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Whoever came up with the idea for Spiderman Unlimited was an absoloute goddamn madman

Dead Guy

Member
Well that seems off base since the X-Men TAS already did Jack the Ripper being a mutant created by Mr. Sinister

"A mini-series was actually supposed to take place after the series finale, in which Spider-Man journeys with Madame Web backwards through time to find the missing Mary Jane Watson. He would have ultimately found her in Victorian England with amnesia and she would have been hunted by Carnage, who was also trapped in that time period and was impersonating Jack the Ripper. Once Spider-Man had stopped Carnage and had left with Madame Web and Mary Jane back to the present, Mary Jane would have regained her memory and ultimately admitted to Spider-Man that she had always known he was Peter Parker, which had been hinted at throughout several episodes of the animated series."


That's from the IMDB page of the show. Not sure how much of it is true though or where the info is actually coming from.
 
So essentially, the plot of the show revolves around Spider-Man finding himself stranded on this utterly surreal Counter-Earth with absolutely no means of getting home. He’s a stranger in a strange land, a superhero essentially ripped from his own franchise and placed in an utterly bizarre, Kilgore Trout-esque science fiction story. Evidently now stuck on this bizarre new planet for the long haul, Spider-Man has to learn to ingratiate himself into Counter-Earth society…finding himself a job at a local newspaper as Peter Parker and moving in with a single mother and her young son, who he quickly strikes up something of a meaningful relationship with. Peter also soon encounters a human resistance group, now led by John Jameson, who’s refusing to leave the planet until he and Spider-Man can help the humans of this world throw off the shackles of their Bestial oppressors once and for all...leading to Spider-Man regularly pulling off missions for the resistance as a means of helping them fight back against The High Evolutionary.

Mfj7qE2.jpg
When I was going through this series almost a decade ago, I could never remember the red-headed chick's name, so I just called her Girl Gambit.
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
When I was going through this series almost a decade ago, I could never remember the red-headed chick's name, so I just called her Girl Gambit.

Funnily enough, that character was called Karen, same name as Peter's strange new AI in Homecoming.

I liked Karen. Pretty much all the human resistance characters are a lot of fun.
 

L Thammy

Member
I watched a little bit of it, thought that its version of Venom was lame, and was inspired to stop caring.

This came out at around the same time as Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century. I just kind of accepted this stuff as normal TV.
 
I remember watching this show when it first premiered, even then as a child I thought it was the oddest thing ever. A Spider-Man show set in an alternate universe. I do remember being disappointed that it was left on a cliffhanger though, as I did sorta get invested in the program at the last minute. Venom & Carnage playing major roles in the show no doubt were a big attraction for me as a child. Also the Batman Beyond comparisons of course.

Reading up, it looks like it was cancelled not only just due to ratings but also because of Marvel's bankruptcy, which caused The Avengers: United They Stand (a disaster), and the Silver Surfer to be cancelled for the same reason.

If I remember right, FOX had the rights to do a Spider-Man cartoon, but Marvel didn't let them have a lot of Spider-man's rogues or supporting cast. So they did the best they could.

No Fox also made the Spider-Man Animated Series, they could still the characters rogue gallery, and in fact John Semper proposed a sixth series, but Avi Arad decided to go ahead and made this little oddity instead, that was sorta like a sequel to the animated series.

"A mini-series was actually supposed to take place after the series finale, in which Spider-Man journeys with Madame Web backwards through time to find the missing Mary Jane Watson. He would have ultimately found her in Victorian England with amnesia and she would have been hunted by Carnage, who was also trapped in that time period and was impersonating Jack the Ripper. Once Spider-Man had stopped Carnage and had left with Madame Web and Mary Jane back to the present, Mary Jane would have regained her memory and ultimately admitted to Spider-Man that she had always known he was Peter Parker, which had been hinted at throughout several episodes of the animated series."


That's from the IMDB page of the show. Not sure how much of it is true though or where the info is actually coming from.

I believe John Semper said that in more then a few interviews, but it didn't come to pass because Fox felt that the 65 episode limit was enough or something.

I only remember how weird this show was going from Spiderman TAS to this was just WEEIRRRD for me as a kid. It looked cool though.

