Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man - Episodes 1-2

I won't beat around the bush, the first trailer for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man didn't exactly give me much faith in this next Marvel Animation effort. It looked a bit creatively dry, with an art style that seemed to lack a bit of character and a storyline that looked to cover many of the beats we've seen before in the countless Spider-Man origin stories in the last two decades. Yet despite this, after watching the first two episodes of the show on Disney+, I'm pleasantly surprised and actually looking forward to what comes next.

The show is a Spider-Man origin story but it's not like the ones we've seen before as it skips over many of the traditional beats and instead favours simple references and nods to elements that anyone with a basic knowledge of Spider-Man will be familiar with. We don't meet Uncle Ben or Peter's parents, rather they're just referred to on a sombre note, we don't have to deal with months of Peter getting to grips with his powers as instead he is bitten by a spider and then we jump six months down the line to when he's in a more rudimentary local hero position. There's no grand exploration of what Oscorp is, who Norman and Harry Osborn are, why Dr. Connors has only one arm, and so forth. These are all pieces of narrative that a Spider-Man fan will be somewhat familiar with and here the show skips direct explanations for instead honing in on Peter and his personal challenges with balancing a life packed with schoolwork, an internship at Oscorp, strained friendships, oh... and being a superhero.

This narrative approach is fantastic as right away the show doesn't tread into the exact same footprints that Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Sam Raimi's flicks, and the Andrew Garfield Sony films all explored within recent memory. But just because it isn't an exhaustingly familiar origin tale doesn't mean there are not similar elements. Peter is still an adolescent who handles tense situations with quips and sarcasm, some of which will actually make you giggle. The suit he wears is a conceptual version of the traditional red and blue, and the performance from voice actor Hudson Thames has all the shades of Tom Holland's interpretation of the character. The point is, while it doesn't waste your time, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is authentic Spider-Man through-and-through.

It's difficult to tell where Marvel wants this story to fit in its wider universe as there are direct references and nods to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, albeit with twists on the format. The scene where Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark surprises Peter in Aunt May's apartment has been recreated but with Colman Domingo's Norman Osborn, and to add to this, the show clearly exists in a universe where superheroes are common all while alluding to a wider multiverse. Nods to some version of Iron Man and Captain America are shown early on, all while the show kicks off with a Dr. Strange fighting a symbiotic alien in a place he doesn't recognise... It's clear there are wider plans for this show and how it slots into Marvel's portfolio, but at the same time it never spends much effort or time speaking about that, favouring turning our heads to the part of Spider-Man that makes him so relatable and beloved: the friendly neighbourhood part.

Bringing it back to the authenticity discussion, this is actually where I think the art style begins to take shape and stand on its own. I do think in some moments it lacks a bit of character and depth and motion, but there are frequent occasions where it feels really befitting of a comic book adaptation. The panels that it uses to distinguish scenes, the almost stop-motion style matched up with the golden age-type appearance, it never beats around the bush or lets you forget where this character and this story originated from. But it does take a few creative liberties that I think actually allow the story to further stand out and seem more unique. It introduces new characters, it presents alternative takes on existing ones, and yet still keeps its most crucial characters looking the way that you know them to look in the comics. This show really does feel like it was created by someone who loved Spider-Man's comic era for fans who love that too.

These first two episodes piqued my interest and also entertained along the way. They are well-paced, have a good range of emotion with humour dotted in, they set the scene and lay out the groundwork for the future, all while offering an adventure that is comfortably familiar but not so comfortable that it feels repetitive. There are still eight episodes in this first season to go, eight chapters that will debut within the next three weeks, so the big question is whether it can maintain this level of engagement during that run. From what I've seen so far, I'm actually quite optimistic it will.