Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 1, Episode 1.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man retells the origin story of Peter Parker’s journey from geeky teenager to bona fide Web-Head. However, the animated series makes a drastic change to how Peter gains his superpowers, which may not make a lot of fans happy.
So, let’s take a step back for a second to look at how Peter acquires his powers in most adaptations. Typically, the story goes as follows: Peter goes on a science field trip with his classmates. Out of nowhere, a radioactive spider bites him. Through Marvel’s convoluted and questionable science, this event gives him all the powers of a spider proportionate to a man. From enhanced strength and agility to sticking to walls and an acute sense of danger, Peter turns into a superhero.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gives Peter the same abilities, but under different circumstances. In fact, it provides an alternate storytelling avenue that could lead down some interesting roads in the future. In the first episode, Peter arrives at school only to find Doctor Strange chasing after a creature identified as Symbiotic Alien in the credits – it looks like Venom, but it is never confirmed to be everyone’s favorite symbiote here.
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As Strange struggles to contain the symbiote, a spider dangles out of the interdimensional portal that Strange opened up with his sling ring. Yet, everyone’s focus remains on the Symbiotic Alien who wreaks havoc through the school. It all comes to a head when the creature grabs Nico Minoru by the neck. Peter distracts the symbiote long enough for Strange to neutralize it. However, when Strange disappears with the symbiote and closes the portal, he inadvertently cuts the spiderweb. The spider falls on Peter and bites him – and that’s how he gains his superpowers.
This adds quite the twist to the character’s origin, because it remains unclear where this spider came from. Was it another dimension? Could it be from the symbiote home planet of Klyntar? The answers aren’t provided in the first episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but they could be explored later in the series.
Since this spider doesn’t appear to be from Earth, it offers the possibility to include a cosmic element into Spider-Man’s origin. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that Spidey experienced this type of intergalactic powers, but it lays the groundwork for this version of the Web-Head to be the most powerful yet right out of the gate.
It remains to be seen how fans respond to this tweak to Spidey’s origin, though it isn’t the only change that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man makes. In fact, it looks like the Disney+ series is taking a page straight out of Insomniac Games’ book and rewriting the Spider-Man lore the way it deems fit for this story. So far, it’s been nothing short of compelling and unexpected.
Published: Jan 29, 2025 06:00 pm