'Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man' Season 1 Spoiler-Free Review
Image Source: IGN
After traveling around the world and even in space, Marvel returned the superhero to his street-level roots in the aptly named Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. The art style takes inspiration from the 60s comics that debuted Spider-Man, but the story is entirely modern from influencers recording Spider-Man to Harry Osborn driving a smart car. Even the theme song is a hip-hop adaptation of the original Spider-Man song. The cast is diverse as well. Both Norman and Harry Osborn are black in this adaptation and the story is split rather equally between Peter Parker and Lonnie Lincoln.
Lonnie is a star football player from Harlem who gets caught up with the One 10th as he falls from grace to become the villain Tombstone. Peter meanwhile receives the famous spider bite that raises him to hero status. Both characters struggle with themes of hiding their identity and dealing with increased responsibility and constant danger. While Peter learns to rely on Norman and Harry, Lonnie is coerced into joining the gang and is mostly on his own. The duality between the character arcs comes to a head in the finale when Spider-Man and Lonnie team up against Scorpion, the leader of a rival gang.
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Image Source: IGN
While the story is mostly about Peter, the supporting cast gets plenty of time to shine, and the finale reveals that some of them have more to their identity than initially thought. In the premiere, Peter meets Nico Minoru when Dr. Strange and a Venom-like being are fighting in front of the Midtown school. Peter and Nico quickly become best friends as they and others accepted to Midtown are forced to attend Rockford T. Bales High with the former school leveled in the fight. Peter’s other classmate Pearl is dating Lonnie, but the two grow distant after Lonnie joins the One Tenth.
The action scenes shine as the unique art style gives the viewer the experience of flipping through the pages of a comic book in a way that builds up suspense. The series doesn’t shy away from blood either as several characters are shown with injuries after their battles. Despite the cartoonish nature inspired by the comics, the show is intended for an older audience and includes infrequent instances of profanity.
Image Source: Newsweek
With its captivating characters and stunning art style, the series has one flaw. Its pacing is rather slow. For a Spider-Man origin story, Peter’s iconic suit didn’t show up until the final two episodes. While the series managed to include a lot of villains from Spidey’s rogues gallery, the sheer number of them reduced most of the characters to villain of the week. The only villains with any consistency were Mac Gargan, also known as Scorpion, and Dr. Otto Octavius. The pacing, however flawed, doesn’t distract too much from the core focus of the story, and the foreshadowing at the end suggests the next season will struggle to give appropriate time to all the characters.
It’s worth noting that while the series begins in the Sacred Timeline, time stone antics quickly diverge it into a separate timeline. As such certain events in the MCU, occur in the background, namely the Sokovia Accords. This informs the story and connects it to the MCU while keeping it non-canon to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. All in all, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is an enjoyable experience that feels like a moving comic book with voice acting and music. The wide cast of characters causes issues with the pointing but the show is still a fun ride throughout. The voice cast is convincing in every role even down to the innocent bystanders Spidey saves. The series is a modern but authentic retelling of the classic story and is a must-watch for fans of the street-level superhero.
Rating: 8.5/10
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Source(s): Disney Plus
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