Marvel Animation’s latest series has swung onto Disney+. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gives us an MCU adjacent origin story for the iconic wall-crawler. And while it delivers all the classic web-spinning fun we know and love from the character, it does so in a way that feels new and fresh. The series kicks off by wasting little time before diving into that fun.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man opens, as so many Spider-Man stories do, with Peter Parker waking up already late for school. It becomes clear very quickly that this version of Spider-Man shares a lot of similarities with the MCU’s version of the character. However, as producer Brad Winderbaum recently let us know, this is not exactly set within the MCU. Still, he lives in an apartment with just Aunt May at the start of the series, so clearly this is set after Uncle Ben’s passing.
Peter misses his train and after a dramatic pause he looks into his backpack, presumably for his Spider-Man suit. Instead, he pulls out the oatmeal that May packed him. May arrives and offers Peter a ride so he won’t be late to his orientation at Midtown High. We see an Iron Man toy dangling from her rearview mirror, the first reference to another hero in this show.
As they arrive at Midtown, Peter addresses the passing of Uncle Ben in a brief emotional moment. Peter’s arrival at school is interrupted when a portal opens in the sky and a monster comes crashing to the ground. It becomes clear the creature is a symbiote, an alien like Venom and Carnage, which lunges at a student. Doctor Strange emerges from the portal though and saves the student. Peter expresses excitement for “some kind of magical wizard guy.” Clearly he has never seen or heard of Doctor Strange before. Interestingly, Strange sees that he and the symbiote are at Midtown and he says “we’re not supposed to be here.” Was Strange jumping through the multiverse? Or did he simply not want the symbiote at a school?
Strange battles the symbiote inside the school and throws it through a portal back outside. The symbiote goes after another student, but this time it’s Peter who leaps into action. He tosses a a brick at the monster and gets its attention. The symbiote approaches peter but before it can attack him, Strange restrains it and brings it back through the portal they both came from. However, a spider falls from the portal and lands on Peter.
He helps up the girl he rescued and it turns out she is Nico Minoru. Marvel fans may remember Nico from the Hulu series Runaways. In that series and in the comics, Nico is a magic-wielder, though it doesn’t appear she has any of those abilities yet in this series.
Meanwhile, the Spider works its way to Peter’s neck and, as you would guess, bites him. Peter has an awkward exchange with Nico before fainting as Aunt May runs to help him. Pater sees the spider climb onto another student’s backpack before he blacks out and we transition to the show’s title sequence. Is the spider going to come back into play with the mystery student who walked away with it? Perhaps this is a door to create this universe’s Miles Morales.
After the title sequence, we jump to “as few months later,” as things seem to be the same for Peter Parker. He wakes up late for school and rushes out only to miss his train again. This time however, when he looks into his backpack, he finds his Spider-Man suit.
Spidey starts swinging through the city before becoming distracted by the scream of someone in need. We see some goons chasing a boy roughly Peter’s age. He falls into the street and is nearly hit by a truck before Spider-Man swings in to save him. The goons corner Spider-Man and the mystery boy in an alley before live-streaming their attack on them, an interesting decision. Spider-Man makes short work of them though and he webs them up before saying goodbye to their followers. A notable comment in their live stream chat comes from Screwball and it says “if you guys want to see better content, check out my channel!!!” Screwball is a low-level villain who also live streams all of her crimes, using Spider-Man as clickbait.
The mystery boy thanks Spider-Man and eventually introduces himself as Harry. This would be this universe’s Harry Osborn. Spider-Man introduces himself, which gives us the first time we actually hear the name Spider-Man in this series.
We then see that Peter is not at Midtown High, but rather Rockford Bales High School. Perhaps the incident kept him from being able to attend his dream school. Peter tries to sneak into his class late but is caught by his teacher. After class, Nico jokes with him about his imperfect attendance. Clearly, these two have become close friends. Peter turns around and bumps into a girl, who we eventually learn is his childhood crush, Pearl. The character interestingly looks a lot like Liz from Spider-Man: Homecoming but obviously this is not her. Pearly forgives Peter and playfully refers to him as clumsy. After she leaves, Peter tries to make his case to Nico that he has a shot with Pearl, before revealing that she was his babysitter. Nico convinces him to ask her out before someone else does.
Sitting in another class, Peter sees a police chase out the window and asks to be excused. Spider-Man swings into action, chasing the criminals alongside the police. He eventually catches the thieves, swinging in front of their van and stopping it before it crashes into a bus. This sequence looks a lot like the footage Tony Stark shows Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War when he is trying to recruit Spider-Man. The police arrive and Spidey swings off.
Peter returns to school and makes his move to ask out Pearl, but Nico cuts him off. They watch as another student hugs Pearl. Later, in another class, Peter reveals that the boy Pearl is dating is Lonnie Lincoln. This is the name of a classic Spider-Man villain known as Tombstone. However, in the comics, Tombstone is an adult and a major crime boss in New York. Either this version of Lonnie is altered or perhaps he hasn’t become Tombstone just yet.
When the teacher tells the class to pair up, Peter thinks he has another chance to get close to Pearl. However, Lonnie leaps at the opportunity to work with Peter. After a brief interaction, Peter learns that Lonnie is actually pretty brilliant and more than just the stereotypical star quarterback.
On their way home, Peter jokes with Nico before they part ways. Peter then sees Lonnie and, in true Parker fashion, has an awkward interaction. After Peter leaves though, Lonnie lets out a sigh. It seems he is hiding something. On his way home, we see him get some seemingly negative attention on the subway and he is briefly tailed by a police officer. He get home and it appears he has a stable and happy home life. Before we cut away from the Lincoln family, we see a copy of the Daily Bugle on the table, with Spider-Man on the front page. The image is an homage to the iconic cover of “Amazing Fantasy #15,” the comic in which Spider-Man made his debut.
Spider-Man drops in outside a pizza place and returns some money to the owner. A woman is webbed up next to him and she pleads for forgiveness, explaining that she lost her job and needed the money. Spider-Man pleads with the man to let her go, and he agrees. Spidey rips the webs off and she promises not to make him regret his decision before running off. The pizza shop owner pays Spidey with some free pizza and he swings off.
As he eats his pizza in an alley, Peter finds a DVD player lying on a dumpster. As he makes his way home with his new old tech, “Left Hand Free” by Alt-J plays. The song would be familiar to those who have seen Captain America: Civil War. Peter takes a selfie with a sports car outside before heading into his apartment. Accompanied by the same song, the scene is a replica of that in which we first meet Peter Parker in Civil War. However, instead of Tony Stark, Aunt May is meeting with this universe’s Norman Osborn.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is an interesting project because of the similarities to the MCU without actually being set in that same universe. And yet, it appears Marvel was able to thread that needle. This new series is a lot of fun and it appears it is going to be jam-packed with Marvel references and ever appearance from other characters. Marvel has are going to be constantly wondering what, or who, is going to be coming next.
The first two episodes of Marvel’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man are now streaming on Disney+.