The Spectacular Spider-Man is an entertaining and light watch for kids and teenagers, but Spidey fans in general will enjoy the series, which currently airs on TheCW4Kids Network. The plots are simple but they never insult the intelligence of the audience and the episodes are mostly self-contained and full of classic Spidey villains. We’re a long way from the dark, brooding angst of Batman and even other incarnations of Spidey. The animation is bright and colorful and the art is stylized and clearly drawn.
The Spectacular Spider-man starts with a catchy opening theme and takes us back really early into the Spider-man mythology. Peter Parker is a nerdy high school student tangling with bullies at school and criminals after school ends. A familiar group of characters surround Peter and villains such as Venom, Electro, Dr Octopus (a personal favorite), and many others show up to menace the high-schooler. The DVD set is attractively-priced and contains all 13 episodes of season one. Sony previously released these episodes on individual DVD volumes and that was frankly a ripoff. Fans who waited will get all the episodes and two nifty if standard behind the scenes featurettes about the making of the series. There’s also a handy “play all episodes” option on the set.
The Spectacular Spider-man: The Complete First Season is a fun and fast-moving animated Spidey series for fans of the comics, and fans of all ages. This is light and kid-friendly, fans of Teen Titans should enjoy it. The previous CG animated series on MTV was pretty fun too, but that suffered from awkward CG animation, which this show does not. This is a good buy and comes highly recommended for comic book fans tired of all the darkness, brooding, and angst of some of the more recent movies.
DVD Grade: B+
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John Spartan
Jul 24, 2009 -
My favorite 90s animated series were Gargoyles and Batman, but this and X-Men also ranks up there for awesome cartoons. Peter Parker is such a smartass, lol.
Jimmy Yamma
Jul 31, 2009 -
Lemme tell you something,I have read very spider-man comic ever published, played every spider-man video game ever released, watched any spider-man film (live-action or animated) and watched all the animated series based on DC or marvel characters and I am telling you that Spectacular Spider-man is not only the best adaption of Marvel’s flagship character outside of the comics (on par with “Spider-man 2”) but is one of the best superhero shows in the history of TV.
Thundercats and other toons | Gene's Worlds
Aug 3, 2011 -
[…] As I told Steve M.R., I thought both characters were a good fit for Japanese adventures, with Iron Man's technocratic interests and the classic storyline in which Wolverine follows lost love Mariko to Japan. However, I found myself already missing the energy of the computer-animated Iron Man: Armored Adventures and the cleaner lines of X-Men: Evolution, not to mention MTV's Spider-Man and the fun Spectacular Spider-Man. […]