Why was Spectacular Spider-Man TV show so good?

**VinceBuscus** · 08-06-2012, 08:49 AM

It sounds so awesome. Seriously, why did Marvel cancel it? I still can not sleep at night, for the fact that there could have been more episodes haunts me.

**KCJ506** · 08-06-2012, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by VinceBuscus

It sounds so awesome. Seriously, why did Marvel cancel it? I still can not sleep at night, for the fact that there could have been more episodes haunts me.

Marvel actually didn't cancel it. Here's Greg Weisman with the details.

http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/....php?qid=14223

Marvel DIDN'T cancel it. It's all very complicated, and we were certainly the recipients of bad corporate luck, but no single company cancelled the series. We just wound up with a situation where no single company could proceed with it. I'll try to break it all down:

1. Sony had originally produced SpecSpidey as part of their overall entertainment license of the Spidey property (which of course included the extremely lucrative live action films).

2. But in order to win some concession on those live action feature films, Sony returned the animation rights to the character back to Marvel.

3. So now only Marvel could produce a Spider-Man cartoon. Sony no longer could, which meant SpecSpidey couldn't continue at Sony.

4. I have no idea whether Marvel was interested in continuing Spectacular Spider-Man or not. But let's assume for the sake of argument that they would have liked to.

5. They couldn't.

6. Why? Because Sony owned all the specific elements (designs, storyline, etc.) to the SpecSpidey VERSION of Spider-Man. So Marvel would have had to license all that BACK from Sony.

7. You can imagine how unlikely THAT scenario was. Marvel finally gets the rights back to do an animated version of their marquee character, and then they have to pay Sony to do it instead of just starting from scratch. That was never going to happen.

8. Of course, all this was complicated by the fact that Disney purchased Marvel, and Disney and Sony are direct competitors.

9. And I'm sure Marvel was excited to put their own stamp on an animated Spider-Man. Who could blame them?

10. So that was it. We were toast through no fault of our own. The folks at Marvel, Sony and even Disney all seemed to like our show, but the corporate mess made it impossible for us to continue.

11. And, yes, it is a bummer. (For me, at least.) But it's no single person or single company's fault. It's just how things shook out.

12. And finally, though I have no involvement with the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man, you can't deny that a lot of great people have worked on it. There's no reason to think it won't be as good or better than SpecSpidey. To a certain generation, SpecSpidey will always be THEIR Spider-Man cartoon. But to a new batch o' viewers, I'm sure their Spidey of choice will be the Ultimate.

**Ballard Blues** · 08-06-2012, 07:35 PM

Lord, it's always the dang logo/name that gets them in the end.

**Spidey_62** · 08-06-2012, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by Mistah K88

It was also mentioned that there were plans for Kraven (they made him more animalistic for a reason) and those plans were connected to John Jameson. Man Wolf anyone? Miles Warren was put in charge of the ESU lab, and blackmailed the Connors family to the point they left New York. Also, he was working for Norman Osborn as far as making supervillans to kill Spider-Man.

With Scorpion showing up I'm sure that there would have been an arc dealing with Jonah going out of his way to finance things to give Spidey a pummeling. Spider-Slayers are kind of a given, with Gargan becoming Scorpion as the most extreme result of Jonah's petty grudge (which he'll end up regretting financing those things because all of them will come back to bite him in the butt)

The Gang War was really just beginning; all of the major players are temporarily out of the picture, so there is no one in the spot of "Big Man of Crime" currently. As Captain Stacy said, "nature abhors a vaccuum." So every small time hood in the city would have been fighting for the position of top crime boss of NYC. Hammerhead is out there, I'm sure Ock wouldn't have been locked up for long, Kingsley is definitely interested in becoming a player in New York's underworld, the Manfredi family still wants it back (though sooner or later Sable would have gone her own mercenary route). The defeat of Tombstone is an example of Spidey fixing something (exposing Lincoln for the thug that he was), but at the same time breaking it even more. Another thing to note is the fact that Tombstone is now disabled as a mob boss. His relationship with his childhood friend Robbie Robertson would have been explored as well.