Also funny to hear Lady Vermin voiced by Jennifer Hale considering she voices Black Cat in the previous Animated series.

Hale was the only returning voice from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, since this show was done in Canada like a lot of other Marvel shows at the time, instead of L.A. like with the 94 show.
 
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The show was crazy but the craziest thing here is that all those concepts do exist in the Marvel Universe iirc:

-the High Evolutionary being a crazy guy that likes to mess up with people and animals.
-the counter Earth exists (or used to exist, I don't know anymore)
-John Jameson turning into a werewolf. Which was what lead him to work with Dr. Ashley Kafka, who in the Amazing Spider-man 2 is a dude with crazy hair and stupid accent that plays a mad scientist... I mean, wtf.
 

Vibranium

Banned
I vaguely remember catching one or two eps, but I never knew the full plot or that it was this nuts. I'm not going to lie guys, if Marvel did a continuation in the form of a comics series I would read the shit out of it. A shame Dan Slott intervened with Spider-Verse and killed them, but it could always be brought back!
 

SpaceWolf

Banned
Then they all died

See, I was actually aware of this before checking out the series...and I don't believe the world that appears in Spider-Verse is exactly same universe as the show. For instance, Marvel officially designed the show's universe as Earth-751263 is the show, whereas in that comic the Earth featured is listed as Earth-7831. Also, the Spider-Man in that panel he's wearing a different outfit... notice the entirely black mask he's wearing there, as opposed to the red one he wears in the show.

So I've convinced myself that characters on the show are all safe and well, not only because I quite liked them, but also because I don't think Dan Slott really has the right to slaughter the entire cast of any Spider-Man related media he didn't happen to like at the time, especially without the original creator's consent.

Man, what a geeky post I just wrote.
 
Love these kind of threads!

I remember seeing an episode of this out of nowhere on Fox and being completely dumbfounded by all of it. I was only 9 or 10 at the time but even back then I know this wasn't what I wanted from a Spider-Man show, lol. Someone on the team behind it had to have been a furry.
 

120v

Member
back in the day i assumed this was just a "new adventures of spider man" kind of deal, like the fourth season of batman or whatever.

i guess it wasn't just 80s cartoon writers doing loads of coke
 
I remember watching a few episodes and thinking "guess Peter time traveled or something." Never knew it was an alternate earth.

What I did know was that the intro was dope and had some kick-ass music.
 

woopWOOP

Member
I vaguely remember this shit show. Didn't Spiderman wear a a tiny cape on the back of his new suit made out of see-through spider silk? I hated the show for that alone.

I remember a scene of rat people going on a rampage against the humans in the sewers or something and Spiderman made some "boy I heard of rat infestations, but this beats everything" joke. Groan. Apparently Spiderman doing quips is a Spiderman thing, so basically Spiderman just sucks
 

shaowebb

Member
Dont forget that EVERY EPISODE Spidey has to use his new power to turn invisible and then complain about how hot it makes his suit get when he uses it.
 
As a kid I thought this show was just ripping off batman beyond, which was ripping off Spider-Man. I never once actually watched it.
 

Pizza

Member
See, I was actually aware of this before checking out the series...and I don't believe the world that appears in Spider-Verse is exactly same universe as the show. For instance, Marvel officially designed the show's universe as Earth-751263 is the show, whereas in that comic the Earth featured is listed as Earth-7831. Also, the Spider-Man in that panel he's wearing a different outfit... notice the entirely black mask he's wearing there, as opposed to the red one he wears in the show.

So I've convinced myself that characters on the show are all safe and well, not only because I quite liked them, but also because I don't think Dan Slott really has the right to slaughter the entire cast of any Spider-Man related media he didn't happen to like at the time, especially without the original creator's consent.

Man, what a geeky post I just wrote.


