Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 1TheMCUrecently gave us the street-level type project I’ve always wanted, and I’m very excited to see more. As seen in the new animated seriesYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, an alternate MCU timeline is introduced featuring a Peter Parker who’s essentially Tom Holland adjacent. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover all the ways this provided some dynamic storytelling potential.
Rather than attending Midtown High with Ned Leeds and MJ like in the main live-action MCU timeline, this version of Spider-Man exists in a branched reality where Doctor Strange battles a symbiote, emerging from a portal and damaging Midtown in the process on the day that would have been Peter’s freshman orientation. As such, Peter becomes Spider-Man while attending a different school with new friends,and a new mentor with Norman Osborn rather than Tony Stark’s Iron Man.This creates an exciting opportunity where the show then offers new street-level Spider-Man stories while still connecting to known MCU events.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s Alt-MCU Timeline WORKS
The Freedom To Take The Spider-Man Mythos Into Both Classic & All-New Spaces
Admittedly, I thought that a separate timeline forYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manwas going to diminish my experience and overall enjoyment of the show. Wouldn’t the show be better if it was connected to the actual main MCU timeline we see in live-action, revealing Peter’s freshman year and unseen adventures in his earliest days? However, I quickly realized the true beauty of this show was its ironic ability to use the multiverse to provide some compelling street-level stories we’ve yet to get in the main MCU proper.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Cast & Character Guide - Every Actor In The Animated Series
Marvel Animation’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is in development, and its main cast members are steadily being confirmed in the meantime.
Originally titledSpider-Man: Freshman Yearbefore it was reworked to presumably be more expansive,Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manprovides this alt-MCU timeline that’s largely set in the aftermath ofCaptain America: Civil Warwith events that differ fromSpider-Man: Homecoming. While the experiences and events are different, Peter still manages to refine the kind of hero he wants to be, just like we see in the 2017 movie starring Tom Holland.However, the lack of an Avengers connection with Iron Man sets up something very special that I absolutely love, essentially keeping Spider-Man more street-level for longer compared to the main MCU.
The MCU’s New Spider-Man Show Is A Window Into What Might Have Been For The Home Trilogy
Keeping Things Friendly Neighborhood And Street-Level For A Little While Longer
Rather than jumping straight intoAvengers: Infinity WarfollowingHomecomingwith Peter joining Iron Man in space to fight Thanos as one of Earth’s Mightiest,Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’sWebslinger instead encounters characters like Otto Octavius, whose technology is creating new villains in New York, as well as quarterback Lonnie Lincoln and his heartbreaking evolution into the gang leader known as Tombstone. Likewise, Mac Gargan finally becomes Scorpion in this alt-MCU timeline, nearly 8 years after his character debuted and was teased inHomecomingthat ultimately didn’t go anywhere.
It’s also worth mentioning that Spider-Man still gets to meet other New York-based heroes in this new series, like Doctor Strange. The Webslinger also gets to meet street-level vigilantes like Charlie Cox’s Daredevil.An in-costume encounter between Spider-Man and Daredevilis something fans have been wanting to see in the main MCU for years, especially after Cox’s Matt Murdock had a cameo inSpider-Man: No Way Homeas Peter’s lawyer.
“The show definitely scratches the itch for everyone wanting more of a grounded MCU Spider-Man swinging through the New York streets, something that seems to be taking a backseat in the main MCU in favor of the overarching Multiverse Saga…”
With two more seasons ofYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manon the way,it looks like what we’re getting is an alternate way the main MCU could have taken Spider-Man, almost as if there had been a Spider-Man trilogy afterCivil Warbut beforeInfinity War, extending the “Friendly Neighborhood Era” for longer in a really fun and compelling way. The show definitely scratches the itch for everyone wanting more of a grounded MCU Spider-Man swinging through the New York streets, something that seems to be taking a backseat in the main MCU in favor of the overarching Multiverse Saga.
Why Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Has The Grounded Stories We’ve Been Looking For
This Is How You Use The Multiverse Right…
In essence, the alt-MCU timeline seen inYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manis one of its biggest advantages, as it has been leveraged to create some very dynamic stories, giving familiarity by referencing known MCU elements while also having the freedom to explore and provide some incredibly great moments and surprising twists. It could have been a serious drawback as many thought it would be going into this series (myself included).Instead, this alternate branch timeline in the multiverse has resulted in what I think is one of Marvel Studios' best street-level projects yet.
All episodes ofYour Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Manseason 1 are now streaming on Disney+.
