‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’ Swings onto Disney+

There’s a new Marvel Super Hero in the neighborhood.

Marvel Animation’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is now streaming on Disney+, following freshman web-slinger Peter Parker as he navigates the perils of high school and heroism. It’s a fresh new take on one of Marvel’s most beloved characters, and head writer/executive producer/showrunner Jeff Trammell says he can’t wait for fans to meet the newest on-screen Spidey.

“He’s still learning, and he’s still growing,” Trammell tells Marvel.com. “[We wanted] to find ways to show that. His web-swinging isn’t as fluid as it could be. He’s still got some hurdles. And as he faces off against different criminals, there’s still going to be learning pains.”

Actor Hudson Thames voices the title role, and notably, it’s not his first time playing Peter Parker. The actor previously voiced an alternate version of Spider-Man in Marvel Animation’s What If…?, and he says he jumped at the chance to explore a new take on Peter.

“Every [Spider-Man] iteration has a new vibe, based off of whatever actor is trying to play the guy,” Thames says. “It was funny being at the end of one iteration and being like, ‘Wait a minute. We’re now starting a new chapter.’ But I was really grateful for it. It was really nice to be able to get under the hood and decide what this Spider-Man felt like.”

When the series begins, Peter is still an inexperienced hero, something Thames and Trammell both wanted to lean into. To fully capture that gangly high school awkwardness, Thames rewatched old footage of himself as a teenager, hanging out with his friends and making goofy skateboard videos. “I was just trying to remember the feeling and motivations of being in high school, where the stakes are so high,” the actor explains. “Everything feels so dramatic, and it means everything to you for some reason.”

The show also unites Peter with an unlikely mentor: Norman Osborn, voiced by two-time Oscar nominee Colman Domingo. Spider-Man fans know that historically, Norman has been one of Peter’s oldest and most notorious foes. But Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man introduces him as a valuable ally, helping Peter build his brand as a young hero.  

“It’s a different take than we’ve really seen between Peter and Norman,” Thames teases. “Their relationship is one of my favorite aspects of the show, and I love how it keeps you guessing. You don’t know if we’re fully trusting [Norman] or not, so I like that it keeps you on the edge of your seat.”

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man also introduces a few familiar faces that comic readers will recognize — including Peter’s classmates Pearl Pangan (voiced by Cathy Ang), Lonnie Lincoln (Eugene Byrd), Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson), and Nico Minoru (Grace Song). Trammell says he especially loved getting to flesh out the friendship between Nico and Peter on screen. “I love the Runaways, and being able to pull Nico into this world, it’s a fun experiment,” he says. “Nico has so much history in the comics already, and she and Peter have interacted in various incarnations but always tangentially. So having them on the same page growing up together, seeing how she supports Peter and he supports her, it’s such a fun dynamic.”

Trammell adds that Marvel fans should also keep their eyes peeled for even more character cameos. The showrunner admits that when he first signed on to the show, he assumed that certain characters would be “off-limits,” but he was pleasantly surprised when Marvel Animation encouraged him to dream big. “Everyone has been super supportive about the stories that we want to tell,” he says. “What do you mean I can use Charlie Cox’s Daredevil in this show! I didn’t expect you to say yes!”

The show also pays tribute to Peter’s comic book roots through its bright, colorful art style, mixing elements of 3D and 2D animation. Trammell particularly praises lead character designer Leo Romero for helping to develop the show’s signature aesthetic, which echoes iconic Spider-Man comics from legends like Steve Ditko and John Romita Sr.

“So much of our show is a love letter to the past — to the comics and everything that’s come before,” Trammell says. “So, naturally, you’re going to go way back to the beginning. What is the thing that made Spider-Man stand out? What made it so special even then? And how can we take that and honor it, but find a way to modernize it? We want to pay respect to everything that came before us.”

The result, Trammell hopes, is a Spider-Man who feels both familiar and fresh: “If you see 50 Peter Parkers all in a row, you can point at ours and go, ‘Oh, that’s Your Friendly Spider-Man,’” he says. “And that’s really cool.”

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is streaming now on Disney+.