22. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Disney+: 2024)

The web-slinging debut of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man doesn’t quite stick the landing, but it’s far from a swing and a miss. In a year when X-Men ‘97 has reclaimed the throne of Marvel animation with gravitas-heavy storytelling and jaw-dropping spectacle, and What If…?continues to dazzle with multiversal mayhem and visual ambition, this reimagined Spidey tale lands somewhere in the middle of Marvel’s animated multiverse. The show’s youthful Peter Parker (Hudson Thames), voiced with the right mix of nerdy charm and burgeoning heroism, brings fresh energy to a character who’s had more reboots than Uncle Ben has had tragic farewells. The art style is sleek and kinetic, and the unexpected narrative shifts—like retooling classic villains and tweaking Peter’s origin—give the show just enough narrative bite to keep it from languishing at the bottom of Marvel’s streaming stack. Also, Coleman Domingo adds a sinister yet alluring charm to Norman Osborne that hints at his eventual villainous turn to the Green Goblin while having enough sensible pragmatism that you can understand why he’d want to regulate superheroes in some way. It’s not redefining the genre, but Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is spinning a web worth watching—if only to see where it swings next. [Keith Nelson Jr]