Due to the 80’s cartoon market having little use for superheroes in favour of more family friendly shows and Marvel oddly having greater success with other properties besides their own superheroes, the second half of the 80s were a dormant period for Marvel animation. Spider-Man would have surely been featured in the planned Secret Wars show had it ever made it into production, but alas, I have never been able to find any further information on the proposed show.
Warner Bros. got the superhero cartoon ball rolling with their Batman animated show, hot off the heels of their phenomenally successful live action Batman movie in 1989 and Warners commissioned a new animated show to debut shortly after its sequel, Batman Returns in 1992. Marvel had their own plans for their most popular character with Spider-Man and with Margaret Loesch now the head of Fox Kids, she changed the landscape for animation and superheroes were not only fair game, they were her main market. Creating a new demographic of 8-16 year old boys, she thought that audience would prefer superheroes to Smurfs and happily accepted Warner's Batman show and finally commissioned an animated X-Men series, after a decade of being refused by every network going back when she worked for a Marvel. Both Batman and X-Men enjoyed massive success on the network and she wasted no time greenlighting a new animated Spider-Man show.
Hot off the heels of the spectacular Terminator 2: Judgement Day, James Cameron planned his next project to be a live action Spider-Man movie, having finally secured the rights, or so he thought, following a messy, lengthy legal battle. A screenplay was written with production expecting to begin in the early 1990s and executive producer Avi Arad dreamed of Spidey dominating the big and small screen. Unlike X-Men, which wasn't afforded a massive budget, Marvel and Fox shot for the moon with Spider-Man and there would be no AKOM calamities here - Supervising Producer, Bob Richardson who worked with Arad on the 80s Spider-Man shows was hired to oversee the project and he commissioned TMS to animate all 65 episodes of the show. This wasn't a 13 episode trial like X-Men, Fox went straight for a full 65 episode show from the beginning. TMS were easily regarded as the best in the TV animation business at the time and their animation standards surpassed all other back then, and even now. It was THAT good.
Emmy awarding winner Marty Isenberg was hired as the show's story editor, having previously served as a writer on Warner's aforementioned Batman show, to great critical success. Isenberg also wrote a great portion of the acclaimed Batman: Mask of The Phantasm movie, still one of the greatest animated Batman movies ever. He certainly knew how to write superhero cartoons, based on his resume.
Richardson made the decision to digitally colour and ink the show, being one of the first to do this now industry standard practise. 3D animation was also used to create a feeling of vertigo when Spider-Man swung through the air. It's fairly common to 3D in animation these days, usually for vehicles and the like, but it was unheard at the time of Spider-Man's production. Unfortunately, the new technology comes with limitations in that no one is experienced in how it works. The 3D often clashed with the traditional 2D and looks like it was done on the cheap, which I'm assured is not the case. Strenuously overreaching and having to accept lesser results became the story of this show's production by the time it ended, but we will cover that later. Reach for the stars and fall in the clouds? Not quite. The 3D animation usually looked more awkward than awesome and didn’t reach it’s desired levels… it was phased out towards the end of the show, but older 3D animation was repeated in later episodes.
With the knowledge that they had the best in the biz animating the show, they went to town on the character models, creating detailed designs and complicated shading for each of the characters. The idea was to create a more contemporary look, rather than follow the design styles of a particular comic book artist. The Spider-Man books has undergone a massive resurgence with the trio of Todd McFarcline, Erik Larson and Mark Bagley modernising Spider-Man as a super buff contortionist, creating poses not humanly possible, which looked utterly fantastic on the page. It was obvious that such a look would not work on a television budget animation, so their designs were largely ignored. The idea to ignore the classic design theories of John Romita Sr was also made and a look exclusive to the show was crafted. The designs, in the first season were more hit than miss and the animation was usually sensational - while the style wasn't as nice to look at as Batman, the animation quality was superior (with the exception of the TMS animated episodes of Batman, naturally). Those were a sight to behold, and still show up anything animated these days, over 20 years later.
The curiosity in the case of the designs was the Peter Parker model. Despite being 19 years old at the time the show began, it was still odd seeing Parker as bigger than bully Flash Thompson and he bears a striking resemblance to Nicholas Hammond, the actor who portrayed Parker in the 1970s live action show nobody likes. Semper revealed on Twitter that this wasn't intentional, but looking at them, it's too much of a coincidence for me. The fact the model is also out of place in the 1990s makes it stand out so much more... What were they trying to make him look like? He doesn't look like any 19 year old in 1994 did and he's not based on any comic book rendition of the character. They really should've looked at how John Romita Sr drew Parker and aped that... It's also a little laughable that Parker has a short sleeved Rugby shirt which clearly wouldn't conceal his costume under it, despite the viewer seeing his 'uniform' under his street clothes on several occasions. Idiotic design decisions such as this would often plague the show, but Parker was the most extreme case, especially as he was designed in season one, when the designs were well done, in most cases.
The Spider-Man model fares better. Again, it is not based on any one artist but it moved well in this first season... the opening episode, Night of The Lizard, might just be the best looking 2D Spidey model ever in animation. Sleek, beautifully coloured and wonderfully animated, it looked gorgeous. The red and blue suit would never again reach the heights of the pilot, it must be said. They rarely used any short cuts even with Spidey’s complicated web patterns, nor did the look to reduce the amount of webs, as would become apparent in later seasons. Visually, the show was shooting high and reaching it’s target.
However, trouble brewed behind the scenes during pre-production to the point the decision was made to dismiss Isenberg of his duties as story editor.
John Semper, a writer who had worked with Stan 'The Man' Lee in the 80s recalls receiving a phone call from Lee, explaining that they were about to fire Isenberg and Lee wanted Semper as his replacement. Semper, a Spidey fan in his youth, jumped at the chance, only to be later told that the position was to stay with Isenberg and thanked for his time.
