The following is a SPOILER-FREE review for all 10 episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which drops episodes on Disney+ every Wednesday at 12 AM PST/3 AM EST.
Aside from What If…? Season 3 (2024), Marvel Animation has been on a roll after fans praised X-Men ’97’s (2024) jaw-droppingly detailed animation and intricate storytelling. The newly branded Marvel sub-dividion’s latest effort, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2025), is not nearly as polished as X-Men ’97, but it’s full of charm, heart, and surprises that will shock even the biggest Spider-Man fans.
Marvel Studios initially established itself as a shared universe. Every entry played a specific role in the projects that followed. However, as the MCU entered the Multiverse Saga, it lost its grasp on the narrative interconnectivity that made the studio so beloved in the first place. It wouldn’t have been that egregious had Marvel properly utilized the multiverse concept by showing fans significantly altered versions of the MCU stories they know and love. Unfortunately, most stories in Phases Four and Five play things extremely safe, barely capitalizing on the multiverse, except for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which succeeds because it is entirely separate from Universe 616/ The Sacred Timeline.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man comes from writer Jeff Trammell, who smartly sets the series in a separate universe from the MCU, as confirmed by producer Brad Winderbaum. Winderbaum explained in an interview with Phase Zero that crafting the series within MCU-Canon would have stuck the writers into a huge corner. Instead, they finally utilize the multiverse (a first for Marvel), which allows the writers to explore Spider-Man in a way that doesn’t limit their creativity.
The early story beats in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man have similarities to events in the MCU, but the writers altered them just enough to provide fascinating outcomes that differ from Marvel’s canon. It was an inspired choice to replace Tony Stark with Norman Osborn, who two-time Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo brilliantly voices. It adds multiple layers of intrigue to Season One that continue to pay off throughout the finale.
Furthermore, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man authentically introduces the popular hero’s rogues gallery and other supporting characters that fans haven’t seen for years. Even though we got a glimpse of this in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) with Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Docter Octopus, and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman, they didn’t have a history with Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker.
It may be animated, but Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man finally establishes a version of Peter that can embrace who he is and still interact with elements established in the MCU. To emphasize, the MCU briefly introduced MacDonald “Mac” Gargan, AKA The Scorpion, back in Spider-Man: Homecoming, which came out in 2017. It’s been almost eight years, and audiences haven’t seen the character since. Luckily, The Scorpion, voiced here by Jonathan Medina, plays an integral part in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. He comes across as far more threatening than Spider-Man’s rogues gallery usually is.
Like most Marvel Disney+ series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man isn’t perfect. Many have criticized the animation for looking stagnant and limiting how characters can emote. It may not be my preferred animation style, and it does take some time to get used to. But, it shouldn’t detract from one’s enjoyment of the series. Sometimes, it feels like watching a comic book in motion, and the use of thick black outlines helps differentiate it from the many previous animated Spider-Man shows. Still, it’s easy to wonder if the storytelling would have been even more impactful if the visuals were up to the quality of X-Men ’97.
In addition to the animation, one storyline in particular could have also benefited from some more development–Lonnie Lincoln’s. Lonnie is a quarterback and a brilliant older student at Peter’s High School who is also dating Peter’s childhood crush and babysitter. After some initial awkwardness, the two hit it off and become fast friends until Lonnie gets wrapped up in the 110th Street Gang, kickstarting his transformation into the Spider-Man villain Tombstone. While it’s an exciting idea that may work well in later seasons, it comes across as rushed and somewhat unbelievable in the show’s first season.
Marvel Animation was smart to release this series in episode batches because the episodes don’t have enough individual momentum to support a weekly release schedule, but watching two or three episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man at a time over the next four weeks will be a lovely Saturday morning treat for any Spider-Man fan. Regarding Season 2 – which Marvel has already greenlit along with Season 3 – I’m hopeful Trammell can elevate the show’s storytelling to a slightly more mature and poignant level as Peter gets older. This season ends his story in the perfect place to do precisely that.
These slight complaints aside, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man accomplishes a ton in ten short episodes, with some sequences standing out as all-time Spider-Man moments; Marvel Studios might want to take some notes from their new animation studio for the character’s next live-action outing.
Review Courtesy of Ethan Dayton
Feature Image Credit to Marvel & Walt Disney Studios via Forbes