This might come as a surprise to many of you – Paul Dini, best known for his work on Batman: The Animated Series, and a successful run of Batman comic books, is joining Brian Michael Bendis, and the Man of Action crew to bring Ultimate Spider-Man to life.
You also don’t want to repeat the same old tropes. As much as I love elements of Spider-Man’s past, I don’t really want to go back in and retell the Gwen Stacy and Green Goblin story in animation just so I can do my take on it. I don’t want to redo the first Spider Slayer story. I don’t want to redo some of those classic Lee/Romita and Lee/Ditka stories just for the sake of seeing them rendered in animation. For now, I just want to approach Spider-Man with fresh eyes, taking a few things we know about him and just doing a new spin on the concept. I think old-time fans will find what we’ve done with the character to be pretty good and thoughtful, because we’re not out to junk-up Spider-Man. That’s not our intent.
While the move is a bit of shock, it kind of makes sense and some may have even seen it coming after Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III came on board Detective Comics. That last part is pure speculation on my part, mind you, as Dini has written comics for other companies and done work for other productions.
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It’s interesting that Paul Dini, who worked on Batman the animated series, is moving on to a Marvel show, but Greg Weisman, who headed up Spectacular Spider-Man, is moving on to do Young Justice over at DC.
I am kinda bummed that this had to come at the expense of Spectacular Spider-man, but it’s nice that their at least putting some talent behind this.
They can have Dini so long as we keep Timm.
Word… though Dini better still be working on Zatanna…
This is just a general question – is this series being based directly off of “Ultimate Spider-Man”, or are they just using the title? I know Bendis is involved, but it’s never been made very clear.
Not that it would change my mind, though. I’ve lost a lot of respect for Man of Action with their newest TV show – it’s like all the stereotypes of bad 90s comics put on the screen & animated. Maybe having Bendis & now Dini on board will balance the stupid out, but I’m not optimistic.
I haven’t found Generator Rex to be that bad. Ben 10 on the other hand…
Personally, I didn’t find Ben 10 all that watchable until McDuffie took it over. It’s no JLU by any means, but at least the sole female isn’t an obnoxious shrew with plot-device magic powers anymore. Also, he has a better handle on things like “continuity”, “character development”, and “villainous motivation”, no matter what the TVTropes groupies say.
Rex lost me for good with that oh-so-subtly-suggestive bike transformation. If the artists knew what they implying when they designed it, I’d be willing to laugh at it, but I don’t want to give them that much credit. It’s too ridiculous to have been intentionally funny.
I’d better stop now, or my loathing for MoA’s animated output will just go on and on…
I personally believe that this latest re-hash of Spiderman is completely unneeded. They HAD a perfectly good thing going with SSM. And they ruined it for no reason at all other than brainless studio politics. I am not excited in the slightest to have Brian Michael Bendis on board. As far as television, and films go, he’s an excellent comic book writer. Anyone remember how the last time he produced a Spidey series turned out? I do. It was that abortion they showed on MtV that was canceled due to low ratings.
Get your facts straight kid.
Spectacular ended because of Legal reasons. It was a Sony show, but Sony gave up the TV rights to Spidey so they could keep the movie rights.
Spectacular couldn’t continue and that’s why Disney and Marvel decided to do their own show.