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.

So, how often are you going to be posting?

At this stage I'm hoping for at least two posts per week, but we'll see how it works out once I actually get around to it.

So, what Spider-Man cartoons have you actually watched before starting this blog?

As previously mentioned, I got pretty invested in Spectacular Spider-Man, based solely on the strong word-of-mouth I heard about it. I've also seen the first few episodes of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, and the entirety of the Spider-Man: The Venom Saga DVD, covering the Venom-episodes of the 1994 series. Other than that, I've only seen the first season of Ultimate Spider-Man as it came out - I'm going in blind on everything else.

Okay, so what do you actually mean by "Spider-Man cartoons"?

At the moment, the plan is to watch the following shows, in the following order:

• Spider-Man (1967)
• Spider-Man (1981)
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981)
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994)
• Spider-Man Unlimited (1999)
• Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003)
• The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008)
• Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)
• Marvel's Spider-Man (2017)

So, why use Blogger? Did I accidentally time-travel to 2003?

I spend enough time coding websites at work, and I'm not what you'd call the biggest fan of Wordpress. Plus I like the way it sorts posts by year and month.

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Thanks for reading along. Stick around next for when I post my thoughts on the first episode of the 1967 Spider-Man series - "The Power of Dr. Octopus/Sub-Zero for Spidey".