Spectacular Spider-man

[crimsonquill]

That episode should air on Saturday May 31st at 10:00 PM EST.. Usually they air the previous episode at 9:30 as a warm up since The Batman and Legion of Superheroes is over with.

- CrimsonQuill

[Glitch Girl]

This coming Saturday I believe. 

[TheMarvell]

what channel? :P

[Mystik]

depends where you live, CW maybe and if its not on sat then it'll be on sunday

[Glitch Girl]

The Sinister 6 have arrived...

I liked the interaction between the 6 villains.  Each one had a different style and while there was some head-butting over different goals, there was also some decent teamwork that didn't involve the ever popular "get spidey at any cost" motive.

spoilers to follow
[spoiler]Brock's descent is feeling a little forced to me.  I know they've set him up to be angry at Peter, but he's taking an almost psychotic turn.  Then again, he's wearing all black so maybe he's already infected with a little symbiote?  Dunno.

The prison escape... that was cool. Nicely set up too.  Nice touch with the cell safeguards when they actually were working. 

The fight at the end was neat.  I like how they staged that part: you could tell that Peter's body was asleep by how he moved, not just the fact he didn't speak.  Compliments to the animators on that bit.  Also, like I mentioned earlier, the fact that there was some decent abeit rough teamwork between the Six and still distinct tactics.  [/spoiler]

So far so good on the Black Costume saga. Next week, should all come to a head.

[zuludelta]

spoilers to follow
[spoiler]Brock's descent is feeling a little forced to me.  I know they've set him up to be angry at Peter, but he's taking an almost psychotic turn.  Then again, he's wearing all black so maybe he's already infected with a little symbiote?  Dunno.[/spoiler]

Thought the personality change was a bit too drastic myself (seems like such a huge change from the previous episode). I've missed a few episodes here and there so I might have not seen some of the build-up leading to the personality change, though.

[Previsionary]

Latest episode premiered this morning and I thought it was pretty ok. A lot of things were touched upon and progressed, so I'm gonna note the things I saw/liked.

- As much as I don't care for Gwen in the comics, I think it's a pretty good deal to have her and MJ in this show and actually being civil with each other. However, I don't think Gwen and Peter socialize enough anymore to really make efficient use of her.

- This episode basically worked as an origin story and a progression story. We got to look into Peter's past, see Uncle Ben, and get a spidey/spidey-venom showdown. I expected a few things to be changed in his origin to fit the WB standards, but everything was there in a more tamed fashion.

- Eddie Brock's downward ascension continues. I was partly hoping they'd change a bit more about his downfall because I'm pretty tired of the, "you ruined my life!" angle.

- I liked how Spidey's black costume kept changing throughout all the episodes in which it was featured.

- I'm pleased they chose to show Peter's fall into darkness as a slow progression instead of an instant thing as I recall the 90s team doing. The "We" dialogue was also good and touched upon the symbiote/host relationship effectively.

- I'm actually interested in what Venom will be like in this universe as I'm not a major fan of him most of the time.

The only negative thing I can say about this show right now is that it comes on opposite of Ben 10. While Ben 10 may come on twice, I find myself flipping between channels and that's so unfair to me. :P

[Ares_God_of_War]

The one thing I noticed this episode that I didn't notice the episode where it actually happened was the really dissapointed look on Brock's face when Peter showed up at the dance with MJ. I do agree that the downward spiral is happening too fast though. I almost wish they set the black costume parts in the begining of the 2nd season to really give Brock a chance to dislike Peter.

[UnkoMan]

Okay, so I decided to burn through the episodes on Youtube. Hey, I don't even have cable.

I'm getting a bit sick of the whole "Don't call me *insert name* anymore... From now on I am *insert name somebody called me*!" Holy smokes did that get played out quick. And I'm not really a big fan of the Vulture's design.

Those are pretty much my only complaints. Well, no. Honestly I wasn't as into it the first few episodes. Some motives seemed forced. Some of the writing was a bit kiddish. But it's come into its own, I think. I'm quite enjoying the series now. And as to people complaining about Electro's new look? Seriously, could anything be worse than his original costume? This is miles better than what he usually goes prancing around in. At least now the facial structure is unique. Quite honestly, I love it.

I also have to say I love this animation. Granted, I've been watching it on low quality, but it seems to flow pretty nicely. Spider-Man is suitable gymnastic during fights, and uses his webbing quite well. Artisticly even. Plus, the actual design style itself is something I'm rather fond of. The faces convey a good deal of emotion, and have a solid look to them, and I enjoy the clunkiness that seems to dominate the characters. Green Goblin's design is fantastic.

The only real flaw I find is the weird tendancy to close off muscles in the naked form. By that I mean, bare arms appear as joined pieces, say like an action figure. Same goes for shoulders. Weird to see.

Anyhow, rant rave etc. The show is better than quite a few, not as good as some, and somewhat forced overall, but I really do like the art quite a lot.

