Spider-Man: Freshman Year

Between this and Ultimate Spider-Man, I think Wizard's appeared in more Spidey stuff than Fantastic Four stuff at this point.

I'm liking the art style in general and the fact that it's NOT strictly in the MCU. It gives the show more freedom to do what it wants and go nuts. Norman as Peter's mentor is an interesting twist. I wonder if they'll portray his true nature immediately to cause tension throughout the series or if it'll be saved for a big reveal.

Less fan of the how they're handling the supporting cast. Aside from Harry and Aunt May, they're all characters that will become superheroes (and villain, in Lonnie's case). It just feels like the 2017 series again where Peter can't have a double life because most of his supporting cast will just gain powers and costumes anyway. Also, some of those villain designs seems too plain.

Found some additional slides from New Rockstars' coverage:

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Jul 22nd 2022 at 9:23:06 AM

Oh wow the Osborns are black here, thats new.

I guess finally the infamous Osborn hair makes sense huh

Terrible idea: what if No Way Home wasn't the first time that Strange tampered with the entire world on Peter's behalf?

Disclaimer: I do not necessarily want this to be the case, I'd rather it just be they're weirdly mistaken about this being able to fit in the MCU, to be corrected eventually.

But what if, something goes horribly wrong at the end of Freshman Year, and Strange has to do some reality-rewriting to fix it that results in Peter having the origin we believed he had pre-Civil War... which will then be covered in Sophomore Year? He should have the Time Stone at this point, so it would theoretically be possible for him to actually do some timeline rewrites.

"But," you may ask, "Won't that kind of blunt everything about No Way Home?" And you would be correct. But so does having Spider-Man already know Norman Osborn and fought a Doc Ock and Scorpion when this is supposed to be the MCU.

Between this, X-Men 97, and that new Superman series that has been announced since forever ago, I’m noticing a trend of new superhero shows that focus on trying to recapture the essence of the Silver Age, at least in artstyle. And you know what? I’m all for it.

Note to Marvel: don't put a black Norman Osborn in this sorta-kinda-but-clearly-not-really MCU tie-in unless you're gonna put up an give me a black Green Goblin irl. Never thought how much I wanted it until now.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 22nd 2022 at 8:14:30 AM

I've been hearing noise about Giancarlo Esposito as Magneto. And while I have and am continuously intrigued by a Rwandan Magneto (which is what I assume that would mean), he'd be perfect in my mind as a black Norman Osborn.

It's looking increasingly like this an alternate universe within the MCU.

Edited by jjjj2 on Jul 22nd 2022 at 12:03:26 PM

Didn't Norman from the Raimiverse said that he didn't exist in the MCU?

Honestly hoping for Keith David tbh. The smooth, charming and Evil Is Cool voice would be great.

Honestly, between this and Venom/Morbius, I think Marvel is just using the multiverse as an excuse to put the MCU logo on everything.

This could have just been advertised as a Spidey cartoon.

@Nightwire: Fun fact: Norman and Harry Osborne have traditionally been drawn with "marcelled" hair, which is a style that was old-fashioned when Steve Ditko first gave it to them. It was popular among men and women in the early 1920's, and even then it was often mocked as looking "corrugated." I would bet most artists aren't even aware of this, as the look has just become iconic to them (in much the same way that Archie's hairstyle has to him, where it was originally meant to be shaved on the sides and neatly combed on top).

Funny, given how the "combed top, shaved sides" look has become a lot more fashionable as of late... but of course the current most popular iteration of the character doesn't really have it, and only kind of looks that way if you squint.

They're doing the Doctor Who thing where they cram a bunch of earthshaking, high-stakes status-quo-destroying adventures into ancillary spinoff media retroactively set between episodes where none of it gets so much as an offhand mention, because those episodes weren't written with any of this stuff in mind in the first place.

Edited by Chortleous on Jul 23rd 2022 at 11:32:12 AM

Found a few more development art pieces from the panel. With that, I think we've collected all that was shown:

That is an interesting visual approach.

Will this series mention Uncle Ben? will he be hot like Aunt May?

I expect he'll be dead. I mean, He always dies, if he ever exists at all.

Nah. Dead probably?

Peter's origin hinges too much on him being gone.

Brad Winderbaum, reoccurring producer at Marvel Studios, has revealed in a ComicBook.com the status of this show's canoncity in the MCU:

In short, if you had a theory that the show was a elongated What If…? (2021) episode of "What If...Peter Parker Met Norman Osborn Instead of Tony Stark?", then it seems you were on to something.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Jul 28th 2022 at 4:04:43 AM

Anything else really wouldnt have made any sense. Though I doubt the MCU connections will go deeper then some surface level stuff for marketing.

But also, more creative freedom for storys can only be a good thing for this show.

It's good that's not MCU. It's just really dumb they keep trying to sell as mcu/ mcu adjacent.

Oh, absolutely. I would be so down for Keith David as Norman. He can do both really cold and intimidating and really wild and hammy super well.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Jul 28th 2022 at 4:29:01 AM

“When you saw Keith David were you blinded by his majesty? Paralyzed? Dumbstruck?”

Wouldn't be the first time Keith David was in a Spider-Man show.