2024 seems to be the ‘year of the revival’, or at least the year of the reported revival at any rate. So far we’ve discussed Pingu’s return to TV, the reported Rayman revival by Ubisoft, and Capcom discussing the possibility of new Mega Man games, making it a brilliant year for nostalgic nerds like me to just kick back and reminisce about the good days. The news that the original 90s Spider-Man animated series could be revived after talks at Marvel Studios, however, could be the one that makes me the most excited – you can take the kid out of the 90s, but you can’t take the 90s out of the kid!
The original animated series ran for 5 seasons during 1994-1998 and racked up a total of 65 episodes. I watched them all as a kid, glued to the TV and wishing I was actually Peter Parker despite my crippling fear of spiders. If Marvel does bring the series back, it would be 26 years since the series aired on our TVs, and fans are already wondering who would come back to voice Spidey with one person in particular hoping for the job.
Obviously, 90s kids everywhere would love it if Christopher Daniel Barnes took up the mantel of everybody’s favourite wall crawler once again for some 90s continuity. Fans have cited Christopher’s vocal talents as being the reason they fell in love with Spider-Man in the first place, with one fan taking to Twitter to write ‘There is no Spider-Man the animated series’ without you,’ and another saying ‘It would be a crime if they didn’t!’
A lot has happened since the animated series, however. We’ve had multiple different Spider-Man actors and game characters. Would the new series stick true to the style of the old Spider-Man, or would we go more down the route of Tom Holland’s adventures or even see Miles Morales taking up the starring role?
As the revival is in its infancy, we don’t have much more than speculation to work on right now. It’s interesting to discover that Marvel wants to head back to this iconic series though; I just hope they don’t butcher it for the hardcore fans and create a series that allows Spidey-lovers today to watch the old episodes and seamlessly skip 26 years to the new show as though no time had passed at all. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one, so keep checking back for more information as and when it releases!
