The first two episodes of Marvel’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man animated series are now streaming on Disney+. If you’ve watched anything from the past few years, it should come as no surprise that the show is woke. It’s packed with LGBTQ+ representation, race-swapped characters, SJWs, and gender-bent reimaginings. Subtle messaging throughout the episodes promotes “the agenda.”
It’s obvious the creator injected himself into the series. It completely changes the story of Spider-Man, per the showrunner, to “modernize” things (we all know what that means). Essentially, it’s complete nonsense.
Originally, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was meant to serve as the MCU’s origin story for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. But I’m guessing that since they wanted to change everything about Spider-Man, it no longer fit, so we’re getting yet another “multiverse” version—once again aimed at “modern audiences.”
The show comes from the same Disney/Marvel era responsible for destroying the MCU, which explains all the woke injections. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has reportedly been in development for three years. It’s from the same creator behind the woke LGBTQ+ kids’ animated series Craig Before the Creek. It also shares producers with Marvel’s What If…?, which was terrible, and X-Men ’97, which I didn’t care for much either due to the creator’s self-insertions and woke content.
Honestly, they should have just used Miles Morales again instead of messing with Peter Parker.
I also really dislike the animation—it’s just not good. It looks blocky and stiff. I wasn’t a fan of the animation in What If…? either. The best way I can describe it is that it has no heart. It feels bland and lifeless, with no real emotion behind it.
Some observations:
The intro race-swaps out the classic cover of Spider-Man’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, which is unforgivable. It also uses the classic music from the 1967 cartoon show to sell the show to the audience.
There is no MJ in the series, but Aunt May looks A LOT like MJ. Pretty weird.
Hudson Thames sounds A LOT like Tom Holland, which makes sense if they were originally going to go with the MCU’s origin story. The actor also gets it completely wrong with his recent remarks (talk about not having a clue).
Peter/Spidey is tiny. Anyone notice how small/short Peter is compared to everyone else in the show? I guess he is a late bloomer. I was.
Harry Osborn is bullied by a big red-headed white kid. If you are drastically going to change characters that have existed for decades, why not create a NEW character??? They race-swap Harry, and he’s likely gay or trans.
There it is. #YourFriendlyNeighborhoodSpiderMan pic.twitter.com/wcEknx4kiv
— Cosmic Book News (@cosmicbooknews) January 30, 2025
There is a rainbow in the classroom (of course).
Peter’s best friend, Nico, is an LGBTQ+ SJW. She remarks about asking out Pearl, Peter’s babysitter he has a crush on who is like 6’4″ (pictured two above). Pearl could be in the WWE.
Nico also tells Peter if he works for Roxxon Oil, she’ll stage an intervention.
They completely eliminate and replace Flash Thompson. So the football player QB star is a Black guy, Lonnie. However, he doesn’t bully Parker or anything like that. He’s actually a really super cool guy and befriends Peter. He’s also not some dumb jock, he’s actually pretty smart himself. He’s a family guy. He’s someone black kids can look up to.
Lonnie is on the subway where there is an empty seat next to him. The young white kid goes to sit next to him, but his old white-ass grandma won’t let him, and they walk away.
The next scene with Lonnie shows him walking down the street. You can hear sirens. Lonnie is being racially profiled by a white cop just like the white-ass old lady. Lonnie is sad about it.
Prior to that, Lonnie is walking out of the subway where a sign says “Be The Change.”
Throughout the various episodes, Peter is stopping bad guys. However, when it comes to some “down-on-her-luck” girl who robs a pizza joint, he asks the owner to let her go. She is crying because she got caught, but Peter tells her, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. You made a mistake. Just, please don’t let me regret this.” Hey, it’s okay if you’re broke to steal, right?
Cool to see Amadeus Cho in the series. He, too, looks like he’s 6’4.” Again, Peter looks tiny.
Dr. Connors is race-swapped and gender-bent. In the comics, that’s The Lizard.
They rip off borrow from the MCU’s Iron Man movie. So at the end of Iron Man, Tony Stark reveals he’s Iron Man. At the end of the second episode, Norman knows that Peter is Spider-Man (Peter didn’t think a high-security facility would have cameras?).
Norman is race-swapped, too.
The Verdict
There are a few things I like about Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, mainly the overall story. Peter gets bitten by a spider from the multiverse, the Doctor Strange vs. symbiote scene is pretty cool, and Spidey’s fight with Butane is solid. I also like that Peter starts working at OsCorp early on. Plus, Norman knowing Peter is Spider-Man right from the start could lead to some interesting storylines, depending on how they handle it.
However, I dislike the animation and all the aforementioned woke nonsense ruins the show.
The first two episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man get a 2/10 rating.
