Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Review: A Fresh Addition to Peter Parker’s Legacy

When you think about the comic book characters who have been most successfully adapted for the screen, Spider-Man has to be at or near the top of the list. Three live-action iterations of the character remain widely beloved by fans, there has been a slew of acclaimed video games, and the heroes of the Spider-Verse have been completely changing animated storytelling. Peter Parker has a killer track record and Marvel Animation’s newest series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, only adds to that pristine legacy.

I would have certainly counted myself among the doubters when Marvel and Disney+ released the trailer for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man: the story seemed like a half-baked retread of every other Peter Parker adventure we’ve seen in recent years, just with some different looks for its core characters and the animation looked unfinished and off-putting. It’s totally understandable if you haven’t felt much excitement for the new Spider-Man based on its advertising; I felt the same way. This is one of those rare situations, though, where the final product is so far beyond what its advertising indicates. It’s night and day from what you are expecting.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, like most Peter Parker stories, starts with a genius teenager getting bitten by a mysterious spider. This time, things are a little different on the spider bite friend, setting up a mystery that keeps you guessing throughout the first season. At his new school, Peter is surrounded by friends (and great Marvel characters) like Nico Minoru and Lonnie Lincoln, and he has to balance those relationships as he takes on an exclusive internship at Oscorp — from a personal invitation by Norman Osborn himself.

Of course, all this is going on just as Peter is beginning his journey as Spider-Man, so the balancing act of his life only gets more challenging. But Peter’s story isn’t the only one at the heart of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and that’s what helps make this such a great series as the first season unfolds. Lonnie Lincoln, known to many Marvel fans as the villainous Tombstone, plays an enormous role in the show and is quite possibly its strongest and most endearing character. Nico has a major part to play as Peter’s best friend and fellow youth-with-powers (though nobody knows about those just yet). And then there’s the Osborns, who are as big a part of this tale as they were in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie.

As good as actor Hudson Thames’s Peter Parker is, those supporting characters really are what elevates Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man from good to great. Lonnie Lincoln, in particular, is the breakout character to watch for. Voiced by Eugene Byrd, Lonnie gets a story almost entirely brand new to Tombstone, rewriting the character’s history and turning him into an A-list Spidey character overnight. You won’t see Tombstone the same after this, and that’s a great thing, as this Lonnie could go down as the definitive edition of the eventual villain.

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Then there’s Norman Osborn. We know Norman very well by now, but Colman Domingo brings the exact right bravado and menace to the character to make him feel as powerful as ever. His relationship with Peter is handled perfectly, playing on the classic tales of teacher/student that defined the character in the past, while also doing enough to actively push back against the main issue plaguing the MCU’s live-action version of Spider-Man (a.k.a. his relationship with Tony Stark).

There is a lot at play in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, with a lot of side characters getting ample time to set up for future stories, but it’s a balancing act that’s handled with grace and precision. No one story ever wears out its welcome or feels shoe-horned into the narrative. This journey feels very natural, and it ends in a place that leaves a ton of opportunity for Season 2.

Perhaps the biggest hang-up for fans heading into Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is the show’s animation style, which continues the Marvel Animation trend of looking totally different than every previous Marvel Animation project. Honestly, it does take a little getting used to; the movements are more rigid than you might be accustomed to, though it doesn’t have that nostalgic rigidity of something like X-Men ’97 that people seem to love. It plays like a moving comic book in its editing, but doesn’t explore the same artistic freedom as the Spider-Verse movies.

There’s a middle ground where this show exists, and that doesn’t feel like such a bad thing as the series goes on. Sure, it’s a little jarring at first. Like the story itself, the animation takes a couple of episodes to really settle in. Once it finds a groove, though, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man utilizes its unique style to full effect.

The best examples of this come in some of the big fight sequences in the back half of the season. I don’t want to share any details in order to preserve some surprises, but know that there is one particular fight on a helicopter pad that will blow your mind. Remember that kind of thing is coming when you a football scene in the first episode or two and wonder why Lonnie seems to be a completely different shape when he’s throwing a ball. It’s just the sort of thing that takes time to settle in.

It’s hard to feel fresh with a character like Spider-Man in today’s world, since he’s been adapted so many times (and usually very well). Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man understands that challenge and doesn’t try to completely reinvent the wheel. There are a lot of familiar Spider-Man beats here, but where there’s a unique opportunity for some overhaul, however, this series takes it and finds a way to soar.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The first two episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man are now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes coming out each week.