[docdelorean88]

Unko, so right on that electro front. My only suggestion on the design would be to make the "pea"(as in the vegitable) green, into a more normal shade. But  I too find the desgins amazing, I love the Green goblin, but i miss his hat. Actually it would probably look good if they used the helmet look from movie GG.
Doc Oc... PERFECT! a nice ballance between movie and comic. shocker, not bad, his shock gauntlets are a little big but nice design. Rhino, not much different, but i find him less anoyingly stupid(Like Bill Engvall's "Here's Your Sign"), which is nice. O.k, who am i missing? Oh, vulture, uh, he's ok, i think there design was on the right track and then the train of thought swerved and crashed. It would be better to keep the black the way it is, replace the red with green, or do the reverse, make the black green and make the red black. But either way remove that stupid headpiece!!! The man is Bald!!! Sandman is fine, as well as hammer head. I think this is becoming a very unique spider-man which is finally going to be sucessfull.

One major problem i had/have, I wasn't liking that every villain was coming out of normans lab, if anything they could have kept norman responsible by making it the green goblins falult, like for, AH, for sandman... (Enter dreamy flashback effects {~Whoo~})

Norman stands there with two men, he had hired them off the street (he had witnessed one of their failed robberies and decided they needed a serious job), for a breif period of time and realized, they just weren't cut out for the janitorail status. (I know pitiful right! which is why they would have a gridge against osborn) He led them to a small hallway where lots of pipes and tubes tunnled the walls, and as he opened the door said,
" I'm sorry this didn't work out gentlemen."
"Wait your canning us?"
"Yes and if you leave now i won't call secruity."
"On what grounds?"
"Well, for the fact that you have say $1,500 of my money in your left pocket."
"Crud," the man says stuffing it back in. "Well, thanks for giving us a chance Mr. Osborn, but, we gotta go!" and they
darted out the door.
"Thats just fine"osborn said, "Security got the warning five minutes ago."
They run and run and one falls into a large pit. Unfortunatley the other man hadn't realized it and kept running.
Suddenly in a lab inside the complex a green finger was pushing a button and when it did the pit the man was in started to spin. the sands picked up and were hit by some sort of radiation. When they stopped he could hardly pull himself together, litterally he had grains of himself everywhere.

{~Get out of flashback effects~}
And you can figure out the rest. :D

[thalaw2]

I think the cartoon is a little fast paced going into the black suit too, bit I'm guessing that it may be pressure from the people who decide what stays and what goes and not so much the writers.  I would prefer a nice few episodes long story line, but.....second season may be the last season the way TV cartoons go.

[TheMarvell]

I'm now up-to-date on the episodes, and I've gotta say that this has grown into quite a good series. Not perfect, but definitely one worth watching and one that's able to stand up against previous series, and that's saying something.

I don't like the animation style, and never have, but the show and the writing especially are so good that I'm either getting used to or not noticing (or both) the animation problems I have. This is a well developed series that I can see getting even better with another season. The show has honestly "made a believer" out of me, if you will, as originally I had immense doubt that it would be any good and would end up going down a typical kiddie cartoon route. But that's not the case.

But I do have some gripes, although they're fairly small. The animation is the biggest one for me, but I've gotten over that. Second gripe mainly has to do with the pacing. I've noticed a lot of episodes really don't take any breathers. The show moves particularly quickly. I don't know if that's because it's geared more towards a younger audience or what, but the Lizard episode stands out especially for me. Once Dr. Conners turns into the Lizard, it felt like action sequence after action sequence. It was entertaining, but everything just kept happening so fast. It would have been nice if there was a sequence in which Peter actually questions the morality of what he's doing, considering Dr. Conners is not only Peters teacher, but friend too. This happened in the 90's show (which I'll admit to being a fanboy of) and it really showed a level of depth that made Spider-Man truly, well, spectacular to me. It also makes Lizard a much more compelling villain. Here, so far anyways, he's only portrayed as a beast and Spider-Man is fighting him physically for nearly half the episode. The entire series itself feels very fast paced, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it also leaves little room to develop. So much so, that this past episode ("Intervention") actually takes some time to take a much needed breath.

Which leads me to my third and final complaint so far: I really wish they didn't decide to go with the movie's origin story. One of my biggest gripes about the first movie is the "15 genetically enhanced 'super spiders.'" I thought that was a really, really dumb idea, and still do. It's never really explained why they're making genetically enhanced bugs, and in theory, since there's 15 of them, you could technically have 15 different Spider-Men running around if all of them bit at least one person. Plus the whole "oh, one's missing. Must be out for testing" nonchalant excuse seems like such lazy writing to me. Really, the way the comics and 90's cartoon did it was perfect...a small spider crawls down into a wave of radiation while an experimental demo is being shown. I just think that's so much more...believable, than fifteen genetically enhanced super-spiders. Gah...

but I do like that they kept Peter realizing his powers when he's almost hit by a car. That was sorely missed in the movies, where he just looks at his hand and somehow automatically thinks to climb a brick wall...oookay.

Even with those minor gripes, the show has managed to pull me, originally a doubter, into it. It's a very good show and I hope it gets more seasons. I also hope it creates a red flag for whoever has the power to release the 90's Spidey on DVD to finally do so properly.

