Spider-Man: The New Animated Series

Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, or simply Spider-Man, is an American animated superhero television series based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man and produced by Sony Pictures Television. Initially intended to serve as a continuation of Sam Raimi's film Spider-Man (2002), as well as a loose adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books by Brian Michael Bendis, the show was made using computer generated imagery (CGI) rendered in cel shading. It ran for only one season of 13 episodes, premiering on July 11, 2003, and was broadcast on cable channels MTV in the U.S. and YTV in Canada.

Although the show is part of Raimi's Spider-Man film series, the events of the show were ultimately contradicted by the first film's sequel Spider-Man 2 (2004), branching off into a different timeline that contains the events of the original film and this TV series with no further continuations.^[1]

Series overview

Set shortly after the events of the 2002 film,^[2] Peter Parker, and his friends Mary Jane Watson, and Harry Osborn start attending Empire State University together. Peter and Mary Jane try to establish a relationship without much success. Peter's superhero duties, and later his involvement with Indira Daimonji, interfere with his romance with Mary Jane, while Harry continuously blames Spider-Man for the death of his father Norman Osborn. Peter faces an assortment of other villains including the Lizard, Kraven the Hunter and Electro while trying to maintain a job and his studies. He faces two psychic twins that ruin everything in the wallcrawler's life, causing Peter to quit being Spider-Man and try to live a normal life.

Cast and characters

Main characters

• Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: A superhero who is also an Empire State University student and photographer for the Daily Bugle. Peter confronts with the desire to use his incredible, spider bite-derived powers to do good, he finds it hard balancing his responsibilities of being a superhero with schoolwork and his romance with Mary Jane Watson.
• Lisa Loeb as Mary Jane Watson: A student at Empire State University and model/actress. She is the on-and-off girlfriend of Peter Parker, but also seems to still hold some affection for Peter's alter-ego, Spider-Man, who she is unaware are both the same person.
• Ian Ziering as Harry Osborn: The son of the late industrialist Norman Osborn. He attends Empire State University along with his friends Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Ironically, he blames Spider-Man for his father's death and seeks revenge, but is oblivious to the fact that his father was secretly the Green Goblin, and accidentally triggered his own death; however, as the series progresses, Harry has shown to warm up to Spider-Man, as well as helping him defeat Electro and accept being rescued from the Lizard.

Recurring characters

• Keith Carradine as J. Jonah Jameson: The Daily Bugle newspaper publisher. Consistent with his appearances in the comics and films, Jameson spent most of his appearances berating Spider-Man and adding political spin to his activities, usually in front of Peter Parker. Jameson is so passionate about this that he even appears on a competitor's news broadcast to denounce Spider-Man.
• Angelle Brooks as Indira "Indy" Daimonji, Peter Parker's journalist girlfriend who appears in seven episodes.

Guest characters

Production

Development

Spider-Man: The New Animated Series was ordered by MTV as early as January 2002.^[3] Initially it was supposed to be a direct adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics by Brian Michael Bendis, who also worked on the series' production and wrote the original unused pilot for Sony Pictures Entertainment, who had purchased the film and television rights to the character. However, after the success of Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man film, the show was reworked to follow that continuity.^[2] The series was redeveloped by Morgan Gendel, best known as writer of the "Inner Light" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.^[4] Gendel, with the team of writers he hired, was given free rein by Sony to develop several original characters who fit in with the series' more adult tone, including Indira Daimonji, Shikata and the creepily telepathic Gaines Twins.^[4] The computer-generated imagery (CGI) was produced by Mainframe Entertainment.^[5] Harris, Loeb, and Ziering were announced as the primary voice cast in May, 2002.^[6]

Peter Parker was originally supposed to wear baggier clothes to hide his superhero musculature, but cost-effective difficulties with the CGI format prevented folds from being put into his everyday attire. As a result, Peter's street clothes were redesigned to be close-fitting and contemporary, while still managing to hide his physique (and the costume he wore under his clothes) as Spider-Man.^[2] The character of Aunt May was not included in the series (except for a photograph in Peter's bedroom), because MTV executives feared that the appearance of any elderly people would deter their target youth audience from watching.^[7]

The producers found that the more relaxed standards of MTV allowed them more creative freedom than usually allowed for a Saturday morning cartoon show.^[8]

Cancellation

MTV decided that, even though the ratings were high compared to other shows in the same time-slot, the series did not fit in with its other programming.^[4] Director Brandon Vietti stated that had the series gone on he would have used the villains Mysterio, Vulture, and more of Kraven.^[2]

Episodes

Due to various production delays, the episodes aired on MTV out of the correct scripted order. This caused some confusion with audiences regarding the chronology of the series. The DVD releases feature the episodes in the correct order. Each episode has a montage at the end of which states "Next Time On Spider-Man". The order given here is that of the DVD.

Reception

The series received mostly positive reviews from critics and audiences, with praise aimed at the voice acting (particularly Harris), the mature tone, writing, animation and soundtrack, though it also received criticism from fans for its divergence from the 2002 film, most notably with the abrupt cliffhanger ending contradicting the events of the 2004 film Spider-Man 2.

In 2004, the series was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Production while "Keeping Secrets" got a nomination in Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production.^[11]

Home media

The complete series was released on DVD as Spider-Man: The New Animated Series: Special Edition on January 13, 2004. Four separate DVD volumes containing three episodes each were also released from 2004 to 2005. The entire series was licensed by Marvel and Sony to DigiKids/Sentimental Journeys, who re-edited the footage from many episodes into one feature, which is sold as a personalized DVD in which the purchaser's face is revealed under Spider-Man's mask.^[12]

The series was made available for streaming on Disney+ on October 19, 2022,^[13] but the episodes appear in their original air date order and not chronologically. On December 4, 2023, it was removed. ^[14]

The series was currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video as of 2024.

References

External links

• Spider-Man: The New Animated Series at IMDb
• Spider-Man: The New Animated Series @ Marvel Animation Age