Months later, Semper received an even more frantic call from The Man, offering him the job. Apparently the studios faith in Isenberg was misplaced and Stan insisted Semper be brought in to replace him. Upon arrival at the studios offices, Semper realised that very little salvageable work had been done and he had a massive deadline looming to get the scripts out so production could begin on the actual episodes. Rather than try to save what work had been done, Semper threw most of it out and started the show from scratch, with the exception of a few traces he could not remove.
Semper believes the 22 minute format is too restricting to hook the viewer into a story and preferred longer arcs to further develop characters and stories. This caused him to clash with executive producer Avi Arad, who wanted a villain of the week show, so more characters could be create so action figures could be produced of a newly featured villain each week. Semper thought the stories Stan Lee told in the 60s which he enjoyed as a child used this long running story formula and thought his show should emulate it, while Arad saw the show as a toy advert and something to help boost the popularity of the upcoming Cameron movie. Arad was of course, the chief of Toy Biz at the time, meaning he would stand to make a lot of money over the Spider-Man toylines from both the cartoon and the movie.
Assembling his crew of writers, Semper was forbidden from utilising a season long arc in the first season. The directive was to introduce a new villain in each episode which Semper adhered to originally. Semper has since stated that he was creatively restricted, especially in this first season, but the strings were loosened following it’s success.
Sadly for Semper and the viewers, the Fox network which aired the showed had received a negative backlash for the violent content of their excellent Batman and stupid Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers shows and Fox insisted the cartoon show no violence whatsoever and nothing which could cause distress to the viewer should be spoken. Which essentially meant a action show wouldn't be allowed to punch, kick to the face or mention death, kill, die etc... Difficult circumstances in which to write a superhero action show. With Cameron's intention to tell Spider-Man's origin and utilise the villains Electro and The Sandman, Semper was told not to use either villain and that the show was to start after Parker took his famed trip to a demonstration in radiology. Semper didn't see this as a burden as he thought the origin was too predictable a place to start and thought the show should be about the complications that being Spider-Man caused Peter Parker and not dwindle on villains he couldn't use.
Despite the limitations placed on actual action, the show did not become a comedy and the cast were assembled with the aim of playing it straight. Clearly taking their cues from Batman, a strong cast of actors was assembled, many of whom also appeared on Batman. Christopher Daniel Barnes was cast as the lead and I personally thought he was an awesome Spider-Man. I've never had any complaints regarding Barnes - it would be years before anyone who wasn't utterly terrible as Spidey would appear, he was in a league of his own for many years when it came to voicing Spidey. This was the voice of Spider-Man in my childhood and I would welcome his return with open arms now. I remember recognising a lot of the cast from Visionaries, a show I remember enjoying as a child. Neil Ross, Roscoe Brown and Jim Cummings, among others, would make several appearances in the show.
While Semper, Arad and Fox argued over the course of the show in LA, young 8 year old Stu in Yorkshire was entirely unaware that a new Spider-Man cartoon was in development. I liked the character and have previously mentioned my fondness of what I had seen of the 60s show. I'm not old enough to remember either 80s show but did greatly enjoy the Spider-Man game released for the Sega Mega Drive and had a handful of Spider-Man toys from the Marvel Superheroes toy line. While there weren't a great deal of Spidey figures released, I had toys of Spidey, Doc Ock, The Green Goblin and a really bad ass Venom. I was a fan of the character, but didn't have a great deal of knowledge about him - this show introduced me to so much of what I would grow to love about Spider-Man.
I remember in the weeks prior to the debut of the new season of Live and Kicking that brief clips showing a new Spider-Man cartoon would air. The previous year I had treated to the debut of X-Men and I hadn't missed an episode since. There was no messing around with this show, I loved Night of The Lizard, the opening episode, from the moment I saw it. With the exception of an unannounced return for the 5th season (Part 1 of a 4 part story, of all things!) I wouldn't miss an episode of Spider-Man in its entire 65 episode run. I fell into it hook, line and sinker - I watched it every week, I bought pretty much ever Spider-Man toy I could find (Alien Spider Slayer, Morbius and the Nick Fury figures still elude me to this day!), I read the companion comic, (usually just comic adaptations of the episodes) and managed to convince my friends and cousin to get into it too. My brother and I watched every episode together every week without fail. As far as my childhood went, this was THE show for me.
Looking back? I still love the show. It hasn't held up well in many areas at all, and is embarrassing in some areas, but I still think it's one of the best superhero cartoons ever.
The show managed to avoid the familiar villain of the week by throwing a few ongoing stories in there even in the early episodes and focused quite heavily on the characters romantic exploits, which wouldn't really be seen much in any superhero cartoon until The Spectacular Spider-Man would debut 14 years later. Avoiding the use of Gwen Stacey due to her stigma of being Spider-Man's dead girlfriend, Semper substituted her with Felicia Hardy, known to comic fans as The Black Cat. She would actually debut before Mary Jane in a bold twist, and was the object of Peter's desire while he wisely avoided the prospect of a blind date with Aunt May's friend nice. This allowed his duties as Spider-Man to screw up not one but two of Parker's love interests!
The series had a rather ingenious idea of introducing Eddie Brock as a rival before of Peter Parker before he became Venom. As someone who worshipped J Jonah Jameson and hated Spider-Man as much as much as Jonah did and clearly had a dislike for Parker and his ability to obtain photos of Spider-Man, it gave Brock a much needed backstory before he became Venom. It built one's anticipation of when Brock would eventually become Venom. It also added more to Spidey's feud with Venom as Parker and Brock were clearly not fond of each other before either of them wore the symbiote, which fixes some of the curious character traits of Eddie Brock in the early Venom books.
A similar situation was also creating with Norman Osborn. Alert fans will have noticed that The Green Goblin was absent from the rouges gallery in the opening credits. There were two contributions during Isenberg's reign as story editor that managed to make it into the show, the first one being that Peter attended Empire State University rather than Midtown High and the other than The Hobgoblin was set to feature before The Green Goblin, which goes against decades of comics' lore. With the show intended as a toy advert by Arad, as soon as he realised Isenberg intended to include Hobgoblin, Arad gave the green light for his action figure, forcing Semper to use him in the show.
