SDCC 2008: Spectacular Spider-Man

Friday featured a panel for "Spectacular Spider-man", which is a fantastic animated version of the Spider-man mythos. Season two will feature the debuts of Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio and the Molten Man. It will also feature the return of many of the villains of season one, including Green Goblin, Venom, Vulture, Sinister Six and others.

IGN did a pretty good job of summarizing the panel here.

To add to their coverage, the team also explained their take on Gwen. They wanted to actually go back and re-imagine who these characters would have been in high school, since in the comics, MJ, Gwen and Harry don't come into the picture until Peter was in college. They surmised that Gwen would be more nerdy in high school, before she blossomed into the smart bombshell we know her as in her college days. Likewise, Harry and MJ have been re-imaged to reflect "what we think they might have been" in high school.

There was an amusing moment when Vanessa Marshall read her "face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot" line. Everyone just lost it.

They also talked about the awesome and infectious theme song from Tenderbox. The band did the song completely on their own, lyrics and all. Most impressive!

The team also mentioned that they are trying to do justice to the DVD package art, and tried to make them look like comic books themselves (with the character designs from the show), not overly-airbrushed versions of the cartoons.

One person asked if Gwen would die, and Greg Johnson answered that he couldn't answer that whether it was even true of not. He said they look to the comics for inspiration, and you will see certain things used, and others not.

The team also promised more character development for Flash Thompson, Jonah, MJ and Gwen in season two. Harry will also return in season two.

The team also mentioned that they had deep discussions about making Harry the Goblin before Norman Osborn becomes the Goblin. Deep, long, argumentative discussions, joked Johnson. Ultimately, they stand by the story the way it unfolded. One reason they did it that way was to do a version of the seminal Harry Osborn drug story of the 70s. The team also assured viewers that all the elements would come into play as the Green Goblin saga continued to unfold.