(episode review) - Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man : Episode 1 & 2

 So this dropped a few days ago, and honestly, I didn't care for it. I knew Marvel was developing it, but when I saw the trailer some time back, I was not overly keen on the art style, which seemed a little childish to me. Yes, it pays homage to one of Marvel's greatest artists, but the Spider-verse movies are superb artistically, and this simply feels like a huge step back. With that said, we can have different variations of art concepts for Spiderman and anything else, right? So, I gave it a watch, so here is what I thought.

We start off with Peter getting himself ready for school. There are some nice touches to establish the world we are living in, like the Ironman "toy" or whatever it is hanging from the rear view mirror. When Uncle Ben is mentioned, there is a little glimmer and shine from Aunt May's wedding ring and straight off the bat, we are introduced to another Marvel character we all know. After the opening set of sequences, we go onto the intro just before the title card, and we are introduced to a rendition of the well-known Spider-Man theme song with some Hip-Hop or upbeat music infused into it. It's ok; I can take it or leave it, but just like the original theme, it is catchy. When the show starts, after the title card, it is a new day, and Peter is getting himself ready for school again. The same thing happens again, but this time Peter puts on the Spidey suit. It is very training-wheels-esque, but it is functional. As we all know, Spider-Man is always late because he is always fighting crime, so by the end of the episode, Peter goes home, and we are introduced to his guest.

The second episode continues with the introduction of the guest, and we find out who this person is, why they are there and what they want. This later leads to the introduction to other characters and places we are familiar with from the comics, and while there are some interesting choices, I was more intrigued with how these other characters will play a part in this show. It ends with a secret coming out, and I can only assume that from here on out, we will loosely follow the MCU's story path but from a different perspective.

The show is okay —not terrible—but so far, it has me intrigued. Some of the characters introduced have never been introduced in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), so it would be interesting to see how their stories interweave with Peters's going forward.
From the jump, we are given an LGBTQ+ character, AND there are some culture-bending as well as gender-bending with some characters, but I had zero issues with this and found it cool. For years, characters have been drawn a certain way and kept that way through all the different Spiderman mediums, so although they may change the shape, size and design of characters to keep them fresh, gender and culture-bending characters bring a brand new perspective. I just wonder how this Peter's relationship will work and their dynamics with all these other characters. Will he be part of the Avengers, will he have a "guy in the chair", will there be a bully? One character I found interesting was a guy we are introduced to, and we get to see his family dynamics at home and his background. I really enjoyed the portrayal of that one clever and smart child who is lucky to go to the school he goes to, and he is likely the only person in his family who is lucky enough to be where he is. They never shied away from how other people see this person and likely, people just like him.

This is only the first two episodes, so we shall see how it all pans out for this show, but so far, it's alright. I am sure it will get better.