"My fired predecessor’s only lasting contribution to the series was his decision to use the Hobgoblin instead of the Green Goblin. So, based on that early decision, Avi had ramped up an expensive toy line revolving around the Hobgoblin. By the time I arrived on the series, I was stuck with having to roll that character out first, (because of the impending toy line) which is just plain wrong. I kind of patched it up in the series by making Norman Osborne create the weapons for the Hobgoblin first before deciding to use them for himself as the Green Goblin, which I thought was a good fix. But that first Hobgoblin two-parter is just a waste of time designed just to sell toys. I hated it when we had to write it, I hated it when it aired and I still hate it. The Hobgoblin is boring"
Despite Semper's own irritation, I thought this worked beautifully. It allowed Norman to develop further and the feud between Spider-Man and Osborn develop before he became The Goblin. Osborn would make his debut in The Spider Slayer, which also introduced another massive contribution to the show in The Kingpin of Crime. The inclusion of The Kingpin was sheer genius in my opinion, he immediately added gravitas to any situation and was an excellently written character, constantly behind the scenes, trying to run the crime rackets of New York. It was interesting to me that Spidey wasn't even aware he existed until the middle of season three. He was aware of his associates Alistair Smythe and fought numerous of his hired goons, including long time comic book villains The Rhino and The Shocker but Spidey was entirely unaware that Fisk was The Kingpin. He blackmailed Osborn in the Spider Slayer into killing Spider-Man, who in turn hired Spencer Smythe who was seemingly killed off when Oscorp blew up between the fight between Spider-Man and The Black Widow (the robot, not the redhead) and then more or less manipulated his son Alistair Smythe into working for him and creating new Spider Slayer robots. Spidey actually had to save Norman Osborn, Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson and J Jonah Jameson from Smythe Jr's robots - imagine, having to save two people who hated him the most and his high school bully. It again leads to a long running storyline of when The Green Goblin would actually show up. Semper saw Kingpin as Spidey’s Professor Moriarty, a villain constantly behind the scenes making life as difficult as possible for our hero.
Not to say that the only episodes of worth were the ones which set up bigger storylines down the road. The opening episode, Night of The Lizard, is widely regarded as the show's best, and strong single episodes explaining the origins of Dr Octopus, The Scorpion and Mysterio were all highly regarded. Much of Dr Octopus: Armed and Dangerous would make its way into the outstanding Spider-Man 2 a decade later. The show took the time to properly develop its villains and the episodes were stronger for it. The stories were mainly based on the old Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run, with a little more depth added to the character. The Sting of The Scorpion makes more sense of J Jonah Jameson's hated of Spider-Man than the actual comic books do. We learn that Jameson, as a young reporter, was warned to cease writing stories about the mob and when he refuted, the mob sent a masked man to execute him, but the hit man missed and killed Julia, his wife. Using his influence as the chief of J3 communications, he saw Spider-Man as a masked menace who never took responsibility for his actions and swore to keep the city safe from cowards who hide behind masks. This works so much better than his rather silly comic book reason, in which he states he was jealous of Spider-Man and used his jealously to try and bring him down. Jameson is brilliant throughout the show, he gets several of the best lines which are delivered with such delicious drive by Ed Asner. The show has an outstanding Jameson who usually meant well, but his temper often got his own way. Jameson's chemistry with both Parker and Spider-Man in this show is sorely missed. Throughly entertaining in his role as an antagonist, this version of Jonah is up there with the very best of them, a tick in every box.
The most popular storyline of the season would be The Alien Costume, which is still the very best version of the symbiote storyline over 2 decades on. The show HAD to do Venom as he was by far the most popular Spider-Man villain at the time and his presence would've been sorely missed were he to be absent. The problem with the Venom storyline was that no one behind the scenes could agree on how it should be done. Eventually realising that the black suit needed to bond to Spidey before it split and joined Brock, the nut was cracked when the story became a three parter, rather than the planned two. Series writer Stan Berkowitz offered his opinion on the Venom saga;
“Everybody -- producers, network, writers, artists had a different conception of the Venom story; it took a half-day-long meeting with everyone -- Avi, Stan, the network rep, the supervising producer (Bob Richardson), John and me, before a storyline could be settled upon -- and that was just for the first half hour of the three-parter.
In fairness, I should note that it's been my experience that writing a three parter isn't three times as hard as writing a one-parter; it's NINE times as hard. And one other thing: it's easier to get things done when you're working for one person with bad taste than four with good taste -- although the end product probably won't be as good.”
The suit originally was originally brought back from Battleworld during the original Secret Wars storyline... Realising that Spider-Man had no place on an alien planet this early into the show (despite his misgivings in the opening episode), Avi Arad eventually proposed that the space shuttle crash down on the Hudson bridge in part one in which the suit would attach itself to Spidey before he rejected in the final act of the second episode and then face off with Venom in the third part.
The storyline is probably the best the show did, by showing the actual symbiote as a massive threat by augmenting Parker's powers by increasing his aggression. The suit didn't effect Parker's emotions in the book, it did however take Parker out as Spider-Man while he slept and Parker had a rather trippy dream sequence showing that his spider powers wouldn't give up on him. The show's most memorable visual came when Parker woke up in his new suit.
"What a nightmare! For a second I thought I was... Going out of my mind? Parker! How on Earth did you get in the middle of Manhatten, hanging upside down in a costume you've never seen before?!"
He later tries to impress Felicia by hitting on her and standing up to Flash Thompson for the first time in his life, to Flash's surprise and Hardy's dismay. The suit gave Parker increased confidence, as well as strength.
These episodes are the best the show ever looked. Unquestionably the show's greatest model, the black suit looked absolutely stunning on the screen and the story boarding and staging where the greatest the show ever produced. Spidey easily outmatched and schoolboyed the much larger Rhino before nearly crushing him with a metal door.
