Reviews
Spider-Man Unlimited (1999)
What a Pile of S**t
I'd hadn't seen the show until this morning on ABC Family when I caught the first episode. People had told me it was bad, but I didn't think it was the steaming mess it was.
In a nutshell, Spider-Man goes space truckin' to a counter-Earth to save J. Johan Jameson's astronaut son and hunt down Venom and Carnage. Why Spider-Man would want to hunt down Venom and Carnage after they actively leave the 'real' Earth of their own free will is beyond me. Anyway, this counter-Earth is full of animal/human hybrids like goat men and rat women (cause it ties into the whole *Spider* man thing. eh? eh?).
The animation is better than some shows, but the artists seem to want to have every color in the rainbow in every frame of animation. This only leads to a big, bright mess. The character designs are laughable. The new spider suit is cribbed from the Spider-Man 2099 costume. Venom and Carnage can turn into demon-like monsters or glatinous piles of goo. These two were human last time I checked. The animal people are just plain silly.
Animal people? Space travel? A nanite-based spider suit? I wonder if the reason Stan Lee's name appears nowhere in the credits is because he was the only person to realize that this show isn't what Spider-Man's about? This show seems to mimic the reinvention of Batman a la the WB's 'Batman Beyond.' It fails miserably. The Spider-Man movie's in theaters if you want to see your down-on-his-luck, wise-cracking, Aunt-May-wheatcake-lovin' webslinger. Skip this show unless you're looking for a laugh.