Spider-Man came on Friday night on MTV, and for one brief moment, I realized that a North American animated series has reached the level of a Japanese primetime animated series.
There was a scene in which had a female bounty hunter decapitate her employer. Okay, they didn't really show the decapitation (heaven knows we haven't gotten that far in this country), but they implied it. They showed the action, but not the act. However, the act was implied by the animators showing the stuffed-and-mounted animal heads, perhaps implying how many times the head rolled (they showed three heads). The scene was very Hitchcockian in execution (no pun intended). It was nothing short of brilliance, then I asked myself, this show is on MTV?!?
MTV is not known for intelligent programming, but Spider-Man could be the most intelligent cartoon to air on the network since Downtown (created by Jody and George, the guys who are going to bring the anime-inspired Low Brow this December to that checkerboard network). However, just because it's intelligent doesn't mean it's perfect. Sure, they got the character of Peter Parker down to a science (and they didn't do too badly on his web-headed alter-ego either), but the other characters seemed to be rejects from the casting sessions of The Real World. Mary-Jane is pretty much a slightly-naive drama student who has a crush on Spider-Man and maybe Peter Parker. Harry Osborn is a typical rich frat boy who gets what he wants because of who he is. Some people are complaining about those characters, but here's the secret . . .
In the comics, they weren't all that interesting either. Mary-Jane is pretty much an airhead and Harry was a whining brat who couldn't do anything right. Brian Michael Bendis, executive producer of the series, is also the writer of Ultimate Spider-Man, who basically revamped those two character's personalities in the same way they're presented in the series. Of course if those people complaining about Harry's blonde locks would rather prefer the short brown waves he and his father shared, so be it.
Also, those viewers who are only familiar with the animated equivalents of Spider-Man were a little surprised to see the Mainframe-made production to be so dark and full of violence. For those that feel this way, here are a few items you might want to peruse:
The Essential Spider-Man Collections
Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy
Peter Parker, Spider-Man: The Return of the Goblin
The Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home
Spider-Man Visionaries
Ultimate Spider-Man TPBs
A couple of great collections featuring the wall-crawler published from Marvel Comics and availiable at a bookstore near you. They're perfect examples of how violent and dark the character really is. Spidey could get really pissed off when pushed hard enough, and in all honesty, he's not a Superman-like boy scout, and I thank Sony, Marvel, and MTV for pushing the real Spider-Man to the public.
Overall, the first episodes of MTV's new Spider-Man series were pretty damned good. A little flawed at times, but overall, well done.
*end transmission*
Jeff Harris
July 15, 2003