[TheMarvell]

also, the only episode I didn't really care for was the one featuring Black Cat and Chameleon. I don't get why Spider-Man never went after Black Cat. I mean she's trying to steal the alien, and he stops her, but then after that moment it's like they become friends for some reason and I don't get why. Is it because he's a teenage boy and thinks she's hot?

also, Chameleon here was a really disappointing villain. So much so that I hardly remember what he did in the episode except pretend to be Spider-Man and having springs on his feet.

[UnkoMan]

I actually rather liked the Chameleon. I enjoyed the fact that he was working with a pre-Mysterio and pre-Tinkerer to enhance his acting/disguise talents. It seemed like he just hired his "team" out on various theft jobs, but could easily be expanded to make him an espionage master. This is just a simple thing to set up his dislike of Spider-Man.

But, yeah, the plots are way too fast paced to get into real motives and such. I don't see why you wouldn't like the animation, however. It's fantastic. I guess you want a more realistic style or something? But, as I said before, from what I saw it seems to move great. It moves quickly, and I quite like how the fight scenes play out. It's at least on par with early Justice League.

[TheMarvell]

the animation itself runs just fine, I just don't like the style of it. The look reminds me of something like Samurai Jack, or rather of the semi-anime influence, especially in the eyes, which I really don't like (the huge pupils, and what not). I would have preferred a more "realistic" style, yes, but I understand what the demographic for this show is, and I'm assuming this style is what that age group finds cooler, or something.

[Previsionary]

speaking of kids...and FI, the toys will be out soon. You can probably find pics over the net now. I'd link some, but they're low quality and I'd actually have to find them again.

edit: yay for being a few months off. I blame being tired. :P

[UnkoMan]

I am alright with agreeing to disagree on aesthetic terms of this style. You want to see more realistic art. So, saaayy... He-Man/GI Joe/Other 80's cartoons? Just kidding. You probably want something that doesn't use animation over and over, and actually still flows well throughout. But, honestly, wouldn't that mean you're the one who wants semi-anime?

Really a good looking anime, say a Cowboy Bebop or something, would be much more realistic than this. You can see it more in body shapes (although large bossoms are prevalent), background objects, and movements. Samurai Jack, which has the Powerpuff Girls/Dexter's Lab (not surprising, seeing who created it) look to it is a much more American cartoon affair. As with something like Justice League or, say, Kim Possible even. It is also, in fact, the irises that are huge. The characters don't have pupils. Another long standing American tradition.

Sorry to be picky about that sort of thing, but I had a bit of animation background in my past. I know quite a few people who would be quite riled over this sort of mixup. Besides, debating is fun right?

PS: Here's some toy pictures.
They look fairly awful. Poorly sculpted mostly, not a lot of articulation, and with stupid accessories (with suction cups!). Par for the course with a lot of cartoon toys.

[BWPS]

Those aren't very good and really are completely pointless. We have plenty of good spidey figs, we don't need bad ones. I will say that the sand parts on sandman look pretty cool though really don't fit with the style.

But I love this show from the first 6 years. The action is so awesome, Spider-Man does cool flips and web things. I like that.

[docdelorean88]

I love this show from the first 6 years. The action is so awesome, Spider-Man does cool flips and web things. I like that.


[/quote]
Uh :blink: :mellow:, Pardon me, but, this is its first season on air, i think you mean the 90's one?
http://www.tvcrazy.net/tvclassics/wallpaper/fanstuff/mike/spider-man.jpg

[TheMarvell]

I will humbly step aside when it comes to actual animation lingo and what-not, as I am in no way knowledgeable on the subject, but I think you know what I'm getting at. I don't like the "americanized anime-like look" of a lot of modern cartoons, and this being one of them. And what I mean by that is a mixture of japanese styles with crap like power puff girls. I prefer a more realistic look, like the X-Men cartoon from the 90's. Or I guess even the 80's cartoons like you mentioned, lol. But that's not to say that I don't think the actual animation of this show isn't good, because it is, and remarkably so. It's just the look of the characters that I don't like.

and yeah, the toys don't look that great...

[TheMarvell]

just watched the Venom episode. Thought it was very cool and it reminded me of how good of a villain Venom truly can be. It also reminded me of how poorly he was done in Spider-Man 3, and wished Raimi would have taken the time to craft a great villain out of him. But I really liked this episode. Lots of action and it isn't too fast paced like some of the past episodes. The only thing I'm not sure I liked was Venom's voice, but it wasn't too bad. If this is the last episode of the season, it's a very good episode to end on, especially that last scene with you-know-who.

[BWPS]

I love this show from the first 6 years. The action is so awesome, Spider-Man does cool flips and web things. I like that.

Uh :blink: :mellow:, Pardon me, but, this is its first season on air, i think you mean the 90's one?
http://www.tvcrazy.net/tvclassics/wallpaper/fanstuff/mike/spider-man.jpg
[/quote]

I meant to say episodes. I'm stupid.