The first trailer for the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man dropped yesterday, a first look at the parallel universe Peter Parker.
The Spider-Man universes keep expanding! Marvel Animation dropped the first trailer for its new animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man yesterday. The series will be streaming on Disney+ on January 29, 2025. It is still MCU-adjacent series and produced by Marvel Studios, which depicts the origin story for a parallel timeline, Peter Parker. This trailer showed off a lot of what is to come for the series, and how it pays homage to the original The Amazing Spider-Man comic books.
In more detail, the show follows a parallel timeline where Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man, is mentored by Norman Osborn—the alter ego of his archenemy, the Green Goblin—instead of Tony Stark, as in the MCU. The series was originally planned to be set within the MCU’s “Sacred Timeline” before the events of Captain America: Civil War, but the creative team found this too restrictive regarding which characters and comic book elements could be included. They then decided to pivot to an alternate timeline.
Jeff Trammell, head writer of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, stated that this series would explore Peter’s identity before becoming Spider-Man and how his superhero career began. Most interestingly, this version of Peter is bitten by a spider falling out of a portal created by Dr. Stephen Strange as he fights Venom, connecting his origin to magic rather than science, as in the comics. This origin story is inspired by the early The Amazing Spider-Man comic books by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
Head of Streaming, Television and Animation Brad Winderbaum ensured Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man would be a classic Spider-Man story. It features Peter trying to juggle high school, caring for his Aunt May and being a superhero. This will be a major break for Hudson Thames, who is voicing the titular webslinger. Winderbaum also pointed to the large ensemble of characters, which he felt allows “tragic and dangerous” relationships and stakes to be developed throughout the first season.
Other cast members include Colman Domingo as Osborn, Kari Wahlgren as Aunt May and Hugh Dancy as Doctor Octopus. Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio will reprise their roles from the Netflix Daredevil series, and Paul F. Tompkins will take on the role of classic Marvel Comics villain The Wizard. It was unclear if this series will show the Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk of late in the MCU, or strictly the one more tied to the Netflix series.
The trailer is action-packed, with some great expository narration from Thames’ Peter. Apart from the flashy cel-shading art, the trailer offered a first look at a new Spider suit. One suit looks familiar, resembling Tom Holland’s Spider-Man costume before he met Tony, while the other features a sleek black-and-white colour scheme. It resembles Spider-Man’s Future Foundation costume from the comics. Based on context clues, it appears Norman makes this suit for Peter.
Even though this is a separate Peter from the MCU, I am still interested to see where the story of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man goes. Maybe this could tie into a future Spider-Verse film down the line. I would be shocked if a live-action multiverse story were made about this in the future. The 3D cel-shaded animation really caught my eye. It is a throwback to the art style of The Amazing Spider-Man comic books.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will be streaming on Disney+ on January 29, 2025.