A wise old Jewish guy once said “It's good to be the king”. Of course he said it after sticking his face into a milky mound of cleavage meat, so I guess he was right. Had he died of a drug overdose while sitting on the toilet, or been a burden on the social security system while fighting a bloodsucking mummy in a retirement home, our royal amigo might've thought otherwise. Spider-Man's the king of Marvel Comics though, and I'd say the wall crawler's got it pretty good. For 40+ years he's been the figurehead of the Marvel Empire (who filed for bankruptcy in the '90s, but who's counting?... apparently someone who wasn't good with numbers). With a slew of successful comic books, action figures, movies, and a live-action Japanese TV series that made absolute shit for sense, the webbed wonder, despite all the personal problems that make him so palatable to his audience, has always been on top. Example? His latest animated series, “
The Spectacular Spider-Man” is his... uhm... 7th or 8th animated series since the first one debuted back in 1967! Even on their best days, even Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby couldn't touch that with a 10ft spider-pole! Of course, not all of Spidey's little 'toons were successes: his MTV series from 2003 only survived for one season, and the same goes for his 1999 “
Spider-Man Unlimited” series, which a lot of fanboys still like to wheeze at as being “the worst Spider-Man cartoon EVER!”. Can “
The Spectacular Spider-Man” (with its oddly catchy theme song) catch the ratings magic that Ol' Web-Head had with the '90s Fox series that still stands as the boner factory for Spidey geeks to this day, or will it go down as yet another “flash in the pan” Marvel animated series that no one but die hard social outcasts will remember 6 years from now?
This first episode, “Survival of the Fittest”, introduces us to the standard Peter Parker story: he's a teen who lives with his widow aunt trying to make ends meet while surviving the life of a high school wimp day-by-day. You know the drill. Returning to school from summer vacation with the confidence of a guy who spends his nights swinging down Lexington Ave. in skin-tight underwear, Pete's positive that this latest stint in the halls of higher learning will have the 8-Ball of his life reading “All Signs Point to Awesome”... until he tries to ask out a cheerleader and gets the resultant bullying job from the football team and their captain, you guessed it, Flash Thompson... not to be confused with Flash Gordon... who was also a quarterback, only for a pro football team... if you can call the Jets a “pro” anything... Meanwhile, as Oscorp Labs, nefarious business jackal Norman Osborn has just stolen the idea for a new science called “Tech Flight” from failed elderly scientist Adrian Toomes (voiced by Robert Englund!). Without any evidence (though, if the man was stupid enough not to patent his ideas before meeting with Osborn then he deserves to be ripped-off), Toomes is legally screwed and can only rely on the one true justice: Judge Judy!... err, I mean, violent revenge! Hooray!
While all this is going on, a mysterious underworld kingpin (surprisingly enough not the Kingpin) named “Big Man” (voiced by Keith David!) has been unhappy with Spider-Man's recent tendency to fuck up his criminal cabbage patch. When his usual group of thugs prove impotent at the hands of the teen hero (that just sounded wrong...), Biggy calls in some super powered back-up: the Enforcers. For casual Spidey fans not familiar with the group, the Enforcers are a group of otherwise worthless bad guys who, when joined together, become a team of worthless bad guys. Enforcer roll call: Hammerhead – the leader and a reject from the Dick Tracy Villains Committee whose flattop is actually a steel skull plate; Montana – a hold over from the Society of John Wayne Impersonators who thinks he's a gangland cowboy... and probably wrangles up some Brokeback lovin' on the weekends; Fancy Dan – a deadly and dynamic black ninja... I'm sorry, I meant African-American ninja; and Ox – the group's muscle whose brute strength is almost as impressive as his handlebar mustache and 74 tooth smile.
As Pete's hanging out with his buddy Harry Osborn at Normy's palatial penthouse pad uptown, Toomes shows up dressed as his new alter-ego the Vulture. He's not the classic “green tights and feathers” Vulture, but more like the “eXtreme '90s” version with a souped up high tech suit of armor and razor sharp steel wings. I could never build up enough interest in the Vulture to give a shart about him in either incarnation, so I could care less. I did get a laugh over how he came up with the name this time around though. Somehow “the Buzzard” just doesn't make the ears sweat like “the Vulture” anyway... Pete leaves his sneakers at the Osborns' (for no reason other than as a likely point of contention later) and saves Norman, allowing “Beaky” to escape. Afterwards Parker heads to his new intern job with friend and fellow nerd Gwen Stacy, working for scientist Dr. Curt Connors at Empire State University. We're also introduced to Eddie Brock. Instead of a hotshot reporter though, Brock is now a “big brother” figure to Pete who used to be his burly protector in high school before Eddie graduated. He's now a freshman at ESU and it just so happens he also works for Dr. Connors and his wife, Dr. Connors... uhm, Dr. Martha Connors, so there's no confusion. In need of money to help out Aunt May though, Pete hunts down a paying gig doing photog work for the Daily Bugle newspaper. I know this all sounds like a long-winded over explanation of what's going on, but being the first episode there's a lot of foundation being poured to build on in later episodes. Trust me, it gets less tedious from here.
The Vulture makes a second attempt on Osborn, but this time the Enforcers show up to keep Spider-Man occupado. It all works out eventually though, with Vulture and the Enforcers all webbed up and left for the cops while Norman Osborn escapes without a scratch and Peter going home to eat Aunt May's pie... it's banana cream! Tasty.
For a first episode, this wasn't half bad. The villains in “Survival of the Fittest” consisted of a b-lister and a posse of d-listers, but it somehow made for a “quantity over quality” dichotomy that I didn't really mind. Now, if the entire episode had been dedicated to just one or the other, I figure I would've been bored. Thankfully though, I wasn't! I am glad that Robert Englund did the voice of Vulture because it really fits, especially since The Man Who Is Freddy is starting to resemble the old buzzard as of recent years. As far as Keith David's “Big Man” character goes, I'm curious to see what happens with BM (harhar) in future episodes. Though I wasn't a big fan of what the writers are doing with Eddie Brock, my only major complaint is that I'm really not warming up to the art style. Peter looks like he hasn't even popped his first pube and Aunt May looks like she's really 30 but she stole her 'do from a 70 year-old she met at the super market. Old people's faces should look old too, not just their hair. But, you never know. I started out hating the art style on the '90s “Batman” and “Superman” cartoons, but now I can't picture them differently. Maybe this will win me over in the long run too? Only time (and endless cliches) will tell.
Moral of the Story: Even with high-tech flying suits and razor sharp talons, old people still can't be trusted to do anything right.
