Spider-Verse: Movie Spider-Men (!!!)

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.


...at least, that's what my Spider-Verse boilerplate has been saying, but haha! The writers tricked us! Or maybe tricked Sony, I'm not sure. Either way...

Today's entry is the movie Spider-Men!

Of course, we'll never actually see them, but they were clearly referred to in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015):

Spider-Man Blue is clearly referring to Tobey Maguire, who played Red Pollard in the 2003 horse-racing movie based on a true story, Seabiscuit. But more importantly, he also played Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Sony's Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007).

And Spider-Man Black is talking about Andrew Garfield, who played Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network (2010), but also played Peter Parker/Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Whether he'll continue in this role remains to be seen.

This is big news. The Spider-Verse writers have mentioned that there are eight Spider-Men they aren't able to use, and although it doesn't seem like anyone knows who the eight officially are, the top two always mentioned are Maguire and Garfield. (Other possible ones include Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, Spider-Man (CBS), Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Electric Company, and the Amalgam comics characters Spider-Boy, Spider-Boy 2099, and Unfriendly Neighborhood Spider-Clone #1. As you can see, that's more than eight; Spider-Boy has in fact appeared, although perhaps illegally, and Electric Company was listed in the examples of every Spider-Man ever appearing, so that one's probably ok.) But even though we'll never see them, we know they're out there, somewhere, fighting for the rest of the multiverse along with the rest of their spider-brethren.

Spider-Verse: Marvel Vs Capcom

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Marvel vs. Capcom Spider-Man!

The Marvel/Capcom relationship first began in 1994 when Capcom made The Punisher, a side-scrolling beat 'em up. This was followed by X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994) and Marvel Super Heroes (1995), two fighting games that created the basic format of the Marvel vs. Capcom series using only Marvel characters. Capcom would mix these with their hit Street Fighter series in X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), and then finally brought other characters into the mix in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998), which led to Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (2011), Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2011), and Marvel vs. Capcom Origins (2012). It also led to a slew of other Capcom vs. titles that aren't relevant here. Of these games, Spider-Man appears in all but The Punisher, X-Men: Children of the Atom, and X-Men vs. Street Fighter. Makes sense.

Just like Spider-Verse #1 featured a couple short stories about Spider-Men from other media, Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015) does as well, and this time it's arcade Spider-Man:

"Web Ball", "Spider Sting", and "Maximum Spider" are special moves featured in all of the games he appears in. Morlun, however, has never appeared in the games.

Spider-Verse: 1967 Spider-Man

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog. And it has, as you can see to the right.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Spider-Man (1967).

Spider-Man is the first animated Spider-Man series, most famous for its theme song ("Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can..."). It's also known for the poor production values and limited animation that plagued animated series of the time. It ran for three seasons, and while the first was pretty faithful to the comics, the second two did away with Spider-Man villains and had him fight generic monsters to re-use animation from Ralph Bakshi's Rocket Robin Hood series.

The Spider-Man from this world first appears in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...and the world itself first appears briefly in Amazing Spider-Man #11 (December 2014), which makes note of the simple animation style:

But as you can see in that final panel, the world mainly shows up in Spider-Verse Team-Up #2 (December 2014), where it's visited by the Spider-Man from the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series and Miles Morales from the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book.

In addition to mentioning criminal copycat Charles Cameo (whose first appearance was in the episode "Double Identity", 1967), we also see the show's versions of Electro and Vulture:

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man The Manga

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spider-Man: The Manga.

In the 1970s, Marvel tried to bring Spider-Man comics to Japan, but they were not very successful. Instead, Japan tried again with Spider-Man: The Manga, originally written by Kosei Ono and drawn by Ryoichi Ikegami. The manga told the story of Yu Komori, a high school student who gains spider powers and starts to fight crime as Spider-Man. Overall the series was pretty faithful to the original comic, except that the radioactive spider came from Yu's own experiments and he didn't decide to start fighting crime because his uncle died (though he does have an aunt Mei). Originally the series adapted Spider-Man villains, but when Kosei Ono was replaced with Kazumasa Hirai, the book started to go in its own more violent, more sexual direction.

In Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), a Spider-Man counters the idea that all Spider-Men are Peter Parker with the fact that he met a Japanese kid named Komori:

In case you're wondering about the other Japanese Spider-Men that Spider-Man Black mentions, you can find out more here and here. There's also another one, which you can learn more about by googling "Marvel Mangaverse".

Spider-Verse: Mini-Marvels Spider-Man (And A Bonus)

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Mini-Marvels Spider-Man.

