cartoon, this is how I'd do it . . . [/O.J. Simpson]
Follows the exploits of Peter Parker, or Spider-Man, from high school sophomore to college freshman.
Walter Murphy. I think his jazzy music is a good fit for Spidey.
Each episode that progresses a particular saga would be meshed together with what are usually considered "villian of the week" episodes. In other words, not every episode will advance a saga, because we need to give the b-list/c-list rogues a little love, too
.
Episode 1 would have Peter recalling the origin of his alter ego Spider-Man.
The first major arc would be
The Goblin Saga, which would be in between episodes 2-30. Spidey would have a total of at least five confrontations with Norman Osborn, the original Green Goblin.
In battle number four, which takes place in a burning building, Gobby unmasks the Web-Slinger after exposing him to a blinding gas. Finally aware of who Spider-Man really is, The Goblin's victory is ironically cut short when is smashed in the head by falling debris; rendered amnesiac, Norman doesn't remember The Goblin, nor does he remember unmasking Spidey. Peter knows the truth, though, since he unmasked the unconcsious Norman after saving him from certain doom. A few episodes later, The Goblin resurfaces in Norman's psyche, stating that they have one last mission to accomplish -- kill Spider-Man.
This leads to the fifth confrontation, where The Goblin uses MJ as bait to force Spidey into battle. The Goblin throws her off the Golden Gate Bridge (or whatever it's called), but Spidey is able to save her. With MJ out could, Spidey ambushes The Goblin, who was trying to attack the superhero on his glider. In a brief ariel battle on the spinning glider, Spidey and The Goblin crash into an abandoned warehouse. Inside the warehouse, The Goblin is at the mercy of the vengeful Spidey in a practically one-sided brawl, but before Spidey can land a final blow, he stops and realizes what he is doing to his best friend's father. Thus, Norman's regular phsyche resurfaces and laments what he's done before The Goblin takes over yet again. We get an homage to the comics where The Goblin's attempt to kill Spidey with the razors on his glider backfires. Pinned to the wall by his own weapon, a dying Norman resurfaces yet again and begs Peter not to tell anybody before collapsing on the glider.
Similarly to the first Spider-Man movie, Spidey lays the dead Norman, stripped of his Goblin suit, on a chair in his mansion. Harry sees this and when he asks what Spidey has done, Web-Head silently jumps from out of the window. At Norman's funeral, Peter, MJ, and Gwen try to comfort Harry, but Gwen strikes a chord when she says that she knows what it is like to lose a father. Harry thanks his friends, but tells them "The only way to make things right is to make Spider-Man pay for what he's done to my father." Also like the Spider-Man movies, when Norman is killed, he stays dead.
Another few episodes later, Harry sees the image of a slightly green Norman in the mirror in place of his own reflection (when Norman was alive, his skin would alternate between its natural color and slight green tint following the experiment he did on himself with the super-soldier serum; his skin would be its natural color when he was the dominant persona, but would turn a little green when The Goblin took over). The spirit of "Norman" leads Harry into The Goblin's lair.
Aghast at the discovery that his father was The Green Goblin, Harry is told by "Norman" to press a button on The Goblin's mask. After Harry reluctantly presses it, a small holograph replays The Goblin's burning-building battle with Spidey, where The Goblin briefly unmasked Spidey; thus, Harry learns that his best friend, Peter Parker, is Spider-Man. "Norman" tells Harry "You swore on my grave that Spider-Man would pay, and now that you know who he really is, you know what you must do." The screen fades as a troubled Harry falls to his knees.
The final few episodes of this saga would involve Spidey's confrontations with The Green Goblin II.
Their first encounter, which occurs while Spidey is on patrol, has this new Goblin attacking the Web-Slinger without ever revealing his identity. Despite the rage welling inside him, The Goblin is bested by Spidey in this battle, forcing him to retreat.
One episode later, Peter and MJ are enjoying a day at the carnival when The Goblin suddenly strikes again. Quickly changing into costume, Spidey drives The Goblin away from the innocent bystanders and into a desolate haunted-house. Inside, The Goblin finally reveals that he is Harry, and as Spidey tries to collect his throughts, Harry sucker-punches and unmasks him, screaming, "How could you do this to me, Peter!? We were best friends, and this is how you repay me!?" Rolling off the ground and dodging Harry's attacks, Peter tries to reason with him, but the raging new Goblin regards his words to be mere lies, forcing Peter to defend himself. Although Harry shows improvement in his technique, he is still no match for Peter; as Harry rises from the ground, a mirror-reflection of "Norman" tells him to retreat. Obeying the spirit, Harry retreats on his glider, but not before vowing revenge on Peter. Before the end of this episode, "Norman" tells Harry that he needs to think more methodically if he is to best "that backstabbing Wall-Crawler."
