'Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man' Showrunner Attempts To Explain Why His Disney+ Show Will Stand Out From Other Spider-Man Shows

Jeff Trammell, the showrunner for Disney+’s upcoming Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, attempted to explain what sets his show apart from other Spider-Man shows.

In an interview with Animation Magazine, Trammell pointed to the show’s art style, “The Spider-Verse films are so incredible and convey so many different styles that it was honestly a little tough to find one that allowed us to visually separate ourselves until we really decided to lean in on that classic early comic-book era Spider-Man style.”

He continued, “Looking at John Romita and Steve Ditko as inspiration then being able to modernize that style thanks to artists like our lead character designer, Leo Romero, allowed us to really plant our flag in a style that feels like a moving comic book.”

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It’s hard to imagine John Romita or Steve Ditko making Harry Osborne look like a black lesbian.

Nevertheless, Trammell discussed how he was completely reinventing characters, “Other characters are appearing in this setting for the first time or have been completely reimagined, like Norman Osborn. When figuring out a new spin on a classic character, I usually write up how I picture them and share a bit of their story arc as well as a few words that really capture the core values of how we see them coming across.”

“From there we work with our character designers to create something new but still retain familiarities that allow them to feel reminiscent of their classic version,” he added.

Trammell also discussed the show’s story, “We’ve all experienced self-doubt, the uncomfortable feeling of both wanting to be cool and well-liked but also wanting to go unnoticed at the same time for fear of feeling embarrassed. Peter’s humanity is what makes Spider-Man interesting: He’s still learning, whether he’s 14 or 35. That’s why digging into who Peter is and who his support system is has always been the most fascinating part of his journey to me.”

He elaborated on this, “Peter Parker has many friends over the years but Peter and Nico Minoru as best friends? That’s new, that’s unique and that immediately changes your perception of his world, because it changes Peter’s perception as well. The same goes for Harry and Norman Osborn, Lonnie Lincoln, and so on. These are characters you may know but not necessarily the ones you’re familiar with, which again, allows us to go down a familiar avenue but in an entirely unexpected way.”

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Next, Trammell explained how the show not being part of the MCU gave him and the other creatives freedom, “I’m a huge fan of the MCU Spider-Man films, but if our show existed in the main MCU timeline, we would be severely limited in the types of stories we could tell and would have a pretty short shelf life.”

“Taking place in a sister timeline one universe over allows us quite a bit more freedom and helps us tell stories that don’t necessarily have to go down a familiar route,” he relayed. “One of the big things we wanted from the series was to not only show Spidey at his peak but also his valleys, he has his fair share of victories but experiences some big losses as well, which will hopefully make him a more adept hero in the long run.”

Marvel seemed to understand that the show was not going to be viewed favorably among its own fans as it turned off the comments when it released the first trailer at the end of December.

However, the trailer does have 161,000 likes and just 36,000 dislikes.

What do you make of Trammell’s comments about how the show will differentiate itself from other Spider-Man shows and movies?

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