Marvel's new Spider-Man animated series

[PCN24454]

Not gonna lie. Shadow Spider Miles was the coolest version of the character. Dude literally looked straight out of Assassin's Creed. He only needed to say "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

Nevertheless, I still think that if you are following a somewhat similar or more traditional take on Miles, he has to be called Spider-Man, because that's his whole schick. He is not Peter's plucky side-kick or just another Spider-dude in the long list of people that co-exist with Peter. He is as much Spider-Man as Peter himself. Trying to circumvent this only takes legitimacy away from him.

Peter was technically retired when Ben Reilly was Spider-Man. When he returned, Ben Reilly became Scarlet Spider.

The problem is that there really can't be two Spider-Men at the same time for long periods of time. One of them has to change their name. We assume it has to be Miles because Peter came first.

[Frontier]

Not gonna lie. Shadow Spider Miles was the coolest version of the character. Dude literally looked straight out of Assassin's Creed. He only needed to say "Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

Nevertheless, I still think that if you are following a somewhat similar or more traditional take on Miles, he has to be called Spider-Man, because that's his whole schick. He is not Peter's plucky side-kick or just another Spider-dude in the long list of people that co-exist with Peter. He is as much Spider-Man as Peter himself. Trying to circumvent this only takes legitimacy away from him.

I think this just gets into the issue of trying to make Miles, another Spider-Man in his own right, a supporting character in a Peter Parker show. I don't think the writers really thought it through beyond the marketing/merchandising of having all these other Spider-Characters in the show.

[PCN24454]

I think this just gets into the issue of trying to make Miles, another Spider-Man in his own right, a supporting character in a Peter Parker show. I don't think the writers really thought it through beyond the marketing/merchandising of having all these other Spider-Characters in the show.

It's extremely annoying how absolutely no one in his supporting cast gets any focus. (The same could be said about Peter, but that's a separate issue.)

His dad appeared like once and then never appeared again.

[Frontier]

It's extremely annoying how absolutely no one in his supporting cast gets any focus. (The same could be said about Peter, but that's a separate issue.)

His dad appeared like once and then never appeared again.

The only characters who get any kind of consistent focus is Peter, Harry (in season 1) and Otto.

[Spidey_62]

The only characters who get any kind of consistent focus is Peter, Harry (in season 1) and Otto.

It's annoying to me when we've got so many factions of supporting characters that are around but never around from Aunt May to the Midtown students to the Horizon students to the Osborn Academy students to the Daily Bugle characters...

It's annoying to me because the supporting cast is supposed to be an interesting and integral part of Spider-Man but here they have so many people yet they hardly focus on any of them. It's especially disappointing when I have to go to the Spectacular comparison where they had a humongous supporting cast (pretty much the who's who from the comics) and deftly gave everybody their moments and development alongside Peter, making their lives feel like they're going on as well rather than just being background fodder to show up and fill space with some dialogue.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

It's annoying to me when we've got so many factions of supporting characters that are around but never around from Aunt May to the Midtown students to the Horizon students to the Osborn Academy students to the Daily Bugle characters...

It's annoying to me because the supporting cast is supposed to be an interesting and integral part of Spider-Man but here they have so many people yet they hardly focus on any of them. It's especially disappointing when I have to go to the Spectacular comparison where they had a humongous supporting cast (pretty much the who's who from the comics) and deftly gave everybody their moments and development alongside Peter, making their lives feel like they're going on as well rather than just being background fodder to show up and fill space with some dialogue.

At this point I'm not really sure whether the weaknesses of this show makes us think back to how well done Spectacular Spider-Man truly is, or whether thinking back to the excellent show that ended too soon further highlights the weaknesses of the current show.

While we're at mentioning that show, I love how they've paid homage to poor boisterous Bill Mantlo in using the word Spectacular in a series titled the Spectacular Spider-Man.

[PCN24454]

At this point I'm not really sure whether the weaknesses of this show makes us think back to how well done Spectacular Spider-Man truly is, or whether thinking back to the excellent show that ended too soon further highlights the weaknesses of the current show.

While we're at mentioning that show, I love how they've paid homage to poor boisterous Bill Mantlo in using the word Spectacular in a series titled the Spectacular Spider-Man.

I would say the latter.

While Ultimate Spider-Man wasn’t perfect, at least it did more with its verse than this show did.

[Frontier]

It's annoying to me when we've got so many factions of supporting characters that are around but never around from Aunt May to the Midtown students to the Horizon students to the Osborn Academy students to the Daily Bugle characters...

It's annoying to me because the supporting cast is supposed to be an interesting and integral part of Spider-Man but here they have so many people yet they hardly focus on any of them. It's especially disappointing when I have to go to the Spectacular comparison where they had a humongous supporting cast (pretty much the who's who from the comics) and deftly gave everybody their moments and development alongside Peter, making their lives feel like they're going on as well rather than just being background fodder to show up and fill space with some dialogue.

I love how they introduce Jonah in season 2 and now he's apparently been completely forgotten about .

While Ultimate Spider-Man wasn’t perfect, at least it did more with its verse than this show did.

USM had kind of the same problems this show does, although it was at least more upfront about not wanting to focus on traditional Spider-Man stuff that this show tries to pay more lip-service too.

[Mistah K88]

It's annoying to me when we've got so many factions of supporting characters that are around but never around from Aunt May to the Midtown students to the Horizon students to the Osborn Academy students to the Daily Bugle characters...