The final confrontation, taking place an episode later, is instigated when Harry storms into Flash's birthday party with a special pumpkin bomb as The Goblin. In a theatrical manner, The Goblin grabs his enemy by the throat and explains that when the pumpkin bomb goes off, the house will be destroyed; emerging from the restroom as Spider-Man, Peter is sprayed by a sleeping gas and grabbed by the throat from Harry. "I might kill myself, but I'll take you with me." As most of the party-goers, Flash included, flee the house, MJ, who happens to know Harry's secret, tries to reason with him; grabbing MJ by the arm, Gwen is insisting that they leave, but reconsiders when she hears MJ refer to this "bad guy" as Harry. It is through MJ's argument with Harry that Gwen learns that not only is Harry the Goblin, but Peter is Spider-Man, too.
She also tries to get through to Harry by saying "Pete's your best friend! He would never do anything to hurt you!"
"How would you know that?" Harry remarked.
"Because a good man never tries to hurt his friends," said Gwen, "and that's what Peter's always been to us!" Stressed by conflicting thoughts, Harry sees "Norman" in the mirror once again, who berates him for having second thoughts.
Dropping Spidey, Harry replies to the angry spirit's exclamations, "My father would never talk to me like that . . . My father was killed, but not by Peter . . . He was killed by you." Screaming, the spirit of the Goblin fades away from the mirror, and for the first time since his father's death, Harry could see his own reflection in the mirror.
With the bomb ever so close to going off, Harry hoists Peter, MJ and Gwen on his arms and escapes from the house through the back door on his glider. Putting his friends on a rooftop just after the house blew up, Harry apologizes to them before collapsing on the floor. An awakened Peter, just like MJ and Gwen, rush to Harry's side. Harry faintly remarks that "The super-soldier serum must have started to poison me while I was stressing out." Gwen says they can help him, but he replies, "The poison's too strong."
"Why did you save us?" Peter asks.
"Because we're friends," Harry answers.
"Best friends?" Peter replies. Harry smiles and laughs lightly before his eyes dim and his face turns to the ground. Dead, Harry is surrounded by his friends, whose tears roll down their eyes. The episode ends with Peter, MJ, and Gwen at Harry's funeral, looking at his tombstone as the screen gently fades to black.
The second arc would be
Symbiote Saga, which would be in between episodes 31-45 (the 15 episodes of second season); it would chronicle the exploits of Spider-Man in the Symbiote Suit, and conclude with Spidey's first confrontation with Venom.
In the first episode of the arc, a group of astronauts, one of whom is J.J.J's son John, have returned to Earth from a mission to the moon when The Shocker makes an attempt on their lives. Spider-Man saves the astronauts from The Shocker, but their confrontation releases an alien symbiote from its container on the rocket. With The Shocker incapacitated and webbed-up to the inside of the rocket, Spidey flees the scene, under the impression that oil got on his suit.
That night, while Peter is sleeping, the so-called oil, which is really the symbiote, oozes off his Spidey suit and crawls directly towards Peter. Waking up rather abruptly in the middle of the night, Peter finds himself hanging from a skyscraper in a new black suit.
Sensing a mugging below, the black-suited Spider-Man arrives in the nick of time and defeats the muggers, returning a purse to a dumbfounded old lady who asks "Are you Spider-Man?" After returning home, when Peter tries to take off his new costume, the symbiote senses it and automatically transforms into pajamas. It is through this that Peter realizes that he can warp this new suit into whatever he clothes he feels like wearing. He also learns that he can use the symbiote to shoot "webs" without the need of his trademark web cartridges
Most of the episodes of this arc would feature "villian of the week" episodes, where Spidey is fighting crime in his new symbiote suit. When he nearly kills a mugger, he decides to take a sample of the symbiote to Reed Richards, the intelligent leader of the Fantastic Four. Richards concludes that the symbiote has amplified Spidey's physical characteristics, but in time, it could amplify his agression to dangerous levels. Despite Richards's warnings, Spidey heads out to fight crime. He also calls MJ and lets her know that her new suit is an alien substance that increased his strength, without telling her about the possible consequences.
In the following episodes, we see that Richards was right about the symbiote. In one episode, a jealous Peter exposes the fraud of aspiring photographer Eddie Brock, which causes Brock his job at the Daily Bugle a la
Spider-Man 3.
Through this and other events, MJ confronts Peter at his house. She says that ever since he got that "alien suit," he has been less and less like himself. With Peter insisting that he has felt the same as ever, MJ gives him an ultimatum: "You get rid of that suit, or we're through." Realizing that MJ and Richards were both right, Peter decides that he will get rid of the suit, but when the symbiote senses his desire, it imeddiately turns him into Symbiote Spidey and refuses to come off.
Knowing that the symbiote was weak against sound waves, which was shown in a confrontation with The Shocker, Spidey goes to the belltower of a church and rings the bell hard, forcing the symbiote off of him. Returning home through the window in his room, a nude Peter is shocked to see MJ still there. Laughing, they fasely believe the symbiote is gone for good.