Rhino: Alright, I give up. I'd rather go to jail than be a snitch.
Spider-Man: Who said anything about jail?
Rhino: Huh? I don't get it?
Spider-Man: You will. It's like this: I'm through with not getting what I want!
Rhino: What are you doing? I told ya... I give up!
Spider-Man: That's funny. I give up too. I give up trying to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!
Rhino: No, no. You can't...!
Spidey quickly snaps out of it when he realises that he was about to kill Rhino over essentially nothing and we get a very cool nod to Venom as Spidey sees his reflection in place of his own, with the first part ending on an eery note
"I almost did something back there, that I would've regretted for the rest of my life and I have no idea why!
What was that?! What's happening to me...?"
Part two opens with Spidey in a foul mood, as Jameson has placed a bounty on his head, following Brock's testimony that Spidey stole the Promethean X, obligating The Rhino's presence in trade for his old job back. The attack from the strike crew served multiple purposes, to show that the city was after Spidey to capture Jameson's reward, to piss off Spidey because he's being hunted for something he didn't do and to showcase that the symbiote has a weakness towards sonics, which Reed Richards discovered in a scene too random for my liking back in the comics.
Upon nearly smashing up Jameson's office (and Brock), Spidey makes his first of many, many trips to Doc Conners lab for help in which he seeks knowledge about the suit and learns that it is attempting to bond and ultimately replace him and horrifyingly learns that it's a sentient creature.
This episode also marks the debut of The Shocker, who, like Rhino, is one of The Kingpin's employees throughout the show. I neglect to use the word goon, as it carries the stigma of say, Blizzard, Whirlwind and Dreadknight etc, from the Iron Man cartoon and they do not compare. This was a bad ass version of The Shocker, far superior than the joke from the comics. The animation showed off a decent design (his often mocked costume, which even designer John Romita Sr has expressed his regret over, looks very nice here) and he has utterly perfect casting in veteran Jim Cummings. Barnes also offers one of his best Spidey performances in the episode, as he goes absolutely nuts chasing Shocker through the Cathedral and again nearly kills him before he comes to his senses, this time with his Uncle Ben's messages about great power coming with great responsibility ringing in his ears, before the symbiote attempts to throw Shocker from the top of the ledge itself forcing Spidey to use the bell to separate himself from the alien. He then leaves, only for the symbiote to attach itself to Brock, who Spidey had left hung out to dry on a lower level. Most of the story was original rather than taken from the comics and it works so much better. These two episodes juggled multiple storylines and ensured they either had the payoff or set up some thing bigger down the line.
The quality did dip in the final third thanks to some inferior animation and a rather tame looking Venom design, which was disappointing, as the back suit looked sensational on Spidey and the opening credits showed off a much better looking Venom. While it was unrealistic to expect it to look as amazing as the aforementioned trip of McFarcline, Larsen and Bagley, one can't deny the Venom model was lacklustre and the colouring and animation was much, much weaker than we were used to seeing from the show. Venom was written as a threat and I especially liked the stalker angle they used, as none of Spidey's villains knew his identity before this episode and he made a point to go after both Aunt May and Mary Jane. I thought the show did a far better job with Brock than the comics did at the time by removing the Lethal Protector nonsense that plagued the book. Venom worked best as a twisted killer/stalker, not a would be superhero. Using Brock in prior episodes before he became Venom was a master stroke. I especially liked how Spidey outsmarted Brock and used to roar of the space rocket to banish the alien back to outer space. I am no scientist, but I'm fairly certain both Spidey and Brock would've been cooked alive standing as close to a firing rocket as they were, and Spidey's webbing would've melted before it had a chance to attach itself and the symbiote to the rocket, but I am willing to let a scientific inaccuracy slide.
Still, at the time, I sincerely doubt any Venom fan would've been disappointed with his animation debut. The story was rightly revered at the time.
The show showed no signs of slowing down with he aforementioned Hobgoblin storyline, which again brings both The Kingpin and Osborn into play as Osborn hires and creates The Hobgoblin to kill Kingpin, before ultimately being saved by a sharp eyed Peter Parker.
I am struggling to write just how fantastic a villain I thought Hobgoblin was. While the design isn't as cool as it looked in the comics (I don't see why they coloured his torso yellow and changed the cape inlay to purple, it would've looked far cooler if it was all orange) but he was written as a scheming, devious fiend who didn't mind throwing anyone under the bus to get his own way. He happily betrays Osborn to work for Fisk, and then uses Osborn for better weapons to take Fisk out too. Shortly after using both parties against each other, he declares
gets the spot he always wanted
"This town has a new Kingpin, and it's me!"
For a character Semper could not abide, he is by far the most interesting super villain in the show. He is also wonderfully portrayed by Mark Hamill, in what I would rank as his second best role, following his unforgettable performances as The Joker. The animation quality also returned to the status quo, after dropping in the final act of the Venom episode.
After the seasons weakest, but still enjoyable episode in Kraven The Hunter, the season finale offered an interesting look at The Chamleon and introduced S.H.I.E.LD and Nick Fury, the show's first guest star. Using Jameson and The Bugle, there are several shining moments here, one of which being a bad ass moment when Chameleon, disguised as Parker, grabs Mary Jane and kisses her, to avoid detection from Fury's agents.
Mary Jane: Peter... Why'd you so that?
Parker: I had to.
Mary Jane: What made you think I'd let you?
Parker: I took a gamble that Peter Parker might be the luckiest person on the face of the Earth...
I thought Chameleon had an interesting gimmick in that he never actually spoke throughout the show's run. Everytime the character spoke, he transformed into someone else. I just thought that was a bad ass idea, a man without his own identity would couldn't speak.
The show was a phenomenal success at the time, a number 1 rated hit which brought in extraordinarily revenue, enough to convince Avi Arad that his future lie in Saturday morning animation. The show was firing on all cylinders, despite the show's initial plagued production, the crew turned out an excellent looking, brilliantly written show, which captured young audiences and Spidey fans alike.
