I’m Starting to Doubt Ultimate Spider-Man’s Utimateness

Okay, before I say anything, just watch these two new clips from the upcoming Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. We’ll discuss them afterwards.

Obviously, Ultimate Spidey is trying to be Marvel’s Teen Titans, a mix of humor and action, complete with super-deformed Spidey cutaways, e.g. his Spidey sense in the first video. I really, really liked Teen Titans. So why am I not feeling Ultimate Spider-Man?

I’m not sure, exactly, other than to say that US feels like it’s doing it wrong. Maybe it’s because part of Spider-Man’s fundamental appeal is that while his situations are often dramatically dire, he can be — and usually is — funny. In US, it appears they’ve gotten this mixed up — Peter’s not particularly humorous in either of the clips, while three supervillains are defeated by a high school cafeteria food fight. There’s no tension there, and it’s not funny — in fact, it’s pretty dumb, and it’s going to be hard to be concerned for Spidey ever if the bad guys are all dumb enough to be bested by teenage idiots with cafeteria trays. And Teen Titans did a great job of mixing action, drama and humor; US doesn’t seem to have that down yet.

I’m not going to write off the show yet (which is admittedly strange for me, since making snap judgments is kind of my modus operandi) but seriously, none of the clips of Ultimate Spider-Man that have been released so far have made me want to watch it. What about you guys? (Via Comics Alliance)