From 1999 to 2001, Marvel published a comic strip called Bullpen Bits in "Bullpen Bulletins", a page set aside in comics each month to deliver news and answer fans' questions. The comic strip was drawn and written by Chris Giarrusso, and it presented the majority of Marvel heroes as children who always wear their costumes (even in their everyday lives) and sometimes fight crime but mostly just hang out.

Since Bullpen Bits ended, they've been collected in numerous trade paperbacks and one-shots, usually along with new material by Chris Giarrusso or others, under the name Mini-Marvels.

In Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), this Spider-Man can be seen as a member of the "Spider-Man Recruitment Drive" that started last month with Ultimate Spider-Man and 1967 Spider-Man:

Note the diminutive stature, cartoony hands and feet, and - arguably the most notable feature - the black part of the costume instead of blue.



Also worth mentioning is that in the bottom panel of the page this Spidey appears on, Ultimate Spider-Man calls this team the "Web Warriors", which Other Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales) objects to.

This, of course, is a reference to the current season of Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors, which features a four-part Spider-Verse crossover event.

Spider-Verse: Turkish Spider-Man

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Turkish Spider-Man.

What's that, you say? You didn't know there was a Turkish Spider-Man? That's because there's not. Officially. See, back in the lawless 1970s, there was little movie produced in Turkey called 3 Dev Adam, which translates to "3 Giant Men".

As you might be able to tell from the poster, this movie is about Spider-Man, Captain America, and a luchadore named Santo (who is 100% a real person). What you definitely cannot tell, however, is that Spider-Man is a villain, or that he looks like this:

See, this Spider-Man is a crime lord with a gang (Spider's Gang) who, appropriately enough, has been counterfeiting US dollars. Captain America finds out and is none too pleased, so he teams up with his girlfriend Julia and his favorite wrestler (I'm guessing??) Santo to take down Spider-Man and break up the counterfeiting ring. Unauthorized materials are weird.

Anyway, this Spider-Man showed up in a crowd shot in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015).

Spider-Verse: Ultimate Spider-Man

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog. And it has, as you can see to the right.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Ultimate Spider-Man.

Ultimate Spider-Man is a 2012 animated series that is a weird mix of the regular, Ultimate, and Cinematic versions of Marvel, with its own twist on top of that. In the show, Spider-Man is a teenage superhero that has garnered the attention of SHIELD, who brings him in and puts him on a team with White Tiger, Nova, Power Man, and Iron Fist to help keep an eye on him and train him to be a proper superhero. They also give him some new gadgets like the Spider-Cycle. The show can be too aimed directly at kids sometimes to be fully enjoyable, but overall it's pretty decent and can have some good stories. (I've also only seen the first season, so it may have gotten better in that time.)

This Spider-Man appears in Spider-Verse Team-Up #2 (December 2014), where he teams up with the actual Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales. And it's funny, because while he shares "Ultimate" status with Miles Morales, he also shares animated status with the other Spider-Man in the story: 1967 Spider-Man! I highly doubt this is a coincidence.

Spider-Verse: Vintage Spidey Costume

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Canon immigrants are plentiful, with new ones coming all the time. That's the whole premise of this blog, after all. But for every one that gets media attention, three or four slip under the radar. Which is how it came to pass that I'm posting a new Spider-Verse spotlight YEARS after that event.

For those who don't know, Spider-Verse was an event that had "every" version of Spider-Man teaming up for reasons that aren't really important. I put "every" in quotes because there were a couple versions that were left out for legal reasons, and a couple more that just didn't appear. But overall it was surprisingly thorough, as this entry can attest.

I'm not sure we realize how lucky we have it as comic book fans these days. Just look at toylines like Hot Toys are Figuarts, which give us hyper-poseable action figures that look exactly like the character they're supposed to be, even if that character is from a live action movie. If you buy a Hot Toys Avengers: Infinity War Captain America figure, I hope you like Chris Evans's face because you're getting Chris Evans's face. It's like they shrunk him down and encased him in plastic.

But it wasn't always that way. Accuracy was more a suggestion than anything, and you need look no further than this Spider-Man Halloween costume to see the results.

This costume is from 1963 and made by a company called Ben Cooper. And this is surprisingly one of the more accurate ones of the era. As you can see from the below catalog, they were still selling this costume as late as 1986, and the general style of costumes - at least from this company - had not really improved in those 20 years.

