Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is an animated remix paying tribute to the character’s 1960s comic book roots. It takes the character back to a high school setting in a modern age but an alternate universe from that in the MCU. Voice actor Hudson Thames is reprising his role as Spidey from Marvel’s popular What If … ? series and recently shared one of his favorite things about the new show. Namely that it’s not “annoying and woke.”
The character was originally supposed to be played by Tom Holland back when it was a tie-in for Marvel’s MCU Spider-Man movies, but the project eventually transformed into something separate. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s first trailer showed Norman Osborn mentoring Peter Parker instead of Iron Man, as well as the tech CEO gifting him the white and black variant suit from the Fantastic Four. The show begins streaming on Disney+ on January 29.
“I thought it was awesome,” Thames told Collider in a new interview regarding the show’s re-envisioning of the comic book character. “I mean, my biggest fear was that it was gonna be annoying and woke, and it wasn’t, and I was like, ‘Yes, this is great, it’s so well written,’ like it feels real. I’m the oldest of five boys, so I feel like I kind of know what’s happening in their lives and in high school, and it felt like it was doing that justice.”
It’s not clear what Thames meant when raising the specter of a possible “woke” version of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and the partial transcript by Collider didn’t immediately include further context, or its interviewer’s response to the MAGA-pilled answer. “Woke” has become a catch-all phrase in recent years, usually deployed online to denigrate anything that doesn’t make white men the center of the universe.
One of the updates featured in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is a Black Norman Osborn, played by Colman Domingo. It reignited debates among fans about race-swapping existing characters vs. creating new ones. But as showrunner Jeff Trammell recently pointed out, the Osborn in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is subverting expectations in larger ways.
“I remember watching Spectacular Spider-Man, and when you find out Norman is the Goblin, I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t expect it,’ because they do such a good job of making me not think that he’s the Goblin, even though I know he’s the Goblin,” Trammell told Gamesradar. “That was a really big inspiration for this Norman, as well as just, you know, keep you on your toes a bit, let you meet this guy, and see if he can win you over the same way he’s managed to do everyone.”
Update 1/29/2025 4:38 p.m. ET: Trammell was asked about Hudson’s remarks in a Reddit AMA celebrating the launch of the show today. “Ha, I love Hudson and didn’t focus too much on what he said,” he responded. “I believe he simply misspoke, and I know that’s been weighing on him. I think we made a fantastic show that is going to appeal to a wide audience and hopefully captures what I love about this Spider-Man: that he’s a guy who cares deeply about the people around him and always tries to do the right thing.”
Early reviews for the first episode of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man have also started pouring in. It has a glowing 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes so far. New episodes will go live every Wednesday on Disney+.
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