This post contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Right from its opening credits, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man teaches viewers what they can expect. The theme song “Neighbor Like Me,” by The Math Club and featuring Relaye and Melo Makes Music, remixes the classic theme from the 1967 animated series into something fresh, exciting, and unexpected.
The show applies that approach to everything, including Peter’s origin story. The Disney+ series builds on some parts of the character’s introduction in the comics and in the MCU, but it takes unexpected turns, ensuring that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man won’t be exactly the same Spider-Man we’ve seen 100 times.
Spider-Man’s Not-So-Secret Origin
Like Superman and Batman, Spider-Man has an origin that’s been told so many times that it almost doesn’t bear repeating.
As established in Spidey’s first appearance in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15, drawn by Steve Ditko and written by Stan Lee, Peter Parker is a good-hearted and bookish kid raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Pete’s spindly stature makes him an object of abuse for bullies and an object of sympathy instead of admiration for girls. That is, until a radioactive spider bites Pete and gives him the ability to whatever a spider can.
The power goes right to Pete’s head and he promptly starts making money as a wrestler, putting his desires before the needs of anyone else. But when Pete refuses to stop a burglar, insisting that he now only looks out for “number one,” and that burglar kills Uncle Ben, he learns an important lesson about great power and great responsibility.
The MCU version of Spider-Man doesn’t ignore that origin, but it does go in a slightly different direction. Peter already has powers when he arrives in the MCU, in the form of Tom Holland, and Ben Parker has already been so long dead that no one even mentions him. Instead, it’s Tony Stark who becomes Peter’s mentor, giving Spider-Man access to billionaire technology while trying to teach him about responsibility.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man makes references to both origins, but takes them in very different directions.
The Birth of a Moral Conscience
Early in the first episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter realizes that he’s late for school, so he pulls up his backpack for something to give him an edge. Yet all he finds is a sandwich, not the costume and web-shooters we were expecting.
That’s because Peter doesn’t yet have his powers, which is a bit of a surprise to long-time fans. After all, as Aunt May drives him to school, Peter makes reference to “everything that’s happened with Ben,” that is, his death.
On the surface, this timeline change doesn’t matter much. Peter’s still a good enough guy to stare down the Kraven/Venom hybrid that comes through a portal into an alternate reality, even before he gets by a spider from the same portal. Even after getting bit, Peter seems to take well to his newfound power, showing empathy toward a thief who swiped some cash because she was hungry.
The fact that Uncle Ben’s death didn’t teach Peter about power and responsibility lessens some of Spidey’s goodness. Part of Spider-Man’s appeal is that he could do whatever he wants, but he chooses not to, and that’s sometimes a hard choice. The decision to be good seems to come easily to Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
However, the series may just be delaying Peter’s lesson about power and responsibility, letting it come not from his dying uncle, but from his malevolent mentor.
Great Power, Great Responsibility, and Great Men
The first episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man ends with near 1:1 recreation of Peter’s MCU introduction in Captain America: Civil War. While alt-J’s “Left Hand Free” plays on the soundtrack, the camera follows Peter through the halls of his apartment, a DVD player in one hand and a set of keys in the other. May asks about school when Peter walks in and he answers, but he’s more concerned about the “crazy car parked outside.”
When Peter finally turns around to face his aunt, he notices her surprising guest, one of the richest men on the planet. In Civil War, that guest is Tony Stark, the invincible Iron Man. In Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, it’s Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin.
As Den of Geek’s review of the first episodes notes, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is fond of winking at the MCU while still taking place in its own separate universe. The homage could be nothing more than such a wink, setting up the viewers to expect one thing and then delivering another.
But given the fact that Norman goes on to become a mentor Peter, just like Tony did, and even learns that he’s Spider-Man by the end of episode two, the two business moguls mirror one another. Could it be Norman, not Stark or Uncle Ben, who teaches Peter about power and responsibility? And, if so, how far will the villainous Green Goblin push Peter while teaching that lesson?
Or, maybe Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is just reminding us that all billionaires are evil, whether its Stark to Osborn… Nah. That would be too “annoying and woke.”
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man streams every Wednesday on Disney+.
The post Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Just Remixed Spidey’s Comic and MCU Origin Stories appeared first on Den of Geek.
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