"I'm sure [Stan Lee] told this to all the Peter Parkers, but he told me he was his favorite."
Joshua Luis Weiner (born February 8, 1979), known by his stage name Josh Keaton, is an American actor and voice actor. He's probably best known as the voice of Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man animated series and other mediums as well. In the eyes of many fans, he is to Spider-Man what Kevin Conroy was to Batman.
He's also known as Young Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, The Flash in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Jack Darby in Transformers: Prime, Green Lantern Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Shiro in Voltron: Legendary Defender.
Roles:
- Jules Brown in Back to the Future: The Animated Series
- Young Hercules in Hercules and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
- Young Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- Harry Osborn / New Goblin in the video game adaptations of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, as well as Spider-Man: Friend or Foe
- Jason in The Even Stevens Movie
- Cyclops in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
- The Human Torch in Marvel Ultimate Alliance
- Spider-Man in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Man: Edge of Time, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Iron Man in Iron Man VR and Midnight Suns
- Wally West/Flash and Aquaman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
- Jack Darby and Tailgate in Transformers: Prime, plus additional voices
- Ryu Hayabusa in the Ninja Gaiden series (later darrin'd by Troy Baker)
- Spyro the Dragon in Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
- Black Spider and Jason Todd in Young Justice
- Hal Jordan and the Manhunters in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. He also voices Hal in LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, the LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes films, and Justice League Action.
- Jak in Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier and for his appearance in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale.
- Rick Taylor in the remake of Splatterhouse.
- Charlie Carbone in Kangaroo Jack: G'Day U.S.A.!.
- Robin in Batman: Arkham Origins
- Young King Graham in King's Quest (2015)
- Additional voices in LEGO Jurassic World
- Valerian Mengsk in Starcraft II
- Anduin Wrynn in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
- Gamer Kid in LEGO Dimensions
- Shiro in Voltron: Legendary Defender
- Valtor, Duman, and King Oritel in the Nickelodeon version of Winx Club
- Lann in World of Final Fantasy
- Ant-Man in Avengers: Secret Wars (replacing Grant George)
- Norman Osborn, Man-Wolf/John Jameson, and Ollie Osnick/Steel Spider in Marvel's Spider-Man
- Hal Jordan, Steve Trevor, and the Flash in DC Super Hero Girls
- X-LR8 in Ben 10 (2016)
- Johnny Foosball in Doc McStuffins
- Troy Adams in Firebreather
- Kulipari in Kulipari: An Army of Frogs
- Nate, Bones Malone, and many incidental characters in Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!
- Chad Houldout and Tommy in LEGO Scooby-Doo! Blowout Beach Bash
- Miguel and Andres on Elena of Avalor
- Maxwell "Max" Dillon/Electro in Spider-Man (PS4)
- Gabe Bannerman/Gabe-Farious and Kyle/King Jock in Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters
- Sun-King Avad in Horizon Zero Dawn
- Mizuki in Naruto - Clash of Ninja 2 (darrining for Michael Reisz)
- Jeffrey Burr in Batman: Soul of the Dragon
- Heston in It's Pony
- Steve Rogers/HYDRA Stomper in What If...?
- Deckard and Solo in Arcane
- Thomas Taurus/He Is Thomas in Tiger & Bunny
- Synphonator in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (2023)
- Souta Munakata in Suzume
Tropes associated with Josh Keaton:
- Ascended Meme: Recorded three videos reading Spider-Man memes as Spider-Man.
- Casting Gag:
- Was cast as Spider-Man Expy Black Spider in Young Justice.
- After being well-known as one of Spider-Man's definitive voices, he was cast as Spidey's nemesis Norman Osborn in Marvel's Spider-Man.
- Full Circle Portraying: Josh voiced Harry Osborn in the video game adaptations of the first two Spider-Man movies and Friend or Foe. James Arnold Taylor voiced Spider-Man in the Ultimate Spider-Man video game's sequel, Battle for New York and the Spider-Man Trilogy tie-in game Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Their casting in The Spectacular Spider-Man is effective role swapping as Josh voiced Spidey and James Harry.
- The Other Marty:
- Recorded lines as Spidey for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but was dubbed over by Drake Bell. Notable in that he was incredibly understanding about the whole thing, reminding fans that while he appreciated the outpouring of love and sympathy, bashing Drake Bell was not cool. Bell was just playing a part, and the decision to dub over Keaton's work was an administrative/executive one, not Bell's.
- Before that, he actually provided the voice for Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the video game adaptation for the first Spider-Man movie. Tobey Maguire came aboard to voice the character regardless. Thus the Green Goblin mode was added as a way of keeping Keaton's dialogue in the game.
- Also voiced Gary in Team America: World Police before Trey Parker replaced him.
- Originally both spoke and sang for Young Hercules, but after he failed to hold the Incredibly Long Note at the end of "Go the Distance (reprise)",note Roger Bart re-recorded Herc's songs. While Disney never included Josh's version on any releases of Hercules or its soundtrack, he did record a new rendition of the first verse and chorus
during the year of the movie's 20th anniversary.
- Playing Against Type: As Black Spider and the Manhunters. As well as Destroyman and most ironic, Norman Osborn.
- Plays Great Ethnics: He's part-white, part-Peruvian, but several of his characters hail from other countries. In The Even Stevens Movie, he plays an actor who appears to have an in-universe Fake Pacific Nationality.note
- Promoted Fanboy: Grew up reading Spider-Man comics before being cast in The Spectacular Spider-Man. He's described himself as a big comics fan in general too, having read Batman a lot when younger.
- Pungeon Master: He posts a lot of puns on social media.
- Role Reprise: Alongside Nathan Fillion, he's been one of the most consistent voices for Hal Jordan.
- Self-Deprecation: In the Spider-Memes video, he makes a quick jab at himself for being out of work. The timing of this was not long after Green Lantern: The Animated Series got cancelled.
- Typecasting: As the Kid Hero.
- What Could Have Been: He auditioned to reprise his role as Spider-Man in Ultimate Spider-Man before the casting of Drake Bell.
