded by Josh Keaton should have been included as an extra on the DVDs.

Hmm re-watching the episode again I can see what you meant by the voice direction. If only he had a voice director in Ultimate plus remove the Fourth wall breaking I would probably been okay with him voicing Spider-man.

[Batman Begins 2005]

By far the best adaptation of Spider-Man from the comics and second only to Batman: The Animated Series when it comes to comic book cartoons. Great show cancelled too soon.

Shame the UK's never got season two DVD's. You could only buy season one in four volumes and only this year the first season box set came out missing the features the US version had.

[Xavier]

One thing that amazed me about Spectacular was the TON of references to the classic Stan Lee comics. I've been reading a few of them lately and I'm amazed at the storylines, characters and more. Even the Spider-Man suit has those web wings... thingies that Peter used in his first design. And it was well written, well acted, well directed, the soundtrack was catchy.

Oh, and it has my favorite rendition of Gwen Stacy, the cute shy nerdy girl. I'm still in love with that Gwen and I miss her. Though I guess it's better that Spectacular ended earlier than it should've rather than seeing an adaptation of The Night Gwen Stacy Died =(

[KCJ506]

Pretty damn phenomenal. Was the first Spider-man show to feature Gwen as a main character. Out of all the Spider-man shows, this one pretty much paid tribute most to the original comics. As each character that appeared that had a name was taken from the comics. Not a single one was made up for the show. If this hadn't been cancelled, I'd say it would have given Batman TAS a run for it's money.

I notice the majority of the people that dislike Spectacular haven't actually watched it and base their opinions on it's art style. Which honestly is a pretty shallow way to determine the overall quality of a show. The art does leave much to be desired, but the trade-off is much more smooth animation and pretty dynamic fight sequences. Like the one in this video.




The way the black suit takes out the Sinister Six here is brilliant. Especially what he did to Sandman.

[Beacon]

The way the black suit takes out the Sinister Six here is brilliant. Especially what he did to Sandman.

It says a lot about Otto’s leadership skills that Shocker wasn’t part of the second Sinister Six incarnation. If you accidentally blast half your team then you don’t get invited back. Granted Kraven isn’t exactly trading up and I think it had more to do with the Shocker’s loyalty to the Enforcers.

[stingnewell]

It says a lot about Otto’s leadership skills that Shocker wasn’t part of the second Sinister Six incarnation. If you accidentally blast half your team then you don’t get invited back. Granted Kraven isn’t exactly trading up and I think it had more to do with the Shocker’s loyalty to the Enforcers.

It makes sense, Shocker was always a criminal enforcer first and super villain second. Besides Kraven is a better deal with his enhance senses
and reflexes to match Spider-Man. Shocker is more experienced to everyone with his status with Tombstone.

[Alastor]

[...]
I notice the majority of the people that dislike Spectacular haven't actually watched it and base their opinions on it's art style. Which honestly is a pretty shallow way to determine the overall quality of a show. The art does leave much to be desired, but the trade-off is much more smooth animation and pretty dynamic fight sequences. Like the one in this video.
[...]

That was my first impression as well when I saw the show on TV. The fact that the German dub sucks didn't help things either. Josh Keaton's work in the Spider-Man games by Beenox got me interested in his portrayal of the webslinger and I decided to give the show another chance. That fight sequence with the Sinister Six you've posted is pretty much the reason why "Group Therapy" is my favorite episode of Season 1.

It says a lot about Otto’s leadership skills that Shocker wasn’t part of the second Sinister Six incarnation. If you accidentally blast half your team then you don’t get invited back. Granted Kraven isn’t exactly trading up and I think it had more to do with the Shocker’s loyalty to the Enforcers.

Whoa, I never looked at it from this angle. Kudos for making that connection!

[Beacon]

Shocker WAS more experienced than everyone else. That doesn’t change that he got played by a sleepwalking Spider-Man. But, yeah, it was more about the fact that he was obviously going to side with Tombstone in the gang war.

As for Kraven…I just loved Sandman’s perfectly understandable open contempt for him. “I’ve had bad experiences with cats”.

Their handling of Kraven mostly just made me think of the other lost opportunities. I would have loved to see Miles turn a down-on-his-luck PI into the Scorpion or have him turn himself into the Jackal. Apparently there were plans for the Hobgoblin too. Then we have the civilian identities of Bluebird, Prowler, and Sin Eater running around.

Okay, I really don’t want Bluebird. The less I have to hear that voice, the better.