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s10127470 · 2 months ago

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The Spectacular Spider-Man: The Odd-One Out of Two Universes

I'm pretty sure most of you reading this are familiar with The Spectacular Spider-Man.

Often considered the best of the Spider-Man cartoons and one of the best iterations of the Spider-Man mythos, the short-lived animated series, even after 16 years, is still held in high regards for it's unique art-style and character designs, pretty strong animation, engaging ongoing storylines, and most importantly of all, showcasing a strong understanding of Peter Parker's character.

But one thing to note about Spectacular is the fact that it was originally meant to be part of not one, but two different shared animated universes!

One that actually got to be made, and the other that....didn't.

To start this off, we'll be talking about the latter since it's the one that not many people know about.

Even i didn't know about it until a few months ago.

As many of you know, Spectacular was created back when aside from literally every other medium, Spidey was just not allowed to interact with or mention the much greater Marvel Universe.

However, that all changed in mid-2009.

Shortly after wrapping production of Season 2, series creators Greg Weisman and Victor Cook, started toying with the idea of including team-ups in the planned additional three seasons of Spectacular.

This was most likely because they heard about The Walt Disney Company's planned acquisition of Marvel Entertainment.

And since it would mean that all the television rights for Marvel's characters would revert to Disney (including Spidey's), Weisman and Cook most likely believed that they were gonna be continuing Spectacular, but with Disney now.

Oh how naive they were.....

Anyway, Spectacular's rendition of the Marvel Universe was gonna be a little different than what most people were used to.

During this time, Spidey was one of the few active heroes around, with the only other ones being The Fantastic Four and Ant-Man.

But the former were usually too busy going on adventures and facing off against much bigger threats, and the latter kept a relatively low profile.

As for the other big names....

-The Wasp had yet to be become Ant-Man's partner.

-Captain America was still frozen in The Arctic.

-The Incredible Hulk was an urban legend, wandering around The American Southwest.

-Iron Man was still a simple business man.

-Thor was still roaming the Earth as Donald Blake, having yet to be reunited with Mjolnir.

-And while mutants existed, The X-Men had kinda yet to be formed. Professor Charles Xavier had just opened his school, and as of right now, only had Cyclops and The Beast as students.

This is actually really cool and well-thought out.

The status of this Marvel Universe feels like a modernized version of The Silver Age, when most of their iconic characters were introduced.

Plus, it would've been cool to see this Spidey interacting with his fellow Marvel heroes.

I could already see these planned episodes essentially being adaptations of these issues right here.

However, there would obviously be one major difference between these two versions.....

Peter here isn't gonna be a bitch.

Yeah, these issues are famous two reasons.

These were Spidey's first meetings with the Big 3 hero teams of Marvel

These meetings didn't go all that well.....

And it wasn't the fault of those heroes. In fact, they were actually quite civil and well-mannered towards Peter.

The problem was actually Peter.

As I'm sure many of you know by now, Peter during his early years was an asshole.

This dude was the personification of "no chill".

Being needlessly spiteful and rude to just about everyone except for Aunt May, and a total smart-ass.

So yeah, unpopular opinion: I'm not a big fan of this Peter.

Which I know seems strange to say since this was how he was like back 60 years ago and he's long grown out of this characterization.

But the reason I'm saying this is because of his fans.

So recently, the Spider-Man fandom have decided to start gassing this version of Peter up.

The reason being with how Peter used to have anger issues, and people wanting to see that come back.

Which like.....okay?

Like, Peter should be allowed to be angry.

But I've never really seen anger issues as being one of his defining traits when compared to characters like Wolverine and especially The Hulk.

Not only that, but fans are saying the Lee/Ditko-era Peter is the template for the best and most ideal version of the character.

And I must say to that mindset....

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I think it's safe to say the reason for this recent opinion is how Peter has been portrayed in recent years.

It's no surprise to know that a lot of recent Spider-Man media has portrayed the character as....kind of a punk and a pushover.

Especially in the comics.

To the point where he literally gets his ass kicked by The Vulture!

Ya know? The very first villain he ever fought.....back when he was like 15.

Who is also canonically a geriatric in a bird suit....

Yeah, the last 17 years have not been kind to Peter in the comics.

I understand wanting Peter to show more backbone like he used to.

But you guys know this can be done in a way where he doesn't have to be an insufferable asshole, right?

But back on topic, it would be great to see a version of Peter that isn't an unhinged prick meeting these other iconic heroes for the first time.

Plus, they actually would've been important to Peter's character.

His team-up with Captain America in particular.

It would've been revealed that Uncle Ben not only had a collection of Captain America memorabilia in the attic, but that Cap was also a major inspiration for Peter's choice to become a hero.

But the best part about all this was that these team-up episodes would've served as back-door pilots of sorts, as Weisman and Cook toyed with the idea of having a bunch of spin-off series set in the Spectacular universe that focused on the other heroes.

So we could've had a Fantastic Four series, an X-Men series, and an Avengers series!

All set in the same universe as the greatest Spider-Man show ever made!

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But unfortunately, this planned shared universe never came to fruition due to....obvious reasons

However, this wouldn't be quite the end of Spectacular.

Or it taking place in a shared universe.

Ladies and gentlemen!

Let me reintroduce you to....THE YOSTVERSE!

For those who don't know, The Yostverse was a short-lived shared animated universe (and Marvel's second after the 90s MAU) consisting of the shows The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Wolverine and the X-Men, and films Hulk vs. Wolverine, Hulk vs. Thor, and Thor: Tales of Asgard.