It's annoying to me because the supporting cast is supposed to be an interesting and integral part of Spider-Man but here they have so many people yet they hardly focus on any of them. It's especially disappointing when I have to go to the Spectacular comparison where they had a humongous supporting cast (pretty much the who's who from the comics) and deftly gave everybody their moments and development alongside Peter, making their lives feel like they're going on as well rather than just being background fodder to show up and fill space with some dialogue.

Peter's supporting cast hasn't been done well in adaptations since...Spectacular. The Ultimate cartoon had to make everyone into a super (which it did better than this cartoon), the MCU kids get on my nerves (sorry everyone) and honestly kind of feel shoehorned in a lot of the time, and this show tries to have both everyone in Peter's immediate circle be a super (and a Spider-Man themed hero), and tosses a couple civilians every now and then like Randy Robertson and doesn't do anything with either. I TRY not to compare everything to Spectacular, but it definitely gets hard not to after a while.

[TheCape]

Peter's supporting cast hasn't been done well in adaptations since...Spectacular. The Ultimate cartoon had to make everyone into a super (which it did better than this cartoon), the MCU kids get on my nerves (sorry everyone) and honestly kind of feel shoehorned in a lot of the time, and this show tries to have both everyone in Peter's immediate circle be a super (and a Spider-Man themed hero), and tosses a couple civilians every now and then like Randy Robertson and doesn't do anything with either. I TRY not to compare everything to Spectacular, but it definitely gets hard not to after a while.

Don't worry, some of us feel the same.

[Spider-Chan]

[Pattern_Maker]

"Why's the bee dude calling me out? He must think I'm the leader. Yeah. Yeah, I get that." That line was really funny to me.

So the youtube closed captions on the video call Miles Spy-D. Now I want to go back and see what the captions on Disney Plus call him in season one.

Is that John Dimaggio as Swarm? He sounds like Bender and Jake the Dog, kinda. If it is I hope for a reappearance of the Jackle or maybe a reference to him because of the spider-monsters.

[Spidey_62]

Peter's supporting cast hasn't been done well in adaptations since...Spectacular. The Ultimate cartoon had to make everyone into a super (which it did better than this cartoon), the MCU kids get on my nerves (sorry everyone) and honestly kind of feel shoehorned in a lot of the time, and this show tries to have both everyone in Peter's immediate circle be a super (and a Spider-Man themed hero), and tosses a couple civilians every now and then like Randy Robertson and doesn't do anything with either. I TRY not to compare everything to Spectacular, but it definitely gets hard not to after a while.

Those are all my complaints, too. I'm sure it gets tiresome bringing up Spectacular to compare for people on the receiving end who may like these shows, and I don't want to lob praise at it every direction because these shows should stand on their own merits but it's just hard not to compare since as an adaptation Spectacular got that part of the material so right.

I didn't come to Spider-Man comics as a kid to see him team up with heroes every day and have everybody in his circle be a superhero or a super genius. Spider-Man existing in a shared universe was never the appeal for me. I loved how he seemed like a down to earth guy on the periphery most of the time in a world filled with crazy costumed characters, he was grounded by living a pretty normal life with normal problems. Characters like JJJ and Mary Jane are two of the best supporting characters in all of comic books, they're amazing and interesting without powers. Same for Flash Thompson, while he made a good Venom, he was a full character with his own life for 48 years before he became a Venom. It's the basic principle which things like the PS4 game's narrative was built upon, or the conflict in Homecoming, or Spider-Man 2, the core idea of "world's collide" being central to Spider-Man. It's so simple but it's what it comes down to, Peter's normal problems compound when the Spider-Man problems intersect.

It's harder to pull that off effectively when you build the show around Peter's superhero life being so entrenched into his high school life to the point where there's hardly a difference to begin with (Ultimate, especially by the 3rd season where he literally dumps Midtown for SHIELD school to be Spidey 24/7... which, how is that not a problem?) or Peter's already doing extraordinary things in his school life so Spider-Man just basically becomes an extension of that (current show). Honestly I think the shared universe stuff can be a detriment if it gets emphasized too much. It's better when it's more like the backdrop, or a matter of fact thing like these characters also exist a la the 90s show where he just runs into people like Doctor Strange, Blade, the X-Men, and Iron Man but they aren't parts of his life or constantly on the brain. They've all got their own things going on but they all exist and occasionally cross paths. It's not like a "EVERYBODY IN THIS UNIVERSE KNOWS AND HAS WORKED FOR SHIELD BEFORE, IF YOU'RE NOT WORKING FOR SHIELD THEN WHO EVEN ARE YOU?" thing like in Ultimate which to me honestly makes the world feel smaller. I get it was the first Spidey show Marvel/Disney was able to make after getting the rights back so they wanted to do more Marvel U stuff but jeez did it go overboard. The current show is like a weird in between area where it's like trying to do both (because it's gotta still push those contemporary MCU components like having the obligatory Avengers presence over much of it) so it ends up not doing either exceptionally well.

[Frontier]

I honestly have a hard time understanding why they'd cast Ernie Hudson as Robbie Robertson and then proceed to do nothing with him after giving him only two lines, even when Peter worked for the Bugle.

[Spidey_62]

I honestly have a hard time understanding why they'd cast Ernie Hudson as Robbie Robertson and then proceed to do nothing with him after giving him only two lines, even when Peter worked for the Bugle.

Ugh. Didn't even remember he was Robbie, what a waste. He appeared in like 1 episode for a minute.

Another great supporting character from the comics, they used him to pretty fulfilling effect in the 90s show especially.