Surely no one would be upset if this costume stayed in the past where it belonged, but when Spider-Verse said "every Spider-Man ever", they (mostly) meant it! So when we get a shot of the Spider-Army in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), there he is, in the bottom left corner:

The coloring isn't completely on-model, but it's closer to the Halloween costume than the Halloween costume is to the original character.

Spider-Verse: Spider-Carnage

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spider-Carnage.

This version of Carnage first appeared in the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Carnage" (2.08, March 2013). In the episode, Carnage begins as an "improved" version of the Venom symbiote, which Harry Osborn forcefully bonds to Peter Parker. Perhaps a coincidence or perhaps because Peter is Spider-Man, the symbiote takes on the spider-esque appearance you see above.

This Carnage appears in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014), as seen below.

To read about the normal version of Ultimate Spider-Man appearing in Spider-Verse, visit this page.

Spider-Verse: Turn Off the Dark

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a 2011 Broadway musical by Julie Taymor, the woman behind The Lion King Broadway musical, Across the Universe, and several other things. If you're familiar with her work, you can definitely tell she did it. The sets, especially, are her all over, which means they're quite inventive. They use weird angles, perspectives, and optical illusions to make the stage feel like a comic book panel or to see the world how Spidey sees it; there are several moving parts, such as conveyor belts and panels that rise and lower, and projectors are used to distort scenes or otherwise enhance them

That being said, the production was pretty much a mess from Day 1. The villains costumes are atrocious, and the story wasn't much better, because it tried to tie the whole thing to Arachne and make her the villain, and because of its Greek ties, it included something called the Geek Chorus. The story was eventually rewritten to diminish the unwanted elements as much as possible...but not get rid of them entirely, which probably turned out even weirder. Another problem was that the musical featured extensive use of wire work and aerial stunts, which makes sense, but frequently injured cast members.

Even so, this version of Spider-Man was mentioned in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), along with a second Spider-Man:

Spider-Verse: Spidey Super Stories

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spidey Super Stories.

The Electric Company was an educational sketch comedy show that ran on PBS from 1971 to 1977 and was meant for children who had graduated from Sesame Street. The original cast featured such talent as Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, and Rita Moreno, and it was very successful. One of the recurring segments, beginning in 1974, was "Spidey Super Stories", which featured Spidey taking on different bad guys, none of whom were from the comics. One interesting feature of the shorts was that, despite being live action, Spider-Man spoke in word balloons to help children learn how to read.

This Spidey was mentioned in Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), along with another Spider-Man. But whereas (speculation time) that Spider-Man may only be mentioned because they don't have the rights to use him, I think this one may only be mentioned because it'd be hard to convey that his word balloons are actual word balloons, whereas everyone else's word balloons are just speech.

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man Unlimited

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

The first such entry is Spider-Man Unlimited.

Spider-Man Unlimited was a 1999 follow-up to Spider-Man: The Animated Series that was only loosely connected at best. In the show, Spider-Man finds himself on Counter-Earth, which has been taken over by the High Evolutionary and his Beastials. Spider-Man decides to take down the High Evolutionary, and to that end joins the rebellion, which includes a heroic Green Goblin and Vulture. It wasn't a very good show and only lasted 13 episodes.

This Spider-Man, as well as High Evolutionary lackey Lord Tyger (and several unnamed Beastials) appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #7 (October 2014) as some of Morlun's latest defeats. Unfortunately, in an event such as this, you need people to die in order to raise the stakes and also clear the playing field. On the other hand, if there were any characters you could kill without raising a fuss, it'd be these.

(Note: This Spider-Man costume previously appeared in my Marvel Appearances Super Post.)

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends is a 1981 animated series about a team called the Spider-Friends, consisting of Spider-Man, Iceman, and cartoon original Firestar. You can read a little more about Firestar, as well as fellow immigrants Ms. Lion and Videoman, here. From what I've seen, the show was standard '80s Saturday morning cartoon fare, but people seem to love it.

The Spider-Friends were recently seen in Amazing Spider-Man #7 (October 2014) as the latest victims of the multiversal rampage. The villain noted the world as a "kinder and gentler universe". There's a bright spot, though: these Spider-Friends are from Earth-1983, while the ones in the show are from Earth-8107. So as far as we know, the real Spider-Friends are still out there somewhere.

Spider-Gwen's New Alias: Ghost Spider

With Halloween just around the corner, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to talk about "Ghost Spider". So what is Ghost Spider, anyway?

