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.
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series
Brian Michael Bendis
Morgan Gendel
Marsha Griffin
Neil Patrick Harris
- John Digweed
- Nick Muir
- William Kevin Anderson
- United States
- Canada
English
1
13
- Avi Arad
- Rick Ungar
- Stan Lee
- Morgan Gendel
Marsha Griffin
22 minutes
July 11 –
September 12, 2003
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[edit]
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.
Cancellation[edit]
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]
Reception[edit]
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[edit]
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.