It’s hard to believe that Spider-Man: The Animated Series has turned 30. This cherished work is certainly a product of its time as an early adopter of CGI with animation, being guilty of cutting corners, reusing footage, and having a fair number of mistakes, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an icon. Most people still remember the theme, the excellent voice actors, and the best Spider-Man: The Animated Series episodes that strung together compelling storylines, entertaining viewers no matter where they jumped on.
Spider-Man began in 1994 and ran for 5 seasons with 65 episodes. It didn’t have a proper ending, but the show adapted several classic storylines from the comics onto the small screen, creating a whole new generation of fans. Our hero is an expert at weaving webs, but he’s even better at crafting some exciting tales. There are so many good episodes in this series – I felt bad cutting out most of Neogenic Nightmare from this list, just for the guest stars, if nothing else – but here are some of my favorite story arcs from the series that still hold up.
7 Great Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episodes & Storylines
The Hobgoblin Parts 1 & 2 (Season 1 Episodes 11 & 12)
The Hobgoblin is much cooler than the other green model, and in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, he is the original man on the glider. Spider-Man points out that this new mercenary is outmaneuvering him and has a larger arsenal than some countries. With heat-seeking missiles, razor-sharp discs, and pumpkin bombs, this foe is extremely deadly and able to challenge our hero’s air supremacy, especially when he adds a second, larger glider that can be controlled remotely.
Spider-Man is caught up in a bad mix, as this fight is actually between Norman Osborn and Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. Spidey and Hobby are pawns, but at least the goblin knows who the real players are and takes over, even if momentarily, forcing the two billionaires to team up against him and use their enemies against each other. Though Hobgoblin is eventually beaten at the end of this two-part spectacular, he manages to kidnap Harry Osborn and put Aunt May in the hospital before then, royally pissing Peter off. This wouldn’t be the last time viewers would see this cunning villain, but his first outing always felt incredibly strong.
Framed and The Man Without Fear (Season 3 Episodes 6 & 7)
Ready for some courtroom action? The season three story known as Sins of the Father takes two episodes out to do a classic hero team-up – and a proposed backdoor pilot – while giving viewers a lot more to chew on. Peter Parker is given a new job at Fisktronics, but it’s all a ruse to set him up as a traitor, perpetrated by Richard Fisk, son of the Kingpin. With help from the Chameleon and a few federal agents on the payroll, Richard plans to frame Parker in an attempt to clean up some messes for his dad, but no one suspected that their patsy would be represented in court by ace attorney Matt Murdock, or that his ‘friend’ Daredevil would be on the case as well.
These episodes do a lot in a short time, with flashbacks for Daredevil to help cement his origins in this universe, as well as more background on Wilson Fisk. Viewers are shown why the Kingpin is so ruthless and how he does the same thing to Richard that his father did to him, continuing a vicious cycle. We also see Kingpin fight Daredevil, formidably, and get the final fake-out with Chameleon. This story also gives Detective Terry Lee some time to shine while offering a rare touching moment when J. Jonah Jameson is revealed as the mysterious donor who bankrolled Peter’s legal fees.
I Really, Really Hate Clones and Farewell, Spider-Man (Season 5 Episodes 12 & 13)
In the final episodes of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Spider-Man is dropped off by the Beyonder in a strange, nearly-destroyed version of New York City. In the next few minutes, he fights both goblins and Spider-Carnage, and they blow up the Daily Bugle. If that doesn’t get everyone revved up for this final battle, maybe the special guests will. Spider-Man teams up with five popular variations of himself – it was so cool seeing the Scarlet Spider – from different dimensions to take on another Peter Parker who had been taken over by the Carnage symbiote (and he wears one of my favorite costumes).
Things don’t go according to plan, and soon the battlefield moves to another universe, one where Spider-Man is loved, he’s dating Gwen Stacey, and Uncle Ben is still alive, which is how they reach the corrupted Peter to win the day. The pain in this scene is easy to connect with after watching our favorite character go through so much. This first episode is believed to have helped spawn the idea for the Spider-Verse and much of the material that followed.
I’m still not sure about the last part, taking the fictional character to meet his creator, Stan Lee, which almost feels like a studio call. The final scene after that is Madame Web agreeing that Spidey finally deserves some happiness, and they’ll find that in the form of Mary Jane, but viewers never got to see this particular plot resolved, which leaves this one on a small bummer. Sometimes it’s not about the destination, however, but the awesome journey we take to get there and most of this feels earned.