Next: Mutants, monsters and scary censors!
Warner Bros. got the superhero cartoon ball rolling with their Batman animated show, hot off the heels of their phenomenally successful live action Batman movie in 1989 and Warners commissioned a new animated show to debut shortly after its sequel, Batman Returns in 1992. Marvel had their own plans for their most popular character with Spider-Man and with Margaret Loesch now the head of Fox Kids, she changed the landscape for animation and superheroes were not only fair game, they were her main market. Creating a new demographic of 8-16 year old boys, she thought that audience would prefer superheroes to Smurfs and happily accepted Warner's Batman show and finally commissioned an animated X-Men series, after a decade of being refused by every network going back when she worked for a Marvel. Both Batman and X-Men enjoyed massive success on the network and she wasted no time greenlighting a new animated Spider-Man show.
Hot off the heels of the spectacular Terminator 2: Judgement Day, James Cameron planned his next project to be a live action Spider-Man movie, having finally secured the rights, or so he thought, following a messy, lengthy legal battle. A screenplay was written with production expecting to begin in the early 1990s and executive producer Avi Arad dreamed of Spidey dominating the big and small screen. Unlike X-Men, which wasn't afforded a massive budget, Marvel and Fox shot for the moon with Spider-Man and there would be no AKOM calamities here - Supervising Producer, Bob Richardson who worked with Arad on the 80s Spider-Man shows was hired to oversee the project and he commissioned TMS to animate all 65 episodes of the show. This wasn't a 13 episode trial like X-Men, Fox went straight for a full 65 episode show from the beginning. TMS were easily regarded as the best in the TV animation business at the time and their animation standards surpassed all other back then, and even now. It was THAT good.
Emmy awarding winner Marty Isenberg was hired as the show's story editor, having previously served as a writer on Warner's aforementioned Batman show, to great critical success. Isenberg also wrote a great portion of the acclaimed Batman: Mask of The Phantasm movie, still one of the greatest animated Batman movies ever. He certainly knew how to write superhero cartoons, based on his resume.
Richardson made the decision to digitally colour and ink the show, being one of the first to do this now industry standard practise. 3D animation was also used to create a feeling of vertigo when Spider-Man swung through the air. It's fairly common to 3D in animation these days, usually for vehicles and the like, but it was unheard at the time of Spider-Man's production. Unfortunately, the new technology comes with limitations in that no one is experienced in how it works. The 3D often clashed with the traditional 2D and looks like it was done on the cheap, which I'm assured is not the case. Strenuously overreaching and having to accept lesser results became the story of this show's production by the time it ended, but we will cover that later. Reach for the stars and fall in the clouds? Not quite. The 3D animation usually looked more awkward than awesome and didn’t reach it’s desired levels… it was phased out towards the end of the show, but older 3D animation was repeated in later episodes.
With the knowledge that they had the best in the biz animating the show, they went to town on the character models, creating detailed designs and complicated shading for each of the characters. The idea was to create a more contemporary look, rather than follow the design styles of a particular comic book artist. The Spider-Man books has undergone a massive resurgence with the trio of Todd McFarcline, Erik Larson and Mark Bagley modernising Spider-Man as a super buff contortionist, creating poses not humanly possible, which looked utterly fantastic on the page. It was obvious that such a look would not work on a television budget animation, so their designs were largely ignored. The idea to ignore the classic design theories of John Romita Sr was also made and a look exclusive to the show was crafted. The designs, in the first season were more hit than miss and the animation was usually sensational - while the style wasn't as nice to look at as Batman, the animation quality was superior (with the exception of the TMS animated episodes of Batman, naturally). Those were a sight to behold, and still show up anything animated these days, over 20 years later.
The curiosity in the case of the designs was the Peter Parker model. Despite being 19 years old at the time the show began, it was still odd seeing Parker as bigger than bully Flash Thompson and he bears a striking resemblance to Nicholas Hammond, the actor who portrayed Parker in the 1970s live action show nobody likes. Semper revealed on Twitter that this wasn't intentional, but looking at them, it's too much of a coincidence for me. The fact the model is also out of place in the 1990s makes it stand out so much more... What were they trying to make him look like? He doesn't look like any 19 year old in 1994 did and he's not based on any comic book rendition of the character. They really should've looked at how John Romita Sr drew Parker and aped that... It's also a little laughable that Parker has a short sleeved Rugby shirt which clearly wouldn't conceal his costume under it, despite the viewer seeing his 'uniform' under his street clothes on several occasions. Idiotic design decisions such as this would often plague the show, but Parker was the most extreme case, especially as he was designed in season one, when the designs were well done, in most cases.
The Spider-Man model fares better. Again, it is not based on any one artist but it moved well in this first season... the opening episode, Night of The Lizard, might just be the best looking 2D Spidey model ever in animation. Sleek, beautifully coloured and wonderfully animated, it looked gorgeous. The red and blue suit would never again reach the heights of the pilot, it must be said. They rarely used any short cuts even with Spidey’s complicated web patterns, nor did the look to reduce the amount of webs, as would become apparent in later seasons. Visually, the show was shooting high and reaching it’s target.
However, trouble brewed behind the scenes during pre-production to the point the decision was made to dismiss Isenberg of his duties as story editor.
John Semper, a writer who had worked with Stan 'The Man' Lee in the 80s recalls receiving a phone call from Lee, explaining that they were about to fire Isenberg and Lee wanted Semper as his replacement. Semper, a Spidey fan in his youth, jumped at the chance, only to be later told that the position was to stay with Isenberg and thanked for his time.
Months later, Semper received an even more frantic call from The Man, offering him the job. Apparently the studios faith in Isenberg was misplaced and Stan insisted Semper be brought in to replace him. Upon arrival at the studios offices, Semper realised that very little salvageable work had been done and he had a massive deadline looming to get the scripts out so production could begin on the actual episodes. Rather than try to save what work had been done, Semper threw most of it out and started the show from scratch, with the exception of a few traces he could not remove.
