Recently my social media feed has been full of videos and hastily typed diatribes about how Spider-Man is a menace. No, I haven’t subscribed to The Daily Bugle, and instead I’m referring to people sharing gameplay from the new Marvel Rivals game. But between the game, Sony’s failed attempts at a cinematic universe based around the spider-villains and Tom Holland’s recent engagement to long-time girlfriend and co-star Zendaya, the webhead seems to be top of mind across so many facets of pop culture.
What better time could there be to capitalize on the character’s popularity for a new show?
Reprising his role from the What If…? series, Hudson Thames once again plays Peter Parker for the new Disney+ series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. In this iteration, we first meet Peter on his first day of high school, which also happens to be the same day that the school is destroyed during a fight involving Doctor Strange (Robin Atkin Downes) and that Peter is bitten by the spider that gives him his powers. Flash forward a few months later and Peter is enjoying high school with his best friend Nico Minoru (Grace Song), crushing on his former babysitter Pearl Pangan (Cathy Ang), interning at the preeminent techo company Oscorp and still managing to find the time to protect the people of New York.
People will argue about whether superhero fatigue is real or not, but something that I think contributes to those feelings is when audiences are forced to sit through the same origin story again and again whenever a series gets rebooted. Thankfully, while Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man shows Peter getting bitten and is set during the early days of his career, we escape the usual slog of the hero discovering his powers. From the first episode, Peter, though still a novice in a makeshift suit, is quite adept at being a hero.
I like this starting point for our journey with Spidey. It saves us time and gets right into the action by having Spider-Man already an established figure in New York but starts early enough in his career that we don’t feel like we’ve missed out on too many of his adventures and also get to witness his growth and development.
That goes for the other characters in Peter’s world as well. The show is full of names like Norman Osborn, Dr. Connors, Nico Minoru, Lonnie Lincoln, Amadeus Cho and Pearl Pangan who have yet to develop or reveal their powers and turn into the heroes or villains that comic book fans have fallen in love with over the decades. There is a real sense that writer Jeff Trammell has a solid plan for everyone and knows exactly how to build up their character arcs for the greatest impact of their eventual heroic or villainous deeds in future seasons.
That being said, I wish that some characters had more prominent roles and didn’t feel quite so sidelined. In particular, Friendly Neighborhood marks the first television appearance of Pearl Pangan, also known as the hero Wave and one of the few Filipino characters in comics. Unfortunately, though she has a strong, self-assured and capable personality, she’s little more than a love interest for Peter and Lonnie (and possibly Nico). I do remain hopeful that Trammell will do right by the character and she will have her time in the spotlight, it is a disappointing first appearance.
Overall, the pacing and writing of the show made it easy to be absorbed into this Spider-Man’s world. There is plenty of action in each episode that is balanced by the personal drama in Peter’s life as he struggles to balance school, work, his friendships and saving the city. Peter’s life as a high school freshman feels just as interesting as his time in the hero suit, and his friends are all written with depth, complexity and distinct personalities. Without getting too much into spoilers and specifics, I was surprised by Lonnie Lincoln’s side story and how poignant it was to see such a capable student, stellar athlete and kind person get dragged into a world of crime by forces beyond his control. Sure, it’s a bit oversimplified and a bit on the nose, but I sometimes found myself wanting to see more of Lonnie than Spidey or Peter.
For most of the season, the episodes adopt a villain-of-the-week format with Scorpion being the only character I would really consider a multi-episode main villain this season. This doesn’t allow for much nuance, emotional investment or interest in characters like Butane or the Unicorn. However they do provide Peter with a good variety of bad guys to fight and adapt to, with the threats and level of danger. Other Marvel shows continue to grow bigger and epic in scale with their danger and villains, but Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man does exactly as its title implies goes back to Spidey’s street-level roots and keeps the hero comfortably defending his neighborhoods. It’s great to see him interacting with and helping the random citizens and shop owners of New York and seeing how he does his best to directly impact the lives of the people around him.
Where I think the story and world-building does suffer is in trying to tie everything into the MCU and other projects. Among smaller nods to shows like What If…? the main link is to Captain America: Civil War. The show takes place right in the middle of the debate Sokovia Accords and even references the big airport fight from the movie. However in the movie, Spider-Man is clearly part of the fight, whereas in the show he is implied not to be and instead of being a protégé of Iron Man, he’s a big fan of Captain America and a protégé of Norman Osborn. Unless you’re really paying attention to all the details in the MCU and don’t realize that in spite of these reference we’re in a different multiverse, it can get kind of confusing. Additionally, while some appearances from some popular heroes like Doctor Strange are quite significant and have implications on the show’s plot, other appearances seem unnecessary and are little more than fan service.
