I can't recall if Steven told me to watch Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man first, or Jamie informed me we were going to watch it. But watch it we did.
I was a bit skeptical. Marvel puts out a new Spidey cartoon almost every year, it seems, and then they disappear without much notice. Someone is watching them, but whenever I dip in, it's hard for me to get into it. Not so with this show.
YFNSM is 10 episodes, and it's the first time in a long, long time I got the vibes from a Spider-Man property that felt truly like the Spider-Man I liked in the comics growing up, and then in the Marvel Essentials I read in my 20's. A working class kid of great intellect, a lot of imposter syndrome, and abilities that are as much curse as gift. It takes place in an American New York with all sorts of people intersecting and interacting, and while there are people with strange technology and weapons, Spider-Man is really the only one with inherent powers and a secret to keep.
The set-up is close to the one we know from the MCU/ Sony movies, but also completely different, not worrying so much about making sure Spidey is an Avenger, but focusing more on Spidey as a young person with too many responsibilities, and a life that's happening not just for him, but his supporting characters in a sprawling, soap-opera-ish fashion.
All of the characters are distinct, with individual voices, arcs and design. And it's not the usual cast. There's no Flash Thompson, no Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane. Instead we get Nico, Lonnie and Pearl. And because I barely know Lonnie from the comics, and don't know Nico or Pearl, it's back to being fresh while still existing in an understandable world. I don't need to worry about a Spider-Man continuity in which I know Mary Jane ends up basically as a Dial-H-for-Hero knock-off because someone didn't want to just write MJ as MJ.
I do know that at least Nico and Lonnie have futures as supers, based on the existing material, and that's - truthfully - a let down. I am exhausted by superhero media thinking everyone needs to wind up in spandex throwing punches just because they existed in proximity to the main character (I have 10,000 words on this for the current creative team on the Superman books). But we do get a Maria Tomei inspired Aunt May! And she's pretty great.
We also do get a version of Norman Osborn that is voiced by Coleman Domingo, and a Harry Osborn that's a very modern social media celebrity. Our Osborn is head of Ossorp, but he's also a benefactor to Peter Parker, whom he knows is Spider-Man, creating the father/son dynamic early Spider-Man is vulnerable to. Filling out the OG villains, we also get The Scorpion (eventually and very cool), and a still armless Otto Octavius.
The show looks amazing. The design is the first TV cartoon to really take the inks from comics and a 4-color palette and make it work with computer animation. No, it's not Into the Spider-Verse levels of genius, but for a series focusing on a single style? It's brilliant. And the action sequences are absolutely thrilling. (You folks playing recent Spider-Man games probably have feelings about how this can and should look, and I bet the games had some influence on some of this action, but it's really neat.)
I admit, I do not get why the Disney version of Spider-Man doesn't go through the wringer with Uncle Ben. That's a bit like Batman's folks still being around. It is *the* motivation for Peter as her starts out. I won't speculate too much here about why the modern versions are cutting that out, but it's definitely weird after decades of that being the back story - and I appreciate how the modern MCU handled making a death even more meaningful to the audience and Spider-Man.
Truthfully, I like the Tom Holland Spider-Man stuff, but somewhat in spite of it being Spider-Man. It just never, ever feels like Spidey to me. This show gets it, and always feels like it could have been ripped out of a Spider-Man comic in its way that even modern Spider-Man just leaves me cold (enjoy it if you like it, I tapped out on Spidey during New Day or whatever the shit that was).
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