Semper believes the 22 minute format is too restricting to hook the viewer into a story and preferred longer arcs to further develop characters and stories. This caused him to clash with executive producer Avi Arad, who wanted a villain of the week show, so more characters could be create so action figures could be produced of a newly featured villain each week. Semper thought the stories Stan Lee told in the 60s which he enjoyed as a child used this long running story formula and thought his show should emulate it, while Arad saw the show as a toy advert and something to help boost the popularity of the upcoming Cameron movie. Arad was of course, the chief of Toy Biz at the time, meaning he would stand to make a lot of money over the Spider-Man toylines from both the cartoon and the movie.
Assembling his crew of writers, Semper was forbidden from utilising a season long arc in the first season. The directive was to introduce a new villain in each episode which Semper adhered to originally. Semper has since stated that he was creatively restricted, especially in this first season, but the strings were loosened following it’s success.
Sadly for Semper and the viewers, the Fox network which aired the showed had received a negative backlash for the violent content of their excellent Batman and stupid Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers shows and Fox insisted the cartoon show no violence whatsoever and nothing which could cause distress to the viewer should be spoken. Which essentially meant a action show wouldn't be allowed to punch, kick to the face or mention death, kill, die etc... Difficult circumstances in which to write a superhero action show. With Cameron's intention to tell Spider-Man's origin and utilise the villains Electro and The Sandman, Semper was told not to use either villain and that the show was to start after Parker took his famed trip to a demonstration in radiology. Semper didn't see this as a burden as he thought the origin was too predictable a place to start and thought the show should be about the complications that being Spider-Man caused Peter Parker and not dwindle on villains he couldn't use.
Despite the limitations placed on actual action, the show did not become a comedy and the cast were assembled with the aim of playing it straight. Clearly taking their cues from Batman, a strong cast of actors was assembled, many of whom also appeared on Batman. Christopher Daniel Barnes was cast as the lead and I personally thought he was an awesome Spider-Man. I've never had any complaints regarding Barnes - it would be years before anyone who wasn't utterly terrible as Spidey would appear, he was in a league of his own for many years when it came to voicing Spidey. This was the voice of Spider-Man in my childhood and I would welcome his return with open arms now. I remember recognising a lot of the cast from Visionaries, a show I remember enjoying as a child. Neil Ross, Roscoe Brown and Jim Cummings, among others, would make several appearances in the show.
While Semper, Arad and Fox argued over the course of the show in LA, young 8 year old Stu in Yorkshire was entirely unaware that a new Spider-Man cartoon was in development. I liked the character and have previously mentioned my fondness of what I had seen of the 60s show. I'm not old enough to remember either 80s show but did greatly enjoy the Spider-Man game released for the Sega Mega Drive and had a handful of Spider-Man toys from the Marvel Superheroes toy line. While there weren't a great deal of Spidey figures released, I had toys of Spidey, Doc Ock, The Green Goblin and a really bad ass Venom. I was a fan of the character, but didn't have a great deal of knowledge about him - this show introduced me to so much of what I would grow to love about Spider-Man.
I remember in the weeks prior to the debut of the new season of Live and Kicking that brief clips showing a new Spider-Man cartoon would air. The previous year I had treated to the debut of X-Men and I hadn't missed an episode since. There was no messing around with this show, I loved Night of The Lizard, the opening episode, from the moment I saw it. With the exception of an unannounced return for the 5th season (Part 1 of a 4 part story, of all things!) I wouldn't miss an episode of Spider-Man in its entire 65 episode run. I fell into it hook, line and sinker - I watched it every week, I bought pretty much ever Spider-Man toy I could find (Alien Spider Slayer, Morbius and the Nick Fury figures still elude me to this day!), I read the companion comic, (usually just comic adaptations of the episodes) and managed to convince my friends and cousin to get into it too. My brother and I watched every episode together every week without fail. As far as my childhood went, this was THE show for me.
Looking back? I still love the show. It hasn't held up well in many areas at all, and is embarrassing in some areas, but I still think it's one of the best superhero cartoons ever.
The show managed to avoid the familiar villain of the week by throwing a few ongoing stories in there even in the early episodes and focused quite heavily on the characters romantic exploits, which wouldn't really be seen much in any superhero cartoon until The Spectacular Spider-Man would debut 14 years later. Avoiding the use of Gwen Stacey due to her stigma of being Spider-Man's dead girlfriend, Semper substituted her with Felicia Hardy, known to comic fans as The Black Cat. She would actually debut before Mary Jane in a bold twist, and was the object of Peter's desire while he wisely avoided the prospect of a blind date with Aunt May's friend nice. This allowed his duties as Spider-Man to screw up not one but two of Parker's love interests!
The series had a rather ingenious idea of introducing Eddie Brock as a rival before of Peter Parker before he became Venom. As someone who worshipped J Jonah Jameson and hated Spider-Man as much as much as Jonah did and clearly had a dislike for Parker and his ability to obtain photos of Spider-Man, it gave Brock a much needed backstory before he became Venom. It built one's anticipation of when Brock would eventually become Venom. It also added more to Spidey's feud with Venom as Parker and Brock were clearly not fond of each other before either of them wore the symbiote, which fixes some of the curious character traits of Eddie Brock in the early Venom books.
A similar situation was also creating with Norman Osborn. Alert fans will have noticed that The Green Goblin was absent from the rouges gallery in the opening credits. There were two contributions during Isenberg's reign as story editor that managed to make it into the show, the first one being that Peter attended Empire State University rather than Midtown High and the other than The Hobgoblin was set to feature before The Green Goblin, which goes against decades of comics' lore. With the show intended as a toy advert by Arad, as soon as he realised Isenberg intended to include Hobgoblin, Arad gave the green light for his action figure, forcing Semper to use him in the show.