Diversity is baked into the show. It’s set in New York City for crying out loud, one of the most diverse cities in the world. There are characters of all races, depictions of characters with disabilities, characters with different accents and some wearing culturally significant clothing. All of this blends together to create a depiction of New York that feels authentic and alive. The diversity of New York is just a fact of the show. It’s never shoved aggressively in your face, though some aspects of Lonnie’s life as an inner-city teen contributing to his turning to crime can feel a little heavy-handed. It’s all for the benefit of the show, but I suppose if you were going to complain about the show being “woke” in the first place there’s nothing that could convince you that the show would be good.
When I said at the top of the article that my internet feed was full of articles about Spider-Man, it wasn’t actually only about Marvel Rivals. Certain internet users bemoaned the facts that Norman and Harry Osborn (played by Colman Domingo and Zeno Robinson respectively) were “race-swapped” to be Black men, and that the show was going to be “woke” largely based on the fact that Harry’s hair style being a bun, some couldn’t immediately identify him as being male or speculated that Harry would be trans. This isn’t the case, and even if it was, none of that, as the characters are written, would have distracted from the story or changed the Osborns’ roles in Peter’s life. Domingo delivers his lines with authority, wisdom and hunger for progress that is also balanced with a fatherly affection for Peter. Robinson is equally good as Harry, who in this iteration is a 16-year-old homeschooled genius and social media personality. Robinson’s Harry has all the swagger and charm of the rich kid persona but also the loneliness and longing for friendship when he lets that mask slip around Peter and Nico.
Speaking of Peter and Nico, Thames and Song are charming as the best friend dynamic duo. There’s a genuine sense of warmth and affection in their banter that helps sell them as high school besties. As both Peter and Spider-Man, Thames nails the quippy, nerdy, joyful excitement of the character, and I imagine having previous experience voicing the hero for Marvel made it much easier. I do think Thames sounds a bit too old to be playing a high-school Spider-Man, and while it was fine when the character was masked, his voice sounded too deep and mature to convince me he was a high school freshman. Maybe a senior, but not a freshman. Thames does well in the role, don’t get me wrong, but if this is what the casting department thinks that 14-year-old kids sound like then maybe they should actually go listen to some real high schoolers next time. No such qualms about Nico though, and Grace Song’s bubbly, yet bitingly snarky delivery made her easily a standout character.
Another point of controversy surrounding the show was its animation style, which was intended to recapture the look of the classic comics, but to some comes across as lackluster art design and animation. I’ll admit I wasn’t sold at first. It reminded me a lot of the rotoscoped-looking, uncanny valley look of What If…? which has consistently looked ugly to me across all three seasons. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s art style did quickly grow on me however and I felt that the flat, single-toned colors and comic book frames often made me feel like I was reading a comic book, while the depth and movement through the world added a surprising sense of space. Which is to say that I do actually like how it looks.
Character designs were all very unique and did a good job of portraying the emotional and mental states of the main and supporting cast. Unfortunately, one flaw that I noticed is that the facial animations were sometimes static or did not match the what the character’s emotion should be in the scene. This applied most often to Lonnie, whose face often seemed to be stuck in a dead-eyed stare or caught in sort of a cheeky smirk when the emotion of the scene was fear or anger. This wasn’t the case for his entire screen time on the show, but it happened enough to be significant and notable.
Much like the rest of Marvel’s animated shows, the combat and action scenes are often much cleaner and crisper than the live-action movies and shows that often feature shaky camera movements as an attempt to make the action seem more dynamic or as a byproduct of having to use a physical camera. I loved watching the wonderful web-slinger zip around alleyways and streets in a dizzying display of combat and athleticism. My favorite parts to watch were the swinging scenes as Peter would smoothly and effortlessly flip and soar through the New York skyline.
I’ve always thought of Spider-Man as one of the most fun and joyful superheroes and this is no exception. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man tells an exciting, deep and nuanced story without sacrificing the fun of web swinging and fighting suped-up bad guys. Its characters fill a deep, rich world and even though the threats that Spider-Man faces are not on the world-ending scale of some other heroes, the smaller scale helps the world feel more intimate with ample room to organically expand as Peter grows more into the hero role.
It’s been a while since I’ve been excited about Spider-Man, but Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man made me really catch the bug. It’s time to web-yoink people off the map in Rivals while I wait for Season 2, I guess.
Rating: 7.5/10