I really don't think Harry would have taken up the mantle during the series run...maybe in one of the DTV's sure, but I don't see him becoming Green GOsborn number 2 while in high school. He is keeping his hold of Gwen however, so I do wonder how that would have been resolved.

Great...now I have to watch some episodes again...

Argh, I remember reading all of the little things Greg said and pieced it all together like you and it all sounds so damn good it makes me sad.

**Sighphi** · 08-07-2012, 08:37 AM

Originally Posted by KCJ506

Marvel actually didn't cancel it. Here's Greg Weisman with the details.

It was cancelled.
Everyone knew from the start that when Marvel got the cartoon back and they where going to do their own thing.
You can fluff it however you want but the cartoon was put killed.

**Seto Kaiba** · 08-07-2012, 07:37 PM

Spectacular was great because the writers actually CARED for the show. It had SOOOO many little touches and mythology gags. One touch I loved was with the symbiote. When Peter first got it, it just looked like a black version of his costume, like in the movie. As the symbiote took control, the costume slowly morphed into the iconic version we all know and love.

**Spidey_62** · 08-07-2012, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by Seto Kaiba

Spectacular was great because the writers actually CARED for the show. It had SOOOO many little touches and mythology gags. One touch I loved was with the symbiote. When Peter first got it, it just looked like a black version of his costume, like in the movie. As the symbiote took control, the costume slowly morphed into the iconic version we all know and love.

Yeah, I loved that. I remember before the first part of the symbiote arc aired people were complaining that it was the SM3 black suit and not the comic one, then the suit started changing slowly into the comic one and everybody was thought it was a neat touch! And things like the symbiote messing with his thoughts, using his body as a puppet when he slept like the original story, started referring to himself as "we". There's just so much of this kind of cool stuff peppered throughout the series.

**Deep_Sleeper** · 08-08-2012, 06:10 PM

So...my niece and nephew love the Superman animated show. They must have watched the 2 box sets I have at least 4 times from the first episode to the last. I tried to get my niece and nephew to watch a couple of the animated movies with Superman in it, but they didn't really respond to it as well.

So, to give them their daily fix of animated superheroes, I got the complete first season of Spectacular Spider-Man. It really is a great show. It's too bad it didn't get to last.

**chilled monkey** · 08-10-2012, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by PwrdOff

And oh my goodness, Gwen Stacy was such a sweetheart, she completely outshined the rest of the supporting cast and even Peter at times.

You said it perfectly. She's a sweet, smart, cute, loveable nerd girl; my fave character in the whole series. I adored Gwen.

**Mistah K88** · 08-11-2012, 07:24 PM

This show actually brought both Gwen and her father back into the relevant eye. Every other media portrayal has MJ as the ONE...(with the exception of the Amazing Spider-Man movie, which probably got a few ideas from SSM [Gwen an intern of Conners? no way THAT wasn't a homage or something)

How could you not love this?!

If they found someway to continue the show on as a comic...I'd waste good money on it.

**rastafarian42** · 08-12-2012, 12:39 AM

I started asking myself this when I was watching Ultimate Spider-man and reminiscing on the great times with the show. One of the reasons Spectacular Spider-man was so good was the balance between tight plot, great voice acting, character development, and great action scenes. Spider-man actually felt like he was in peril in all of the fights. A lot of familiar concepts were presented in a fresh light that benefited the show like Shocker being a hit-man, Sandman and Rhino being partners in crime before there accidents, the villain's origins having to deal with Oscorp. While in Ultimate Spider-man there's no real character development or general themes going through the season. A big fault in Ultimate Spider-man is the lack of tension during the fights which consist of yelling and dodging stuff and hitting the villain occasionally.