Considering the show ended with
Venom and Carnage summoning the symbiotic god or whatever
I'd assumed everyone just died, hence why the show stopped. Also, dan slott is super aware of Spider-Man canon, he probably didn't use the actual universe # on purpose, it's probably just a similar timeline
 

Sadist

Member
Silver Surfer was dope as fuck

I still remember the terribad Fantastic Four show, Iron Man and Hulk. This thread makes me realize how much I miss Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes :(
 

The theme song was great at least. Everything else though.... Yeah

I remember even as a kid who had done some Marvel reading being really confused about Janet's and Tigra's designs (I know now the latter was animation I'm sure but still not sure what they were thinking with Janet)
 

Ivan 3414

Member
This show had like a two-episode premiere with a cliffhanger then disappeared for like a year before it re-aired, with Fox Kids making no mention of it in the interim. Even as a kid, I found that odd.

It was an interesting show; certainly better than the original 90s series. I don't remember much except Green Goblin was a good guy and he had a long face. Oh and there was a cool Spider-Man Unlimited costume with cool invisibility powers, minus the cape, in that PS1 game
 

Cheerilee

Member
Huh, according to Wikipedia the show's first 3 episodes aired October 1999, then they waited an entire year and aired the other 10 starting December 2000 and ending March 2001.

Is that...likely?

From the reference links at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.

Over the last several weeks, Fox Kids has made a couple of changes that directly affected Marvel’s animated programming. The network suddenly pulled Spider-Man: Unlimited and just as fast replaced it with The Avengers
“What’s happening is Fox is dealing with the realities of Pokémon as a competitor,”
“They felt they needed to devote more time to those types of shows”
“What’s happening is Fox’s Saturday programming has been really fluid. It hasn’t been the same from week to week. The real problem is they have a ton of really good shows over there and they are trying to find the right formula to be competitive.”
“From the looks of things, Spider-Man will probably come back sometime between December and February,”
Basically, Fox Kids pushed Spiderman Unlimited to the back burner because of shakeups intended to try and compete with the massive impact of Pokemon (all the "obsolete 90's shows" greenlit by Fox Kids before Pokemon were now fighting each other over a narrow space, after being pushed to the side in favor of shows like Digimon and Monster Rancher), and then Spiderman Unlimited stayed on that back burner for a full year longer than Marvel was expecting.
 
I remember reading that the show was going to continue with Spiderman going back to earth and picking up where the previous series left off. Was any of that true? 90's Spiderman was GOAT tier.

From the reference links at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.






Basically, Fox Kids pushed Spiderman Unlimited to the back burner because of shakeups intended to try and compete with the massive impact of Pokemon (all the "obsolete 90's shows" greenlit by Fox Kids before Pokemon were now fighting each other over a narrow space, after being pushed to the side in favor of shows like Digimon and Monster Rancher), and then Spiderman Unlimited stayed on that back burner for a full year longer than Marvel was expecting.

So thats why they tried airing stuff like the butchered version of Escaflowne and other shows?
 

Cheerilee

Member
So thats why they tried airing stuff like the butchered version of Escaflowne and other shows?

Yep. Pokemon stormed the American airwaves in 1998-1999.

In 1999-2000, Fox Kids rushed to cram Digimon, Flint the Time Detective, and Monster Rancher into their lineup.

In 2000-2001, they dropped Monster Rancher and added Escaflowne.

In 2001-2002, they dropped Flint and Escaflowne, and picked up Medabots, Mon Colle Knights, and one season of Transformers Anime.


They were definitely reacting to Pokemon. But it's not like they were the only ones. 2000 is when Cartoon Network jumped from having Robotech, Sailor Moon, and DBZ, into a real massive tsunami of anime programming. Nelvana tried to follow Pokemon in the syndication market (basically free-agent TV shows that haven't signed with any network) with "Cardcaptors" in 2000.
 
Never saw it, but it sounds amazing.

Man, I remember watching Batman Beyond and those Justice League cartoons. My memories of them were they were amazing.
 

J_Viper

Member
I remember only catching this once or twice because I couldn't wake up on time. This is an incredible write OP.

I did like how fucked Venom and Carnage looked
 
I remember watching this when it came out thought it was weird as hell but u still liked it.

Though I had what looked like a four armed Carnage toy that I though was from this series but looking at his design again it was completely different. Hmmm now I wonder what Spiderman thing that was from...
 

NaviLink

Member
I have never seen an episode of this as far as I can remember... OP does a great job of describing the WTF factor of this show. I'm kinda curious to watch it now.
 
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