Every Spider

Apr 28, 2023

We’re swinging through the web of animated adventures as we rank every spectacular journey the amazing Spider-Man has had in all of his animated series iterations. From the friendly neighborhood hero's earliest cartoon appearances in ’67 to the cutting-edge CGI animations of today.

With a flick of his wrist and a catchy theme song, Spider-Man first swung onto the small screen in the late 1960s, capturing viewers’ hearts in the original animated series. From there, he continued to spin his web across different eras, adapting to new styles and even characters pushing the envelope on what "Spider-Man" should be with Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.

In each iteration, we’ve seen the webhead face off against a rogues’ gallery of villains, navigate the complexities of high school and adulthood, and master the art of balancing his personal life with his superhero responsibilities. The web-slinger has brought unforgettable moments, heartfelt stories, and lessons about power, responsibility, and being a hero with each animated series.

So in celebration of the recently released film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the (eventual) release of Disney+'s Spider-Man: Freshman Year, we’re ranking every Spider-Man animated series ever.

Nothing against this show; it's actually fairly good for its target demographics. But because the show skews so young, it's never able to truly reflect the Spider-Man character we all know in love. But the show is authentic and also features Spider-Gwen and Miles Morales as his amazing friends this time around.

This is a pretty uneventful Spider-Man adaptation. It tells the traditional story of Peter Parker trying to maintain his dual identity as the titular webhead. However, it throws in several guest appearances from other heroes like Captain America, setting up for Spider-Man having other "amazing friends" to pal around with in his forthcoming exploits with Iceman and Firestarter. But because the aforementioned series came out during the same time (and from the same production company), this Spider-Man series is less remembered.

In a blatant (even by little kid standards) attempt to cash in on the success of Batman Beyond and the recently canceled animated series saw Spider-Man take a trip to Counter-Earth and acquire cyberpunk aesthetics. As such, it had a much darker tone and a pretty cool concept, but the writing inconsistencies kept it from being great. It didn't utilize Spider-Man 2099 for this show, most likely because Miguel O’Hara wasn't a household name. But maybe now that this iteration of Spidey cameoed in Across the Spider-Verse, a passing of the torch can happen, and O’Hara gets a spinoff.

Set after Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series is a 3D animated cartoon that continues the story of Spider-Man (Neil Patrick Harris), Mary Jane (Lisa Loeb), and Harry Osborn (Ian Ziering). The issue with this was that it contradicted the film franchise it's based on and that the 3D animation looked like graphics from the 2000's Spider-Man game on PlayStation (only much less charming). Although Harris was great as the wallcrawler, between the production issues and MTV interference, the show didn't take off the way it should have and only stuck around for 13 episodes.

Despite its mature character models and good-looking animation, the humor never matched up with the tone of the visuals. In fact, the humor never matched up with the usual wit from Spidey and often came across as dumbed down, most likely because the target audience was children. But, the show should have been targeted at fans of Spider-Man, because one look at an episode and you can tell this is children's television with a (poor) Spidey paint job, complete with a moral lesson to impart to the kids at the end of each episode.

Something this campy and dated to its release would usually be a strike against it. Still, thanks to countless memes, unintentional humor, and an iconic theme song, this poorly budgeted adaptation is fondly looked back on. In its first season, Spider-Man swung onto the screen with the creative input of Stan Lee, serving as a consultant and bringing his iconic vision to life. But as the series continued into the second and third seasons, the budget began to wane, and iconic Marvel villains were swapped for generic monsters reused from Rocket Robin Hood. That show, alongside the seasons mentioned above of Spidey, was all produced by Ralph Bakshi.

Marvel's Spider-Man (later Spider-Man: Maximum Venom) followed Peter Parker's (Robbie Daymond) origin story into becoming the webhead but then plays it fast and loose from there. He goes to the genius Horizon High (a college in the comics) with Gwen Stacy (who never lived long enough to follow Pete to Horizon in the comics) and Miles Morales (who shouldn't be the same age as Pete & Gwen), who both help him fight crime. It has great performances, and it still attempts to tell some modern stories, but by attempting to cram in so much of Pete's history within one story, it all became a jumble of convoluted storytelling.

This is a classic Spider-Man cartoon that dates back to the ‘80, hence the name and Superfriends format of pairing Spider-Man (Dan Gilvezan) with other heroes like Iceman (Frank Welker) and newcomer Firestar (Kathy Garver) from the X-Men (for some reason.) It also featured other freak-of-the-week monsters that made for a lot of fun. Even some other Marvel villains not normally associated with Spidey made appearances, which kept things fresh. Stan Lee hosts this one, and has much more of a children's show vibe, which is why kids so fondly remember it of this era.

It served a generation in the same way TAS did for the ‘90s kid. It also covered a lot of classic comic book storylines but with its own modern twist. It also had stellar animation and voice acting, particularly from Spidey's Josh Keaton. Stan Lee even made an appearance! Although the series only got two seasons due to licensing issues, it is fondly remembered and appreciated, as this iteration of the Web-Head also appeared on 2023's Across The Spider-Verse.

The cartoon was so important that it helped establish several now-canonical traits and characters in the comics. For instance, the entire trait of the symbiote making Peter bad is directly from this show that every piece of media, including the comics, has co-opted as always being from the original source material. It is also much of the inspiration behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man film franchise. Not to mention, it has a killer theme song from Aerosmith. Even though it targeted children, it adapted stories from the comics so well that both youngins and older 90s nerds could enjoy it, like Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series.