It’s safe to say that in 2025 almost every single human being on Earth knows how Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man. With so many different forms of media telling the same origin story over and over it’s not about which one is the best, but about which one speaks to you the most. For a lot of fans, the animated television shows captured the true essence of Spider-Man and embraced what the spirit of the comics. This year, Disney+ and Marvel take another shot at an animated series with Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but this time we’re not getting the same old story of Peter Parker.
When the first footage from this series premiered, the animation style was the first thing that caught everyone’s eye. Marvel Animation has been steadily pumping out solid projects in the form of What If…?, I Am Groot and X-Men ’97, which all have very different animation styles. For this series, you can see the inspiration that Sony’s Spider-Verse movies had on the animation style with a lot of the show looking very much like a moving comic book panel. This style has become divisive amongst fans as it can look choppy and not as visually pleasing as most animation today is.
As far as the story of this show goes, at first glance it looks to be an animated take on Tom Holland’s MCU version of Spider-Man. But, as the show quickly gets into, this is very much not the timeline that we’ve seen before. Yes, technically this is a multiverse story, but in the lightest sense of the word. The biggest difference comes in the opening of the show. Pre-spider bite Peter Parker is on his way to his new high school when his day is interrupted by a portal opening and Doctor Strange fighting a Symbiote directly on top of the school. Peter shows courage by distracting the Symbiote to protect his new friend which allowed Doctor Strange to capture the beast. As the portal closed, a spider falls out of it onto Peter and bites him.
As the episode progresses, Peter adjusts to his newfound abilities and develops tech to help him hone his skills and become a rough interpretation of Spider-Man. He crosses paths with Harry Osborne and saves him from bullies and makes new friends at school. All seems relatively normal until the end of the episode which seems very familiar. It’s an almost shot-for-shot remake of the scene from Captain America: Civil War where Peter comes home to Aunt May and comments about the nice car parked out front and finds her sitting on the couch with a man.
In the movie, the man on the couch is none other than Tony Stark who is there to recruit Spider-Man in his fight against Captain America. In this show, the man on the couch is Norman Osborn and his mission is to invite Peter to intern at Oscorp. Just as Tony Stark’s mission to prove Cap wrong went badly for almost everyone around him, Norman’s motives haven’t been fully revealed though it’s safe to say he’s not interested in mentoring Peter.
The second episode also has a shocking twist ending, but it primarily deals with Peter attempting to balance his school life, friendships, internship and being Spider-Man all at once. He manages to somehow barely get by in each of these categories throughout the episode. His first day at Oscorp is the major point of the episode and introduces this show’s version of Doctor Connors, Peter’s mentor. The two work together on a power source.
After slipping away from Oscorp to fight a pyromaniac before his break time is over, Peter barely makes it back in time and draws the attention of Norman. When Peter goes upstairs to apologize to Norman for sneaking out, Norman shows Peter security camera footage of him changing into his Spider-Man costume. The cat is out of the bag and its only episode two.
On one hand, this is a fresh new take on the Spider-Man origin story, and it leans more into the fun and comic-like atmosphere with its unique and visually provocative animation style. On the other hand, it’s yet another multiverse story in which they play on a few memorable MCU moments and change them in a weird or unusual way (basically all of What If…?) and the animation looks messy and not smooth or visually pleasing.
The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes. The animated Marvel shows, except for X-Men ’97, haven’t been received well by fans and critics in general. Comparing this show to those, there’s more potential going forward if they continue to focus on the lighter aspects of the plot, the cameos from other Marvel characters, and the decent pacing of the story. Only time will tell how this Spider-Man’s origin will go down in the history Marvel.
Images courtesy of Marvel/Disney+
REVIEW RATING
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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Series Premiere - 7/10
7/10
From a young age, Tyler has been amazed by filmmaking and writing. When he’s not watching movies in theaters, he also enjoys playing video games and binging one of the numerous shows he’s watching at any given moment. Working with The Young Folks was a highlight of his writing career and he is looking forward to this new adventure with In Between Drafts!
