Swinging Through the Neighborhood

For a while Marvel has been pretty into the Multiverse. It’s their big chapter of the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe., “The Multiverse Saga,” and while it’s had its hits and misses, and at times that whole Saga has been all over the place creatively, they’ve still been trudging forward with it, committing to the Multiverse with all it’s worth. They had a show all about the Multiverse, What If…?, and some of the ideas on that series were so good that you frankly wish they could have taken those characters and spun them out into their own shows to explore their world more fully.

Or just make an entire series about, essentially, a “What If?” concept. That’s essentially what the newest SpidermanSure, DC Comics has Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, but among the most popular superheroes stands a guy from Marvel Comics, a younger hero dressed in red and blue who shoots webs and sticks to walls. Introduced in the 1960s, Spider-Man has been a constant presence in comics and more, featured in movies regularly since his big screen debut in 2002. series is all about, a “What If?” scenario blown huge. Originally developed as an idea for a Spider-man series before he became a famous Avenger, tucked neatly into a crevice of the MCU, the series morphed into a variant branch, one were Peter Parker doesn’t end up going to Midtown High (which is the “smart kid school” he is seen attending in Spider-man: Homecoming). This causes a chain reaction of events that spins him in a completely different direction, with new friends, no alliances, and new enemies. It, thus, feels vaguely connected to the MCU while clearly being something else.

And, honestly, that freedom makes it a much more interesting show to watch than the originally proposed Spider-man: Freshman Year. A prequel series tied directly to the main MCU continuity would be hamstrung by all the later plot developments it would have to respect. But by clearly diverging, shoving itself down its own multiversal timeline, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man has the freedom to strike out and ignore all the bits of the MCU it doesn’t want to bother with. It can toy with our expectations while regularly zagging away whenever it wants.

The premiere opens with a major divergence. Just as Peter Parker (Hudson Thames) is getting dropped off at Midtown High for his orientation by his aunt, May (Kari Wahlgren), suddenly a portal opens above the school and Doctor Strange (Robin Atkin Downes) comes hurtling through, fighting a Venom symbiote variant (Kellen Goff)... and a lone, curious spider, drops down as well. The ensuing battle leaves massive parts of Midtown High irrevocably damaged, meaning Peter won’t be able to go to school there. And, also, the spider falls on him and bites him, and, well, you all know what happens to Peter after that.

Yep, we jump ahead a few months to the point where Peter is a regular(ly late) fixture at Rockford T. Bales High School who also just so happens to go around as Spider-man in his makeshift suit. He struggles to balance his personal life with his friends, Nico Minoru (Grace Song), Lonnie Lincoln (Eugene Byrd), and Pearl Pangan (Cathy Ang), and his time as Spider-man, and that’s before he gets offered a special internship with the billionaire philanthropist tech genius… Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo).

This premiere episode has a couple of things it has to do. For starters, because it’s MCU adjacent (technically it’s considered part of the MCU even if it’s in a variant timeline that might not ever get explored outside of this series) it has to show us what we expect and then illustrate, clearly, how things are different. It starts that off well by having the Doctor Strange and Venom fight clearly create the rift in the timeline. We know, from three movies in the main continuity, where Peter ends up along the Spider-man: Homecoming timeline, and by immediately shattering that potential progress with a single battle, it is easily able to let us shift gears in a digestible way.

Peter doesn’t get to go to the high school we know he attends in the main continuity. That obviously has massive ramifications for everything. He gets a different best friend, Nico Minoru (who maybe ends up on her own Runaways show at some point?) instead of Ned. He meets Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson) in an event that maybe didn’t even happen in the main timeline, and if it did it wasn’t enough to cause any major ramifications for the character. And he ends up building a very different kind of suit, more low-tech and bulky, presumably in part because he had to build it based on what he had on hand at the high school, and he was no longer at Midtown to get access to their better robotics lab.

At the same time, though, it had to clearly show us how this version of Spidey was going to go off and become the big hero we know he could be. That’s where the first episode’s big twist comes in. Set up like the meeting between Peter and Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War, we see Peter come home, just doing his thing, when suddenly his aunt points out they have a visitor. But it isn’t Stark, it’s Normal Osborn, and even while his offer sounds the same, it’s very different. He doesn’t know Peter is Spider-man (showing that maybe Norman isn’t as smart as Tony) but he genuinely does want this smart kid working for him.

Now I know from the trailers for the season Peter will eventually get an upgraded suit, and that’s thanks to Norman (some of which gets hinted at in the second season), but between the first two episodes given to us by Disney+ it is still hard to know exactly where the season is going. Honestly, though, I don’t mind that. While this isn’t really an origin story for Peter Parker, it gets a lot closer to it than the movies ever did. The series needs time to set up its plotlines, to get Peter established as a hero, to get involved with fighting villains, to have the new status quo become standard for the audience. It’s a lot of work to put in just so we feel comfortable here.

And I think that’s something the series does very well. Its conscious decision to set itself in a side continuity might have been off putting to people that came into a Spidey MCU show and, instead got something a little different. But the show has a deft hand and knows what it’s doing. It’s comfortable with the characters and able to have fun as well. This is, so far, a solid, lighthearted show about Spidey that is able to let loose and enjoy the character without feeling bogged down by trying to tie into the main continuity. It can just do its thing and be a solid show all on its own.

Plus, it does look great. The cell-shaded 3D graphics are sharp and crisp, evoking the style of the 1960s comics while still having modern touches. The action is easy to follow and smooth, and it’s really fun to just watch Spidey swing through the streets while chasing bad guys. And it’s complimented by a solid soundtrack and great voice acting. Sure, not everyone on the show is voiced by their actors from the main continuity (in fact, most aren’t) but they sound close enough to not sound strange (or Strange) to viewers. It just works.

Overall this is a strong, assured start for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man. It’s already one of the best things to come out of Phase V of the MCU, although frankly the bar was set pretty low for that. But even if other works were great this Phase, I think this would still rate as one of the greats… at least so far. With eight more episodes to go there’s always a chance Marvel screws this one up, too, but, right now, I think we have a real winner on our hands.