And while connections here are noticably thinner when compared to the other shared universes by Marvel, they were still there to show that the media in this world were connected to each other.

In my second part of my Wolverine and the X-Men rewrite, I mentioned that the episode "Wolverine vs. The Hulk" referenced the events of Hulk vs. Wolverine.

Plus Bruce Banner, Hulk and Nick Fury have similar designs and the same voice actors throughout their appearances in this universe.

There's also the beef between Thor and The Enchantress, which we saw the origins of in Tales of Asgard, which took place back when they were teenagers.

Anyway, season 2 of EMH really upped the ante by expanding the world-building and introducing other notable heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe.

This included the likes of The Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, The Heroes for Hire, Wolverine, The Skrulls, a pre-MCU Guardians of the Galaxy, and of course, Spider-Man.

And when making Spidey's debut episode, "Along Came a Spider...", Christopher Yost (the head director of the series and the entire Yostverse) was planning to make this Spidey the same one from Spectacular.

So much so that quite famously, he got Josh Keaton (the voice of Spectacular Spidey himself) to reprise his role as the character!

Essentially, he was trying to continue Spectacular without having to actually continue it.

Unfortunately, this plan all came tumbling down due to one reason.....

During the production of EMH's second season, a new Marvel cartoon was in development.

Specifically, a new Spider-Man cartoon.

If you haven't guessed it already, that cartoon was none other than Ultimate Spider-Man!

Hell. Both Season 2 of EMH and Ultimate Spider-Man premiered on the exact same day, April Fool's Day 2012, for an all-new programming block: Marvel Universe.

And since Spidey was planned to appear quite a bit in Season 2 of EMH, the powers that be at Marvel believed that EMH Spidey had to resemble Ultimate Spidey because they believed that the kids would've been confused by seeing two different Spider-Men at the same time.....

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I wish I was joking....

This is dead-ass like the infamous Bat Embargo, except it's the other way around.

This decision resulted in Peter to be designed to look pretty similar to his Ultimate counterpart (which was most likely not the original plan), and most importantly of all, being voiced by Drake Bell (the voice of Ultimate Peter) rather than Josh Keaton.

This change was most likely done after the episode itself was completed.

Given that we only see Peter costume-less for like, 4 minutes, it probably would've taken them at least a few days to remake those scenes with the new design.

And in the case of Peter's voice acting, I DEFINITELY know that it was done after the episode was completed.

If you listen closely, you can actually hear a line from Josh's recordings.

It's when Peter asked Hawkeye if the S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles were safe.

But apart from the appearance and voice, it's pretty apparent to anyone with more than two brain cells that these two aren't the same.

EMH Peter works at The Daily Bugle as a photographer (as well as on the company's website), while Ultimate Peter doesn't even have a job.

Ultimate Peter works with S.H.I.E.L.D. and with a team of fellow teen heroes, while EMH Peter is still a solo act.

Hell, even some of smaller details prove that these two aren't the same.

EMH Peter has the Spider Signal, while Ultimate Peter doesn't.

Even their ages play a big part in this!

EMH Peter is 17-years old, while Ultimate Peter is supposed to be 15.

With all that being said, EMH Peter (with the exception of his appearance and voice) has much more in common with Spectacular Peter.

Just like EMH, Spectacular Peter.....

-Works at The Daily Bugle as a photographer

-Is primarily a solo act

-Has The Spider-Signal

-And although he's about a year younger then EMH Peter at 16, given that he was suppose to be this version of Peter, it would make sense that he would be a little older since we last saw him

However, one thing that Spectacular and Ultimate do share is that when compared to each of them, EMH Peter isn't exactly one-to-one with either of their characterizations.

This Peter is notably more awkward, slightly reserved and not as quippy as most of his other counterparts.

As for the other Spider-Man characters featured in EMH.

J. Jonah Jameson wasn't voiced by Daran Norris like in Spectacular.

Instead he was voiced by long-time recurring actor, the legendary J.K. Simmons!

Which was obviously done for the same reason as Peter's redesign and recasting.

But Daran Norris is still in the episode, specifically as a cop talking to Iron Man and Captain America about a Cap statue that was knocked down by an angry mob.

Apparently, somewhere in The Disney Vault, there is a version of "Along Came a Spider" that has all of Josh's recordings and dialogue for Spidey.

And I remember hearing somewhere that this version also has Daran Norris reprising his role as Jonah.

For Betty Brant, they didn't even bother to look for a different voice actress, as she's still voiced by Grey Griffin.

But the strangest out of all of them would be Robbie Robertson, who was voiced by Troy Baker, whereas in Spectacular, he was voiced by Phil LaMarr.

This is even strange when you remember that Phil was a recurring VA on EMH, voicing several background and minor characters.

He even voiced a few major characters like Jarvis and Wonder Man.

I'm guessing he wasn't available when the voice acting for this episode was done.

Anyway.... that's kind of all I have for now.

This is just something I've had on my mind for the last few months, after finding out about the former.

And I wanted to share it with you guys.

But before I go, I must ask.....

Between these two universes, which one do you think Spectacular would've been better off in?

As a part of The Yostverse along with other iconic animated Marvel projects from around the time?

Or as the beginning of a new shared universe within it's own world?

Let me know what you guys think.

#spider man #spectacular spider man #the spectacular spider man #the avengers earth's mightiest heroes #avengers earth's mightiest heroes #avengers emh #tssm #peter parker #j jonah jameson #betty brant #robbie robertson #shared universe #marvel animated universe #yostverse

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