Spider-Man (1967) Episode Two: Where Crawls the Lizard / Electro the Human Lightning Bolt

Where Crawls the Lizard

First Aired: September 16th, 1967

Synopsis: Reports of a lizard-like man in the Florida Everglades spread throughout the country, prompting Peter Parker to convince J. Jonah Jameson to send him there so that he can fight him. Spider-Man heads into the swamp and after a brief fight with the Lizard, goes to the house of Doctor Curtis Connors, a local reptile expert. Spider-Man meets Connors' son and wife, and finds out that the man himself is missing.

Spider-Man (1967) Episode One: The Power of Dr. Octopus / Sub-Zero for Spidey

The Power of Dr. Octopus

First Aired: September 9th, 1967

Synopsis: Peter Parker is on assignment for J. Jonah Jameson to find some mysterious lights in the mountains. After his car falls off the side of the mountain he's on, he switches to Spider-Man and finds Doctor Octopus' laboratory, the source of the lights. He's defeated and captured, and Octopus reveals that he has a device which he'll use to blow up large portions of the city. He sends a warning to Jonah to evacuate some residents so he can make a demonstration.

Spider-Man (1967): Before Watching

The 1967 Spider-Man cartoon is a bit of an odd duck. On the one hand, it's the first appearance of Spider-Man in a medium other than comics, and it created the most iconic theme Spidey's ever had (sing it with me, folks: "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can..."). On the other hand, I can't see it having aged well over the decades, in terms of animation or storytelling. I think it says a bit about the show that aside from the opening theme, its biggest legacy these days is the many memes it's generated.

Introduction

Background

Although I've been a Spider-Man fan for the majority of my life at this point, I've never really gotten into the cartoons that much (with the notable exception of Spectacular Spider-Man, and even then that was many years after it finished airing). Partially it's because I don't recall any of my local channels ever broadcasting any of the series (fun fact: until I was around sixteen, the only channels we had were five free-to-air channels - and this was in the first decade of the 2000s), but it's also because I've never really been that inspired to seek out any Spider-Man cartoons. After all, I've always had plenty of Spider-Man comics to read, and there's no better source than the originals, right?

Still, as time has gone on, I can't help but feel that this is a bit of a gap in my Spider-Man enjoyment. I've played most, if not all, of the modern games, I watch the movies whenever they come out, and I follow the adventures of both Peter Parker and Miles Morales in the comics diligently. So why shouldn't I give the cartoons a fair go?

The aim of this blog is to have a look at Spider-Man cartoons and see how they compare with other aspects of the franchise - primarily, the comics, as they're what I'm most familiar with - and to see how well they stand up on their own. Along the way I'm hoping to find some hidden gems and to see what I've been missing all of these years. I plan to do so episode by episode in chronological order, starting with the 1967 Spider-Man series and continuing until I run out of episodes. After that, who knows? The live-action Spider-Man series from 1977? The Japanese Spider-Man show? We'll cross that bridge when it comes to it.