Disney+’s latest Marvel series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, is finally here and has already premiered two of its ten-episode roster. The animated show presents an elseworld story for the web-slinger, showcasing an alternate take on the iconic superhero. Despite sharing several similarities with Tom Holland’s rendition of Spider-Man, the Jeff Trammell-created project manages to differentiate itself from its MCU counterpart, primarily by providing fans with a unique origin story for Peter Parker and his spider bite.
So, let’s delve into the differences between the show’s Peter Parker and the one portrayed by Holland.
How Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s origin differs from MCU
The first episode of the animated show introduces viewers to a powerless Peter Parker, who visits Midtown High, just like Holland’s version, to attend the first day of his high school orientation. However, things take a turn for the worse when Doctor Strange enters the picture through a multiversal portal while battling a Venom-like creature.
While the duo’s fight ends up destroying Parker’s high school, the resultant portal ends up leaving a radioactive spider behind. The teenager is inadvertently bitten by this other-dimensional insect, which subsequently grants him the powers of Spider-Man. As such, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man provides a fleshed-out origin story for Peter Parker’s transformation into the wall-crawling superhero.
On the other hand, Peter Parker’s first appearance in the MCU occurred when he was already operating as Spider-Man. Therefore, the setup does not provide a proper narrative that explains how Tom Holland’s character ended up receiving his powers. In a recent interview with ScreenRant, the show’s creator Jeff Trammell shed light on what motivated him to tweak Peter Parker’s origin story in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
The writer/producer stated, “His origin story is so different than we’ve normally seen. So getting to figure out what’s the origin for this Spider-Man? How do we lead to the spider bite? How do things change from that point on? Being able to pull from so many things, as well as the Homecoming films, [and go] like, ‘Okay, here’s where this road goes. So when we divert, how does things go this way?’ has been really cool for me.”
