Spectacular Spider-Man

Adaptation from one form of media to another always brings with it a series of challenges as the interaction between audience and art is also changed. This difficulty can be seen no more clearly when comic books are adapted to other media such as television or film. More often than not adaptations using comic books as source material evolve into eye-candy with little substance or, in some cases, resemblance to the original. For every successful venture (Spider-Man, Iron-Man) there have been countless other failures (League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Electra, Howard the Duck, need I go on?). One area where comic books have seen some degree of continual success is an adaptation into an animated television show.

The animated medium allows for much of the character design, exotic locals, and stupendous super-powers to remain intact when such elements could break the bank in a feature film. A weekly television show also allows for a more episodic mode of storytelling, and this results in a longer narrative that is conducive for fleshing out the characters (a feature film often has to cram 30 years of comic book history into 2 hours). It is then the challenge of the writers and directors to use decades of source material to come up with a new set of stories that will do justice to the character, appease legions of ravenous fanboys, and bring in new viewers. No small task, but one done with great aplomb in the new animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man, the 7th animated series to feature our friendly neighbourhood wall crawler.

The series takes place in the modern times with Peter Parker in high school. In fact everyone is in high school. And I mean everyone as Gwen Stacey, Harry Osborn, Flash Thompson, Liz Allen, Glory Grant, Kong, Hobie Brown, Rand Robertson, and Mary Jane all go to the same school. This does not divert too much from the source material, and it does give the viewer in the know a little wink wink to what may be coming.

Peter volunteers with Dr. Conners, whose workman is Max Dillon (Electro), and whose lab assistant is Eddie Brock. Eddie's parents dies in the same plane crash that killed Peter's folks. Tombstone is a crime boss, Norman Osborn makes super-villains for him, oh, and Dr. Otto Octavius works for Osborn. The point I am trying to make is that the show nicely ties everything and everyone together. As strange as it may seem this does not come across as contrived; the storytelling is just that good.

The series gains it strength from being able to rely on all of the good things that every other comic book, movie, or television show has ever done about Spider-Man. The final product is a mix of Amazing Spider-Man (concept, characters), Ultimate Spider-man (setting, updated timeline), the Spider-Man movie (several action sequences pay homage), and even other animated series (the symbiote comes to earth on John Jameson's shuttle). There is also a continual nod back to Ditko's original visuals with each episode ending with Spider-Man's eyes and red and black webbing appearing over the New York skyline.

So should you watch this show? The answer is a resounding yes. It currently runs on the CW and started September 7th in Canada on Teletoon. So if you have a television and cable I would set aside ½ hour each week to check out Spidey. However, I would advise against purchasing anything just yet. The first season is broken into 4 story arcs that are being released on DVD separately at $14.99 each. You will end up paying $60 for a 13 episode season. B.S. When the CW finally gets there money grubbing head straight a complete season will be released. Normally a 13 episode animated season goes for around $30 and has lot of extra features. For shame CW, for shame.

One last thing: the theme song is great. Not as good as the 60s theme song but then again what is. Is he strong? Listen bud, he's got radioactive blood. Why that didn't win a Grammy I'll never know.