Venom Returns and Carnage (Season 3 Episodes 10 & 11)
These episodes aren’t the climax of the Sins of the Father storyline, but many fans consider them to be the high point of that season. Venom returns, but the symbiote is pregnant and offers up the offspring to an even worse host, Cletus Kasady, who goes by Carnage. This new monster has bonded with a deranged killer and is much more deadly, creating body weaponry, using his symbiote to jam Spidey’s web shooters, and going after everyone’s allies and draining their life force.
That last part might sound weird, but that’s because this arc also sees Baron Mordo attempting to free the dreaded cosmic entity Dormammu from the Dark Dimension using technology created by Stark Enterprises. This means both War Machine – voiced by the amazing James Avery – and Iron Man get to mix it up in these fights. As if the stakes didn’t feel high enough already, viewers were also shown the beginnings of Venom’s redemption, the first step on his path to becoming the Lethal Protector, as he falls in love with his psychiatrist, Dr. Ashley Kafka. It’s all fun and games until a bunch of people get sucked through a dimensional portal.
The Alien Costume Part 1-3 (Season 1 Episodes 8-10)
It’s hard to overstate the popularity of Venom in the comic book world when this cartoon was on the air and the showrunners did an incredible job adapting his story, keeping it close to the source material. The Alien Costume is the first big arc for the show and proved that they could handle much more and planned to. This isn’t just Venom’s origins, but Spider-Man’s black suit saga and his meaner period where the hero wonders why he doesn’t just let go and be a little more brutal, minus any emo dancing (I had to). There was so much crammed into three fast-paced episodes, making them easy to rewatch.
Seeing Spidey pummel Rhino, and battle Shocker is exciting when he isn’t playing with his new powers or getting angry at his friends, but there are a couple of touching moments with Jameson and Dr. Curt Connors present to enrich these characters. This was a rough series of events for Peter, and the fallout of rescuing himself from this alien parasite led to the creation of his toughest challenge yet: a new iconic foe. In the end, without his Spider-Sense, Peter provokes Eddie Brock onto a battlefield of his choosing and doesn’t just subdue the symbiote but sends him back into outer space.
The Return of Hydro-Man Part 1 & 2 (Season 5 Episodes 8 & 9)
Peter Parker and ‘Mary Jane Watson’ are married and off to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. Now that she knows his secret, everything seems to be going splendidly until they’re attacked by Morrie Bench, a.k.a. Hydro-Man. MJ’s kidnapped, and everyone is distraught, but with a little science and some help from one of the series’ best secondary characters, Black Cat, the fight is on. The newlywed wife gets to shine here a bit, grabbing the heroes’ attention, but even Hydro-Man is surprised when MJ shows that she has some of his powers now. That episode ends on quite a cliffhanger for anyone who wasn’t aware of her condition, and it only gets more complicated from there.
It sucks being Spider-Man, but finding out the love of your life is a clone has to be pretty high up on the list of traumas. There are some entertaining segments in this second part like Black Cat flirting with Spider-Man right in front of Mary Jane or Bench using his water mastery to spy on Aunt May by sending just his eye through the pipes. Cherish those moments because the ending is an emotionally charged roller coaster, all explained by Miles Warren, another classic Spider-Man foe. The news is grim because not only is she a clone, but her time is up, and Peter has to watch his love disappear again, evaporating in front of him this time, and has to endure another visit from Madame Web as well.
Goblin War and Turning Point (Season 3 Episodes 13 & 14)
This is the actual conclusion to Spider-Man: The Animated Series’ Sins of the Father, and it manages to take elements from one of Spider-Man’s most tragic fights against the Green Goblin. The setup is different, as everyone fights over a MacGuffin called the Time Dilation Accelerator, a device that can create portals through time and space and leads to a slew of shenanigans. The best part is the fight between the goblins and their banter, as the new Green model throws Hobby off his game.
This isn’t a good one for the girls either, as Felicia Hardy has just found out that her fiancé is a costumed criminal, and Mary Jane is stuck in the middle of a dramatic love triangle, and that’s before she’s kidnapped. The Green Goblin doesn’t think Parker has suffered enough, while Norman Osborn tries to take control of his own mind back, but their epic fight on the bridge spells the beginning of the end for Mary Jane, who falls into a portal, creating one of the series’ greatest hanging threads. Peter is obviously upset and takes his anger out on Madame Web, fighting against his destiny. This isn’t just a thrilling two-parter but a story that sets up so much for the rest of the show and what should have been.