Eddie Brock, angry and at the same time sad, is shown entering the church Spidey was in just a few hours ago, when suddenly, the symbiote leeches onto Eddie. The episode ends with the shot of a wall where, in shadows, we see the symbiote engulfing Eddie, and a larger figure emerging from the mess.
The following episode, episode 45, begins with MJ and Gwen leaving the mall, when out of nowhere, a large figure leaps in front of them. The both of them scream as we cut to Peter's house. Relaxing in his room, Peter gets a phone call from Gwen, and is told "Some big black creature kidnapped MJ, and he's looking for Spider-Man."
"Do you know where it took her?" he asks.
We cut to Spidey barging into an abandoned warehouse. We see two holes on the wall, which are reminders of Spidey's final confrontation with the original Green Goblin. Spidey finds MJ dangling from the ceiling, the only thing to keeping her from falling being the black webs tied to her arms. As Spidey says he'll get her down, she quickly screams "Look out!" Without warning, a dark figure pounces Spidey. It grabs the floored Web-Slinger and sends him back down with a powerful punch.
"What are you?" Spidey asks.
With a close-up on the creature, it says, "We are Venom." Retracting the symbiote from his head, Venom reveals the face of Eddie Brock. Eddie says he knows that Spidey is Peter Parker, and explains the story of how he got the symbiote; through this monlogue, we learn that when the symbiote latched onto Brock after being seperated from Peter, it gave Brock all of Peter's abilities, as well as his memories. Brock also explains his downfall after Peter exposed him for fraud at the Bugle, even inferring, among other things, that Peter's actions caused his fiancee to walk out on him. "You ruined my life," Eddie says as the symbiote crawls back onto his face to reform the head of Venom. "Now it's time for us to return the favor."
Trying to punch Venom, Spidey's fist is blocked by the Spawn of the Symbiote, who grounds him yet again with another punch. Despite his noble efforts, Spidey is continuously sent to the floor with blow after blow from Venom; watching the battle unfold from above, MJ begins to whimper. On the ground once more, Peter is unmasked by Venom, who says, "Not even your spider-sense can tell you what we're going to do next."
Recklessly, Venom throws Peter into a stack of metallic construction bars. The sounds of the bars clanging causes Venom to violently screech; Peter, noticing this, is reminded of how the symbiote is weak against powerful sound waves. Grabbing two of the bars, Peter clangs them together, causing Venom to screech even louder as the monster falls to his knees; the symbiote starts to become a little unstable from the waves. Desperately, Venom tries to pounce Peter, but Parker swings a bar at him, sending him flying like a baseball. Surrounding Venom in a circle of the bars a la
Spider-Man 3, Peter pounds each of them with another stray bar as Venom continues to screech in pain. Eventually, the power of the sound waves become too much for Venom to handle. With the symbiote retracting, Brock falls to the ground incapacitated; although the symbiote was successful in making a perfect bond with Brock, it needed to re-energize from Peter's assault.
Getting her down from the ceiling, Peter has a little conversation with MJ. "Are you okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," MJ replies.
"About the symbiote . . . "
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're back." The episode ends with a shot of Peter and MJ embracing one another.
That's my plan for the first two seasons. As this would probably ended up being a TV-Y7 venture, I probably wouldn't use Carnage unless I could do a direct-to-movie following one of the show's season finales.
During the first few episodes, Gwen will be romantically linked with Peter, but when a confrontation between Spidey and Doc Ock indirectly kills Gwen's father Captain George Stacy, she breaks up with Peter, citing that they can still be friends, but she needs to heal alone. I'd want to keep her as a supporting character, though.
After the breakup, Peter will be put on a blind date with MJ. After bailing in the middle of several dates with her, he takes her on a ride as Spidey, and reveals his secret identity. He says he understands if she doesn't want to continue with his relationship, but MJ decides to stand by him.
In the first few episodes, Flash Thompsosn will be a bully of Peter's. In the first episode, where we flash-back to before Peter became Spidey, we see Flash pummeling him for a generic bully-ish reason. Later in the episode, following the spider-bite, we see Peter walking with and talking with Gwen in the hallway when Flash suddenly walks up to Gwen. When he unsuccessfully tries to convice Gwen to go on a date with him, Flash insults her. An angry Peter stands up for Gwen, and when Flash tries to punch him, he unknowingly uses his spider-sense to duck away from Flash's blow, and sends the bully to the ground with a surprisingly strong punch. This is the first hint of Peter and Gwen falling in love with each other.
In later episodes, Flash begins to treat Peter and his friends with a little more respect, signifying something of a change in heart for him. In the final episode of the Goblin saga, Peter, MJ, and Gwen are even attending Flash's birthday party. When The Green Goblin storms the party, however, Flash is one of the first to flee from the house, and in comical fashion. While Flash would continue to be on pretty good terms with the three, even apologizing for abandoning them the previous episode, they would still perceive him to be a bit of a coward.
More to come . . .