"My fired predecessor’s only lasting contribution to the series was his decision to use the Hobgoblin instead of the Green Goblin. So, based on that early decision, Avi had ramped up an expensive toy line revolving around the Hobgoblin. By the time I arrived on the series, I was stuck with having to roll that character out first, (because of the impending toy line) which is just plain wrong. I kind of patched it up in the series by making Norman Osborne create the weapons for the Hobgoblin first before deciding to use them for himself as the Green Goblin, which I thought was a good fix. But that first Hobgoblin two-parter is just a waste of time designed just to sell toys. I hated it when we had to write it, I hated it when it aired and I still hate it. The Hobgoblin is boring"
Despite Semper's own irritation, I thought this worked beautifully. It allowed Norman to develop further and the feud between Spider-Man and Osborn develop before he became The Goblin. Osborn would make his debut in The Spider Slayer, which also introduced another massive contribution to the show in The Kingpin of Crime. The inclusion of The Kingpin was sheer genius in my opinion, he immediately added gravitas to any situation and was an excellently written character, constantly behind the scenes, trying to run the crime rackets of New York. It was interesting to me that Spidey wasn't even aware he existed until the middle of season three. He was aware of his associates Alistair Smythe and fought numerous of his hired goons, including long time comic book villains The Rhino and The Shocker but Spidey was entirely unaware that Fisk was The Kingpin. He blackmailed Osborn in the Spider Slayer into killing Spider-Man, who in turn hired Spencer Smythe who was seemingly killed off when Oscorp blew up between the fight between Spider-Man and The Black Widow (the robot, not the redhead) and then more or less manipulated his son Alistair Smythe into working for him and creating new Spider Slayer robots. Spidey actually had to save Norman Osborn, Eddie Brock, Flash Thompson and J Jonah Jameson from Smythe Jr's robots - imagine, having to save two people who hated him the most and his high school bully. It again leads to a long running storyline of when The Green Goblin would actually show up. Semper saw Kingpin as Spidey’s Professor Moriarty, a villain constantly behind the scenes making life as difficult as possible for our hero.
Not to say that the only episodes of worth were the ones which set up bigger storylines down the road. The opening episode, Night of The Lizard, is widely regarded as the show's best, and strong single episodes explaining the origins of Dr Octopus, The Scorpion and Mysterio were all highly regarded. Much of Dr Octopus: Armed and Dangerous would make its way into the outstanding Spider-Man 2 a decade later. The show took the time to properly develop its villains and the episodes were stronger for it. The stories were mainly based on the old Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run, with a little more depth added to the character. The Sting of The Scorpion makes more sense of J Jonah Jameson's hated of Spider-Man than the actual comic books do. We learn that Jameson, as a young reporter, was warned to cease writing stories about the mob and when he refuted, the mob sent a masked man to execute him, but the hit man missed and killed Julia, his wife. Using his influence as the chief of J3 communications, he saw Spider-Man as a masked menace who never took responsibility for his actions and swore to keep the city safe from cowards who hide behind masks. This works so much better than his rather silly comic book reason, in which he states he was jealous of Spider-Man and used his jealously to try and bring him down. Jameson is brilliant throughout the show, he gets several of the best lines which are delivered with such delicious drive by Ed Asner. The show has an outstanding Jameson who usually meant well, but his temper often got his own way. Jameson's chemistry with both Parker and Spider-Man in this show is sorely missed. Throughly entertaining in his role as an antagonist, this version of Jonah is up there with the very best of them, a tick in every box.
The most popular storyline of the season would be The Alien Costume, which is still the very best version of the symbiote storyline over 2 decades on. The show HAD to do Venom as he was by far the most popular Spider-Man villain at the time and his presence would've been sorely missed were he to be absent. The problem with the Venom storyline was that no one behind the scenes could agree on how it should be done. Eventually realising that the black suit needed to bond to Spidey before it split and joined Brock, the nut was cracked when the story became a three parter, rather than the planned two. Series writer Stan Berkowitz offered his opinion on the Venom saga;
“Everybody -- producers, network, writers, artists had a different conception of the Venom story; it took a half-day-long meeting with everyone -- Avi, Stan, the network rep, the supervising producer (Bob Richardson), John and me, before a storyline could be settled upon -- and that was just for the first half hour of the three-parter.
In fairness, I should note that it's been my experience that writing a three parter isn't three times as hard as writing a one-parter; it's NINE times as hard. And one other thing: it's easier to get things done when you're working for one person with bad taste than four with good taste -- although the end product probably won't be as good.”
The suit originally was originally brought back from Battleworld during the original Secret Wars storyline... Realising that Spider-Man had no place on an alien planet this early into the show (despite his misgivings in the opening episode), Avi Arad eventually proposed that the space shuttle crash down on the Hudson bridge in part one in which the suit would attach itself to Spidey before he rejected in the final act of the second episode and then face off with Venom in the third part.
The storyline is probably the best the show did, by showing the actual symbiote as a massive threat by augmenting Parker's powers by increasing his aggression. The suit didn't effect Parker's emotions in the book, it did however take Parker out as Spider-Man while he slept and Parker had a rather trippy dream sequence showing that his spider powers wouldn't give up on him. The show's most memorable visual came when Parker woke up in his new suit.
"What a nightmare! For a second I thought I was... Going out of my mind? Parker! How on Earth did you get in the middle of Manhatten, hanging upside down in a costume you've never seen before?!"
He later tries to impress Felicia by hitting on her and standing up to Flash Thompson for the first time in his life, to Flash's surprise and Hardy's dismay. The suit gave Parker increased confidence, as well as strength.
These episodes are the best the show ever looked. Unquestionably the show's greatest model, the black suit looked absolutely stunning on the screen and the story boarding and staging where the greatest the show ever produced. Spidey easily outmatched and schoolboyed the much larger Rhino before nearly crushing him with a metal door.
Rhino: Alright, I give up. I'd rather go to jail than be a snitch.
Spider-Man: Who said anything about jail?
Rhino: Huh? I don't get it?
Spider-Man: You will. It's like this: I'm through with not getting what I want!
