The Many MANY Intros Of Spider-Man> Go, Webs, Go!

You aren’t seen this in the preschool show.

This is the last entry in this series…at least for now. It’s hard to be done talking about a very long franchise that has had numerous versions and not expect another coming down the line. I am all caught up, though, as we talk about the current Spider-Man cartoon.

Spidey & His Amazing Friends is not a perfect adaptation by a mile. Not to be confused with the similarly named 80s cartoon, everyone is de-aged into kids because that’s how Disney Junior “adventure” shows work right now. I don’t think they’ve had a hero old enough to drive since Elena Of Avalor, and she might still have been 15 for all I know. They don’t have cars in Avalor so it’s all guess work. The exceptions are Aunt May, who is the same age as her MCU counterpart, and Iron Man, who was Peter’s mentor in the MCU until he sacrifices himself to save the world. They also went with the girl version of Doc Ock, a girl version of Electro who is just looking to be flashy and electricity filled, and other changes that make sense when your heroes and villains are no longer adults. Somehow having Green Goblin tossing people off of bridges doesn’t work on the preschool show.

On the other hand, it’s their only show with a white male main hero outside of PJ Masks right now, keeps Spidey and Ghost Spider similar to their counterparts, and gave Miles Morales the closest thing he has to his own identity instead of Black Spider-Man or just…Miles Morales. They call him Spin because when they were setting up the playset headquarters computer it couldn’t grasp two users named Spider-Man and he was working on a new spin move at the time. It’s why I’ve been suggesting Shadow Spinner as a name, along with his costume and cloaking powers.

Enough about the show, though. We’re here to look at one last intro, and unlike the last two Spider-Man cartoons under Disney Marvel, this actually has one. Preschool kids are really lucky these days.

The only real negative I have that doesn’t come from the show itself is there isn’t a lot of emphasis on fighting bad guys, outside of that one shot of snagging Rhino and a couple others near the end. On the other hand, all original footage gives us an idea of this continuities take on Peter Parker, Spider Gwen Stacy (her mom is the cop now instead of her dad, but for all I know the Ghost Spider version of Gwen is like that in the comics–she’s also the detective of Team Spidey), and Miles. Peter’s working in a lab station, Gwen is rocking out, and Miles is spinning around (hence his nickname) and painting. I don’t know if the regular Miles is an artist, but it gives him a hobby.

The theme does focus on their cool powers and the theme of the deaged and occasionally swapped show: teamwork. The show features two stories, one with the Team Spidey trio and one where they team-up with other kid-ified Marvel heroes. The theme here showed Hulk, Ms. Marvel with her actual comic powers, and Black Panther but as the show has gone on Iron Man, Ant Man and Wasp (the originals), and even Reptil, a character created for the Super Hero Squad toyline and tie-in cartoon who hasn’t been out of comics since The Super Hero Squad Show as far as I’m aware, have teamed up. More villains were added as well. I hear Arim Zola is even in there and he’s not usually considered a Spider-Man villain.

The current version only has a few added visuals to match the added heroes and villains, the new “web-spinners” subtitle, and the new toys in the tie-in toyline. We have new suits with glowing webbing, new vehicles for heroes who…again…are not old enough to drive, and a redo of the “webquarters” to show off that Spidey no longer is the only one with a spider robot buddy. Now I’m flashing back to when SilverHawks added bird companions for the others so Tally-Hawk had someone to hang out with. More heroes in the selfie, and…well, Lockjaw being there as part of Ms. Marvel’s Inhuman status didn’t age well, did it? I wonder if they’ll replace him with Lockheed in the next season now that she’s a mutant in the comics because Disney couldn’t handle how badly their Inhumans movie and attempt to replace mutants prior to buying 20th Century Fox went? And it’s mostly new footage, with I think a couple of parts from the old intro and I think the big mobile headquarters is a clip or stock footage, but I can deal with the latter.

Overall, its a rather good theme song and I’m glad because I get to end this phase of the Many, MANY Intros Of Spider-Man on a high note. What will happen with the next show? We’ll have to wait and see.