“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” premiered on Jan. 29 on Disney+ and is a brand new take on the early days of Spider-Man, serving as an adjacent story to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) web-head.
The show was announced in November of 2021 under “Spider-Man: Freshman Year” but was changed about two years ago as the show has been greenlit for a second and third season, allowing the series to explore more than just the freshman year of Peter Parker.
The show is non-cannon to the MCU main timeline, meaning, this is a way to explore Tom Holland’s origins as Spider-Man while not trying to fit into an already established world but give clarity to fans.
Holland’s first Spider-Man outing was in “Captain America: Civil War” in 2016, and in the movie, there is a brief conversation between Peter Parker and Tony Stark about what he’s been doing as Spider-Man, but nothing in-depth like the spider-men before him.
In 2017, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” jumped right into the world of Spider-Man without doing the spider bite and death of Uncle Ben stories. At the time, these plot points were beaten to death, as audiences had already seen Uncle Ben die just five years prior in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” and the Sam Raimi movies before that.
For the time, this idea was new and brave, since the origin of Spider-Man and Peter Parker as a person was so well known it didn’t need another movie dedicated to it. The downside to this was that we never got to see how Holland’s character came to be where he is now, and this show allows the audience to get a glimpse into his life before “Captain America: Civil War.”
There are still huge ties to the MCU’s Spider-Man that we’ve been used to for the last nine years. For example, the scene in “Captain America: Civil War” where we are introduced to Peter Parker and Aunt May is identical to a scene in the first episode of the series, where we get introduced to Norman Osborn with the same music and same shots.
The show itself is stunning. The color is amazing; it’s vivid, bright and loud. The spider suit in this show is childlike in the best way. The suit itself is handmade, so it’s like what a kid would come up with, not only with the design but with the color palette.
It looks bright red, like a crayon, with almost no other accents which really makes the character stand out in the animation. Day or night, Spider-Man pops. The creators and showrunners seem to really care about how Spider-Man pops off the screen just with his colors.
The animation is also stellar. While it’s blocky and rigid, it feels like a 60s comic book panel. It pays homage to the original vision of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko while maintaining a modern feel.
The first two episodes are introductory to who Peter Parker is and what he does before and after the spider bite; his daily routine, how he confronts situations, or his own self-confidence.
The show is really slow to allow the audience to understand that this is a new Spider-Man.
The series opens up with easter eggs. Right away, we are thrown into a fight between a Venom-like character and Doctor Strange, and it’s heavily implied that this Doctor Strange is from another reality and possibly the main MCU timeline, especially with the way “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” ended.
But in the first 10 minutes, it really establishes that this Peter Parker is only just beginning and doesn’t know the full weight of his powers or responsibilities.
He’s using his powers to get to school, take care of petty crime and help his community, which is fantastic.
The one gripe that Holland’s Spider-Man gets is that he’s too big of a character, in regards to his adventures and the universal consequences that go along with his movies. Now, he’s actually doing things that a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man should do.
The first episode ends, and the second one starts, with Norman Osborn offering Peter Parker a scholarship to work at Oscorp. Typically, Norman Osborn is known as Spider-Man’s greatest foe, the Green Goblin, so it’s setting up this interesting dynamic between the two.
The show does a really good job of making the friends of Peter Parker more involved in the story and evolving, while not letting go of the core elements of Parker himself.
Peter Parker should be a nerd and someone who is the physical opposite of Spider-Man, which he is, but his friends aren’t other social outcasts.
The show reminds me of my time in high school.
I was a typical football jock type, but also had other interests like comics and movies. I would often spend Friday nights at friends’ houses playing Dungeons and Dragons instead of partying after a game. This experience isn’t abnormal anymore, and this show reflects the advancement of modern teenagers and how far we’ve come in how we connect as teens and young adults.
The show is a little slow at times, but it makes up for it with its characters and world-building. It’s an exciting new take that seems like a return to the classic Spider-Man we all know.