Rhino: What are you doing? I told ya... I give up!
Spider-Man: That's funny. I give up too. I give up trying to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!
Rhino: No, no. You can't...!
Spidey quickly snaps out of it when he realises that he was about to kill Rhino over essentially nothing and we get a very cool nod to Venom as Spidey sees his reflection in place of his own, with the first part ending on an eery note
"I almost did something back there, that I would've regretted for the rest of my life and I have no idea why!
What was that?! What's happening to me...?"
Part two opens with Spidey in a foul mood, as Jameson has placed a bounty on his head, following Brock's testimony that Spidey stole the Promethean X, obligating The Rhino's presence in trade for his old job back. The attack from the strike crew served multiple purposes, to show that the city was after Spidey to capture Jameson's reward, to piss off Spidey because he's being hunted for something he didn't do and to showcase that the symbiote has a weakness towards sonics, which Reed Richards discovered in a scene too random for my liking back in the comics.
Upon nearly smashing up Jameson's office (and Brock), Spidey makes his first of many, many trips to Doc Conners lab for help in which he seeks knowledge about the suit and learns that it is attempting to bond and ultimately replace him and horrifyingly learns that it's a sentient creature.
This episode also marks the debut of The Shocker, who, like Rhino, is one of The Kingpin's employees throughout the show. I neglect to use the word goon, as it carries the stigma of say, Blizzard, Whirlwind and Dreadknight etc, from the Iron Man cartoon and they do not compare. This was a bad ass version of The Shocker, far superior than the joke from the comics. The animation showed off a decent design (his often mocked costume, which even designer John Romita Sr has expressed his regret over, looks very nice here) and he has utterly perfect casting in veteran Jim Cummings. Barnes also offers one of his best Spidey performances in the episode, as he goes absolutely nuts chasing Shocker through the Cathedral and again nearly kills him before he comes to his senses, this time with his Uncle Ben's messages about great power coming with great responsibility ringing in his ears, before the symbiote attempts to throw Shocker from the top of the ledge itself forcing Spidey to use the bell to separate himself from the alien. He then leaves, only for the symbiote to attach itself to Brock, who Spidey had left hung out to dry on a lower level. Most of the story was original rather than taken from the comics and it works so much better. These two episodes juggled multiple storylines and ensured they either had the payoff or set up some thing bigger down the line.
The quality did dip in the final third thanks to some inferior animation and a rather tame looking Venom design, which was disappointing, as the back suit looked sensational on Spidey and the opening credits showed off a much better looking Venom. While it was unrealistic to expect it to look as amazing as the aforementioned trip of McFarcline, Larsen and Bagley, one can't deny the Venom model was lacklustre and the colouring and animation was much, much weaker than we were used to seeing from the show. Venom was written as a threat and I especially liked the stalker angle they used, as none of Spidey's villains knew his identity before this episode and he made a point to go after both Aunt May and Mary Jane. I thought the show did a far better job with Brock than the comics did at the time by removing the Lethal Protector nonsense that plagued the book. Venom worked best as a twisted killer/stalker, not a would be superhero. Using Brock in prior episodes before he became Venom was a master stroke. I especially liked how Spidey outsmarted Brock and used to roar of the space rocket to banish the alien back to outer space. I am no scientist, but I'm fairly certain both Spidey and Brock would've been cooked alive standing as close to a firing rocket as they were, and Spidey's webbing would've melted before it had a chance to attach itself and the symbiote to the rocket, but I am willing to let a scientific inaccuracy slide.
Still, at the time, I sincerely doubt any Venom fan would've been disappointed with his animation debut. The story was rightly revered at the time.
The show showed no signs of slowing down with he aforementioned Hobgoblin storyline, which again brings both The Kingpin and Osborn into play as Osborn hires and creates The Hobgoblin to kill Kingpin, before ultimately being saved by a sharp eyed Peter Parker.
I am struggling to write just how fantastic a villain I thought Hobgoblin was. While the design isn't as cool as it looked in the comics (I don't see why they coloured his torso yellow and changed the cape inlay to purple, it would've looked far cooler if it was all orange) but he was written as a scheming, devious fiend who didn't mind throwing anyone under the bus to get his own way. He happily betrays Osborn to work for Fisk, and then uses Osborn for better weapons to take Fisk out too. Shortly after using both parties against each other, he declares
gets the spot he always wanted
"This town has a new Kingpin, and it's me!"
For a character Semper could not abide, he is by far the most interesting super villain in the show. He is also wonderfully portrayed by Mark Hamill, in what I would rank as his second best role, following his unforgettable performances as The Joker. The animation quality also returned to the status quo, after dropping in the final act of the Venom episode.
After the seasons weakest, but still enjoyable episode in Kraven The Hunter, the season finale offered an interesting look at The Chamleon and introduced S.H.I.E.LD and Nick Fury, the show's first guest star. Using Jameson and The Bugle, there are several shining moments here, one of which being a bad ass moment when Chameleon, disguised as Parker, grabs Mary Jane and kisses her, to avoid detection from Fury's agents.
Mary Jane: Peter... Why'd you so that?
Parker: I had to.
Mary Jane: What made you think I'd let you?
Parker: I took a gamble that Peter Parker might be the luckiest person on the face of the Earth...
I thought Chameleon had an interesting gimmick in that he never actually spoke throughout the show's run. Everytime the character spoke, he transformed into someone else. I just thought that was a bad ass idea, a man without his own identity would couldn't speak.
The show was a phenomenal success at the time, a number 1 rated hit which brought in extraordinarily revenue, enough to convince Avi Arad that his future lie in Saturday morning animation. The show was firing on all cylinders, despite the show's initial plagued production, the crew turned out an excellent looking, brilliantly written show, which captured young audiences and Spidey fans alike.
Next: Mutants, monsters and scary censors!
Last edited:
)
![[classic swim]](/forums/data/avatars/s/324/324637.jpg?1668169542){kind=avatar}
