Small Screen Surfin'
Created | Updated Oct 4, 2003
Almost a decade ago in the mid-Nineties, there was the golden age of Saturday morning
cartoon shows1. However, during this time, there was an influx of Marvel
comics characters clobberin', webslingin' and smashin' in morning cartoon shows before they
all went 'Hollywood'.
The way things work in Tinsel Town, animated tie-ins spawn from any successful movie like
The Mummy and Ace Ventura. Not only have we been subjected to the
1994-96 repeats of The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron-Man and the Fantastic
Four, you've probably seen the adverts for the DVDs of the first three mentioned cartoons
simply because the live-action movies were out at the time2. Now with better technology and better adaptations of Marvel's cast
we have had the X-Men Evolution cartoon which improved on its predecessor due to
Sabertooth looking like he does out of the movie ('X-Men'!) and the black and yellow suits of
the X-Men look a lot better than the comic/1994 cartoon's blue/yellow combo! Plus,
beginning last weekend on Nickelodeon, we now have Spider-Man... The point of all this
long-winded, historical drivel? Well, it's Spider-Man that I'm actually going to review!
First of all, you have to have seen the 2K2 movie to get any of the situations as the first
episode has the sub-plot of Harry Osborn believing that his father was murdered by
Spider-man. So if you don't know what that situation is all about, then you need to rush and
see the film right now! There's also the presumption that everybody in existence knows who
Spider-man is, and what his powers are. And also that Peter Parker is Spider-man's alter-ego
who takes photos of the wall-crawler for J. Jonah Jameson, editor of the Daily Bugle, whom
hates Spider-man... Got all that?
The series has been made with computer animation. It's a brave move but the characters
look blocky, and New York has a strange neon/futuristic look which takes away from the
empathic-with-teenagers-realism that helped make the comic a success in the first place. This
look isn't good for a show that is set one year from the big screen outing. The reason for the
delay in the show actually being released is obviously due to the computer look which makes
production slow, not to mention costly. Though taking heavily from the movie, Tobey
MacGuire this Peter Parker ain't.
Tobey Macguire had a believable and likeable appeal but this voice actor is annoying and
the patented Spider-man sarcasm comes across like Adam West's camp Batman portrayal.
Mary-Jane Watson looks the same as she's ever done in any interpretation of the comic
character and the occasional glimpses of Norman Osborn in photographs do look like Willem
Dafoe, which is rather a strange contrast to the supposed-to-like-his-father-in-every-way
Harry Osborn sporting a blonde, pompadour-like quiff atop his skull...
Rather surprising for a 9:00am showing, the series tries to maintain the 12 rating that the
movie got, with returns to the cemetery, mentions of murder and has an overall dark feeling...
but no mention of Parker's
back-stabbing-best-friend-by-stealing-a-kiss-with-his-girlfriend-at-the-best-friend's-fath
er's-funeral! The advantage with these dark themes is that the super-villains aren't as
clichéd as they once were and are in keeping with the 2002 movie's improved super-villain
look. The origins stories are thrown around but still finish as the same guy/gal in the end.
The first episode concentrating on Max Dillon
Over the decades, young Max Dillon has been a disgruntled electrician, guinea-pig for his
America-hating father's psychotic schemes, and has now been reduced to student! Max wants
to be in a certain college fraternity3 and it's the one with all the
bullying sporty jocks in them. As with all terrible 80's teen-movie rip-offs, none of the
frats like Dillon and thus make his life difficult with their 'Sure you can come but we're
gonna torture you' style...
Under the mis-interpretation that he's going to become 'one of the boys', he gets
paintballed and thus runs out into the wet, stormy New York night, drawing
himself toward a part of an advertisement that begins with 'Max'... Unfortunately it's
publicising 'Maximum Shock', and irony prevails, turning max into the new and improved
Electro! The advantage of computer graphics and not cel animation is that they can show the
lightning in all its glory and Electro now has the make-up of a walking thunder-bolt
(light-blue with new static hair) as opposed to green and yellow lycra! His first task is
getting revenge on the leader of the tormentors and accidentally kills him... meaning
Spider-man plops into the action to save the hour...
The new looks for Electro works really well, giving a sense of tortured soul along with
aggression which would fit into the movies well as opposed to his former appearance which
would lose all those who were new to Spider-man when seeing the movie-outing...
Interesting type of music for the self proclaimed 'super-hero action thriller' in dance,
but that's avoidable with the quite annoying computer appearances. that too, can be ignored
after you've gotten over the initial shock and realise that it's done for the sake of
Spider-man's aerobics. Two episodes over the weekend have been shown and May Parker
(Peter Parker's Aunt who raised him) has yet to make an appearance which is rather
surprising as she's quite instrumental in the whole Spider-man feel in that she's part of
Peter Parker's life difficulties, juggling his power with his teenage life.
The second episode did raise an eyebrow for me in that the Lizard was the villain when
it's been heard that the Lizard is one of Spiderman's nemeses in Spider-man 2 which will
need some questions answered, but the programme is enjoyable nevertheless. Roll on Human
Torch!
Next week: Time Commanders!
nation as well2You will not have
seen adverts for Daredevil cartoons because they don't exist BUT they did bring out
Spider-Man versus Daredevil DVDs when Ben Affleck's movie (Daredevil) was in the
cinema!3You know the kind... thinking that three
Greek letters made them look intelligent.
