This is one of those shows where I split off from “the group” as I just never got myself into this show. Granted, some of this is a personal lack of connection as it came at a bad time: my first hospital stays, thanks to Crohn’s Disease, that started the events that led to this website you’re reading now. However, it also features some of my personal issues with modern Spider-Man adaptations. It features teenage Peter Parker because they want to tell the origin story, but starts just after Uncle Ben’s passing AND uses the supporting cast Peter shouldn’t meet until college since they want their cake and eat it, too, even when it isn’t properly baked. It shows you that for all the talk about wanting Peter back in high school he didn’t truly peak as a hero until he graduated and went to college. Not that the comic was bad before that or Pete would never have made it to Empire State University, but that a lot of his villains and supporting cast came when he went to college.
It also altered a lot of the characters. Harry’s a dweeb and pining for Gwen Stacy, who is designed to be geekier than Peter and yet both Liz Allen (did they change her race because I don’t remember her skin being that dark…though it does make her look cute) and later Mary Jane are both into Peter, who is only interested in Gwen. Flash…is still Flash, but credit where it’s due. When this show did their version of the symbiote storyline Flash is actually the voice of reason. It may be the version with the most character growth without tossing out the usual cast, which is a credit to co-creators Greg Weisman and Victor Cook, but it also changed the characters quite a bit.
Still, I may not have watched a lot of this show, which interestingly came from Kids WB long before Disney bought Marvel and Fox, because of my situation and lack of connection, but this may be one of the better intros of this series, if not the best.
Most of that comes down to the theme music, performed by The Tinder Box. Not since the original theme song has the intro really caught the feel of the show and made the hero look and sound so heroic. I looked through a few different copies of the intro and I didn’t mind relistening to this theme at all, where usually I get done hearing it yet again for the third time in under 10 minutes. As far as animated Marvel adaptations I put it up there with Rooney’s theme for Iron Man: Armored Adventures and Bad City’s “Fight As One”, the theme for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. It just really gets you ready for the action to come, which is what a good intro does. Here’s the full version.
The visuals also work. What you don’t see here is that the character cards change to reflect important characters in the episode. Peter and Spidey are of course the only constant, but even that gets altered when the symbiote starts bonding with Peter. That’s some bonus attention you don’t expect and it kind of works. If it’s your first episode you see all the reflected characters and if you’ve been following all along you know which of the cast will feature in this episode.
There are few if any clips. It’s mostly original animation, and some cool graphics of Spidey swinging around his title, the reveals of the title and the primary logo, and between the featured characters and the cool action shots you’re all set to really get into this world…unless you’re me and was in a bad place plus don’t like to see the college crew in the high school years. Still, maybe I will give this another try someday if time allows. It has problems with the adaptation, but it also borrows from numerous takes on Spider-Man in the comics and other media, so they’re not necessarily bad ideas from a story perspective. I can just be nitpicky at times. In all fairness, I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s one of, if not the best of the Spider-Man intros.
Then again, the next two are just title cards, and the ones I’ve seen the least of. So at least I don’t have to pretend I know much about them. It means we can pretty much bypass Ultimate Spider-Man and the re-imagined Marvel’s Spider-Man, though those links do go to reviews I did if you’re interested. Next time we get caught up with the web-head’s adventures as I continue to prove the preschoolers are getting the best superhero stories.
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