Our month of celebrating Spider-Man continues! This week, we wanted to find out what your favorite Spidey animated show is. There's been a total of 8 over the decades and a good amount of them bring their own fun and/or unique qualities to the table. After 2 full days of voting, more than 400 Comic Viners chimed in and a clear winner has been picked: Spider-Man (1994)!
The '90s animated series webbed up the competition with ease. Seriously, it was like that one time Spider-Man swiftly incapacitated Wolverine in an alleyway (apologies, Logan fans). The popular program earned a whopping 46% of the votes and second place was a safe distance behind it, earning 39%. Odds are quite a few of us grew up with Spider-Man: The Animated Series (it ran from '94 to '98), so nostalgia's definitely playing a decent role here and understandably so. That said, there's a reason so many of us have fond memories of the cartoon! The animated series was able to incorporate dozens of characters from Spider-Man's world -- and even some other big characters like the X-Men -- and overall, was quite a pleasant time... even if I can't recall a single moment of Spider-Man actually throwing a punch at one of his dangerous enemies. It seemed like he always used webbing, kicks or throws, right? Despite the lack of Peter punches, this was a program that had many of us glued to our TV sets on weekend mornings and loving every second of it. And, for some of us, this is possibly the program that got us interested in the webhead's comic books! Let's see what a couple of Viners had to say about the top two picks.
Viner Post for 1994 Spider-Man is by Ninjablade09
"I love Spectacular with all my heart, but i have to give this to the 90's series. Sure censoring on the punching didn't make for great action scenes but who cares. This show adapted some of the best Spidey stories of all time. Heck they took the show as far as making Harry into Green Goblin after Norman, and having Peter and Mary Jane get married. The relationship between Spider-Man and the Norman Goblin was great and showed that while the hate each others guts, both care deeply for Harry. This show added a new layer to Eddie Brock which I liked, because comic Eddie never really had a reason to hate Spider-Man. The show also had some awesome team-ups, my personal favorite being the Daredevil one. Honestly the only thing I would ever want to change is the censoring, and that's only because I would have loved them to do the Death of Gwen Stacy, but the Marry Jane substitute was fine. Christopher Daniel Barnes is always the voice I hear in my head when Spidey yells 'Mary Jane!'"
Viner Post for The Spectacular Spider-Man is by cmaprice
"The Spectacular Spider-Man isn't merely the best, it's the only great one.
Loving treatment of the source material without stagnation, great fluid action sequences, wonderful voice talents, poetic structure, actual character arcs (if you can believe it!), and it very effortlessly introduces a great many of the noteworthy Spidey rogues in two seasons. It also gives a great simplified reason for them to co-exist. Best of all, the series never stooped to dumb itself down for the kids. It had a clear enough tone to be accessible to everyone, but had a complex enough take and patiently crafted arcs (unlike Ultimate) to keep adults interested.
They also managed to make Electro and Sandman very sympathetic villains. They were so often depicted as being fairly two-dimensional in previous cartoon incarnations.
Who doesn't love when the symbiote used a sleeping Peter to trash the Sinister Six? Subtle and menacing. It wasn't in-your-face. He was brutal, and he didn't say a word. They didn't need to have him saying anything in an evil voice; they didn't need to have him breakdancing down the street. Organic, subtle, effective story and character development."
For those interested, here's the poll's results.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994) 46%
- The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008) 39%
- Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981) 5%
- Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) 4%
- Spider-Man (1967) 3%
- Spider-Man Unlimited (1999) 1%
- Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003) 1%
- Spider-Man (1981) 0%
Hey, do you know what would be cool? Yes, owning AMAZING FANTASY #15 would definitely be very cool, but we were thinking of something a little more practical. So, go ahead and share with us your favorite memory of the 1994 Spider-Man show below. Is it a single line? A full scene? Maybe it's just the intro? Let us know! And, if you want to continue celebrating Spider-Man, check out the very first Spider-Man Battle of the Week! Spoiler alert: it's Green Goblin vs. Agent Venom. Keep your eyes on the homepage for more Spidey content throughout the month!