Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Reviews

MTV’s Spider-Man cartoon was halfway there, “there” being a more adult and mature animated take on the popular Marvel hero. His angst felt more palpable, and his actions, or inactions, caused real world implications and left people hurt or damaged in some way. His romantic life was finally something other than pandering and ornamentation to appease the female audience, I assume that’s the thinking behind it but I have no proof.

So it’s a bit of a bummer to announce that the other half of the series is pretty terrible. It’s not too terrible a choice to keep Spider-Man isolated away from the rest of the Marvel universe, and maybe there were some rights issues involved in bringing in outside characters. But the reliance upon “original” villains who bear a striking resemblance to the more traditional rogues gallery flop more often than they hit. It could be something as simple as this: we’re never given much development or reason to care about any character aside from Peter Parker.

A variation of Black Cat, here dubbed Talon, is giving no backstory yet we’re expected to feel something for her as she constantly proclaims that no one knows what she’s been through or how she became what she is. You know what would have made a better episode? One which detailed the complicating factors that drove her to a life as a criminal. The series works best when it bothers to create a reason to care about its heroes and villains, towards the end of the run the introduction and emotionally tangled relationship between our hero and Electro shows us what the series could have been.

Another thing that keeps the show from really rising above is the hit and miss vocal work. Since this is MTV and they have connections to many famous musicians, a variety of TRL staples provides the voices for many characters. Eve is terrible as the voice of Talon, Rob Zombie does much better as the Lizard, Lisa Loeb is decent as Mary Jane, but the series does best when it lets actual actors do the heavy lifting. Neil Patrick Harris is a brilliant choice for Spider-Man and delivers a nuanced reading of the character, Ethan Embrey is great as Electro, Michael Dorn is a solid Kraven the Hunter and Virginia Madsen does well with Silver Sable, to name but a few. The less said about Michael Clarke Duncan reprising his role as Kingpin and being forced to turn the character into a fast-food obsessed non-threatening fat-joke the better.

It’s all over the place in terms of quality, but it moving towards finally working the kinks out in the final stretch of episodes. If they had kept up this growth in season two, the series could have developed into something highly entertaining and different from the rest of the animated incarnations to make it worthwhile. Spider-Man may not be all that great, but the fabulous animation is always there to save the day.