Ultimate Spider-Man

I am a pretty big fan of Spider-Man. That said, there's a new cartoon show on Disney called Ultimate Spider-Man. I both like and dislike it.

As far as Spider-Man goes, this show is very different. Most incarnations of Spider-Man have a staff of writers working hard to make every day of Peter Parker's life hell. Instead, Ultimate Spider-Man actually has almost no dramatic tension. This might be a weakness of the show. The overall plot is very simple: Spider-Man joins SHIELD to become a better superhero where he becomes a member of a team of rookie superheroes. After that the show falls into a villain-of-the-day routine where we sometimes have conflict. What I miss most is this show has almost no story or character development.

Also, the rookie heroes Spidey works with suck. Nova is a Jerk and an idiot. Iron Fist is a hippy. White Tiger won't stop bitching. Power Man is practically a mute. Power Man is the lamest character of all because he has yet to have any conflict (note: I saw the first 9 episodes). As it stands, I don't care what happens to these characters.

But here's what I like about the show. There's a lot of exaggerated expressions and gestures; even with masks. It reminds me of anime. I also really like how Spidy talks to the audience by bringing them inside his imagination where his innocent and sick fantasies cartoonishly play out. This show has a lot of emphasis on comedy.

Ultimately, this show is just OK. It's the light hearted comedy version of Spider-Man. I think they could make it better by either defining all the characters a lot more or losing some of them. I really liked episode S1E7 "Exclusive" in which Mary Jane is trying to become a *reporter by shooting an interview with Spidey for a contest being held by the Daily Bugle. The entire episode is from the point-of -view of MJ's camera. Action and character development are pretty fulfilling, unlike other eps. I think it's a good example of what the show should try to be.

*Traditionally, MJ Watson is a party-girl/model/actress. There have been no writers who have made that interesting. The downside is, now MJ's character looks a lot like Lois Lane's character. Also, MJ's design reminds me of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.