To answer that question, we have to go back a few years to a little event called Spider-Verse. You may have heard of it. The premise was that a group of bad guys was traveling to all the different alternate universes to kill all the different Spider-Men and -Women, so a bunch of different Spiders teamed up to help defeat them. It was billed as featuring "Every. Spider-Man. Ever.", and although that isn't true, it came very close. It also introduced several new Spider-Men in the pages of a mini-series called Edge of Spider-Verse, and one of those new characters was Spider-Woman, aka Gwen Stacy. She debuted in issue 2 (September 2014).

This version of Spider-Woman had a great costume, and the issue had a punk rock sensibility, both of which greatly appealed to fans, so it didn't take long for her to get her own series, Spider-Gwen (February 2015), set on Earth-65. (Side note: although the series is called Spider-Gwen and that's what fans call her too, her superhero name has always officially been Spider-Woman.)

Spider-Gwen has quickly become one of Marvel's most popular characters, so she's started appearing in merchandise and adaptations as well. In December 2017, she was announced to be in a movie called Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors. Only in this movie, she goes by Ghost Spider.

In July 2018, Marvel announced she'd be getting a new series called Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, which released last week.

I dig the name. Not only does it play up her unique outfit, but it cleverly has the same initials as Gwen Stacy. And that's not the first time they've done it. It took me a while to notice, but she lives on Earth-65 because 65 looks a lot like GS.

Spider-Verse: Supaidaman

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Supaidāman (スパイダーマン).

Supaidaman is a 1978 live-action tv series produced by Toei. The show is about a motorcycle racer named Takuya Yamashiro, who finds a crashed warship called the Marveller and its dying pilot, Garia, the last survivor of the planet Spider. Garia injects some of his blood into Yamashiro, which gives him spider-like powers, and he also gives him a bracelet that can shoot webs, make his costume appear, and control the ship Marveller, which can transform in the robot Leopardon. With these powers and weapons, Yamashiro fights Professor Monster and the Iron Cross Army.

Yes, it's basically Spider-Man meets Green Lantern meets Power Rangers, and funny you should mention that, because without this show there wouldn't be a Power Rangers. The popularity of this show led to Toei wanting to make a Captain America counterpart called Captain Japan, but this evolved into a show called Battle Fever J, about a team of five country-themed heroes. Toei considered this series to be the third Super Sentai program (just Sentai prior to this season) and was the first to include giant transforming robots, a holdover from Supaidaman. This season made Super Sentai a success and giant robots a staple of the series, which meant both were still around a decade later, allowing Kyuryu Sentai Zyuranger to be adapted into Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Thanks, Spider-Man!

Anyway, Yamashiro first appeared in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...though his first full appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), as you can see here:

He speaks Japanese, he has his transformation bangle, and he's piloting Leopardon. I'm sure the "emissary from Hell" line is from the show too. As far as I know, this page is pretty much the bulk of his appearance. He shows up, fights the bad guy with Leopardon for a bit, and then presumably loses. Still, I've been looking forward to this appearance for months and I was starting to think he was going to be one of the ones that can't show up.

Flashback Friday: Spidey's "Spider-Man Unlimited" Costume

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Spider-Man's Spider-Man Unlimited Costume!

In 1999, Fox Kids released an animated series called Spider-Man Unlimited, that had the strange premise of sending Spider-Man to Counter-Earth - a planet in the same orbit as Earth on the opposite side of the Sun created by the High Evolutionary, obvi - along with Venom and Carnage, and giving him a new, hi-tech suit. Partly this was to cash in on the success of the recent hit Batman Beyond, but it was also because a little movie you may have heard of called Spider-Man was in production, meaning Fox Kids and Saban Entertainment had to somehow make a Spider-Man cartoon without access to any of the classic parts of the Spider-Man franchise, including his costume. Which, as I'm sure you know, looks like this.

But in Spider-Man Unlimited, he looks like this.

Spider-Man Unlimited premiered in October 1999. The following month, Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man #13 (November 1999) was released with the following cover:

In the story itself, you discover that Spider-Man receives visions of characters from the Spider-Man Unlimited world, and then enters the Negative Zone, where his suit changes - for absolutely no reason - into the Unlimited costume. It's back to normal by the end of the next issue. As you can see from the footnote, this was just a way to promote the show and the tie-in series that was debuting the same month this issue came out.

Later, during Spider-Verse, we'd see this costume again. The Spider-Verse creators considered Spider-Man Unlimited and Spider-Man: The Animated Series to be the same reality, although that was not the show's intentions.