Review: ‘The Spectacular Spider-Man’ Animated Series

Alan Kistler

Alan Kistler is a freelance writer who has contributed to MonitorDuty.com and PopCultureShock.com. He is a freelance video editor who occasionally acts in independent film projects. His blog is located at alantkistler.squarespace.com.

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19 Responses

  1. Stephen Bergstrom says:

    Too true. The animation style and character designs may take some getting used to, but the banter alone is worth your time.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      After having watched the whole season twice now, I'm no longer bothered by the animation style. It still wouldn't have been my choice, but it doesn't bother me. And like you said, the banter alone makes me forget any biases I have.And how phenomenal was his fight against the Green Goblin? I wish the movie had been like that.

      • Stephen Bergstrom says:

        Oh yes, that was actually the first episode I watched. I got sort of thrown off when (((SPOILERS!!! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!! READ ON AT THY OWN PERIL, MORTALS!!)))it turned out to be Harry, even though it though preceding episodes showed us the huge neon signs pointing at him. Still, this version of Gobby definitely is the one to beat.

  2. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    I was sold after the opening credits. The pre-credit scene had the banter I wanted, the theme song was kick-AAAAYYYSSS, and as soon as I saw "Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko" I was sold.A perfectly done recap of the origin, nice updates of the villains, a season-long arc that was built smoothly and logically, and some wonderful writing by major payers. It made my daughter into a Spider-Man fan, to the point that I bought the omnibus editions, and she has been caught reading (0k, more like leafing, but it's a start) through them.

  3. Alan Kistler says:

    My god! A child saw a super-hero adaptation, enjoyed it, and then went off to read the comics that inspired it?THE SYSTEM WORKS!That is indeed great that they added Ditko's name. And, yeah, I think I need the theme song on my iPod.

    • Vinnie Bartilucci says:

      Well, she had a father who'd been trying to get her into comics all along and this was a good excuse, so it's not quite a complete justification of the marketing.She's now enjoying all the Johnny DC books, including the new (and magnificent) Shazam series by Mike Kunkel

  4. mike weber says:

    I thought that Gwen was from high school

    • Alan Kistler says:

      Nope, Peter didn't meet her until he went to Empire State University. She and Harry were already friends with Flash Thompson and Peter was introduced to them as a nerd Flash had known back in high school.

  5. Delmo Walters Jr. says:

    It's a shame that Peter doesn't look like Peter. And since when does Peter have a mole near his eye?

  6. Rick Marshall says:

    I'm amazed by how much I enjoy this series, to be honest. I tend to be a hard sell on most animated series, but after ComicMix EiC Mike Gold recommended it to me a while back, I was pleasantly surprised. It's a really decent program.

  7. Scavenger says:

    One of the things I loved about the show is it's philoshophy of Why use a generic name when we can use a character from the books, even if it's just as an extra. So you have Jean De Wolff as one of the cops Spidey runs into…I can't imagine they'd ever do her story, but there she is.(related, why I like the Eddie Brock retcon is because for Venom to really work, both Eddie and the Alien have to hate Peter/Spider-Man. And if you're not going to do the Sin Eater storyline to set up Eddie's fall, then this is a good substitute. (i thought the movie's version of making Eddie a bad guy, forging photos, rather than a victim of circumstance, took away a bit)

  8. Howard Margolin says:

    My only problem with the theme song is the line, "arriving in the speed of time." What is that supposed to mean? Nick of time, I could understand, but this line makes no sense. It sounds like they were trying to echo the 1960s theme song line, "like a streak of light, he arrives just in time" without bothering to check the actual lyrics.

  9. Mehdi says:

    the best spider-man animated series ever,. no doubt about it.i do hope from teh bottom of my heart indeed that it continues into season 10!Mr. Weisman, you are the man! way to go!

  10. Anonymous says:

    The episodes I watched were 1-8, then I had to go online, until 2 AM to look for the rest! Then I took me almost 45 minutes of searching, but I managed to watch movies 1-3 and now I'm wondering where to get the comics!I love the banter and and the design, and add the fact that the characters were actually developed, not Mary Sue, not completely Evil, but more like human beings, and I was hooked!

  11. Anonymous says:

    This has to be the first Spidey show in a long time that's gotten the title character (and everyone around him) right and stayed consistantly good. I was never a fan of the melodramatic Batmanesque 1994 Animated Series, and that was before the animation started going downhill. Apart from how Neil Patrick Harris deserved so much better, I won't touch on what came after it. My hat off to Wiseman. Fingers crossed for season 3.

    • Anonymous says:

      Yea, this is such a sick show, I was pretty taken aback by the animation style at first, but its really caught on to me. I'm more of a fan of the Ultimate spider man, but i do appreciate the numerous references it makes to the original 122 issues of AmAzing Spiderman(after which, the series went downhill). And I really hope they don't kill Gwen Off

      • Anonymous says:

        They won't. Unlike 616 Gwen she's an actual character. Whatever fell of that bridge in ASM#121 wasn't. And then the bizzare period that was the pre-Green Lantern/Green Arrow 70's took over. Thank God for Tom DeFalco and Rodger Stern.