Freshman Year Plot, Cast, Release Window & Everything We Know
One of the best decisions that Marvel Cinematic Universe ever made, wasn’t to rehash and show Peter Parker’s origin for the billionth time. At this point, even people who haven’t seen a single one Spider Man movies know the story of a nerdy teenage boy who was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained the ability to climb walls and shoot webs from his wrists. Tells the story of a still young and inexperienced Peter Parker across Homecoming trilogy was definitely a great decision for the MCU’s introduction of Spider-Man, but in a roundabout way, we can’t help but wonder what Spidey was up to before he met Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War. When it was announced on Disney+ Day 2021, it looked like we’d no longer have to wonder what MCU Spider-Man’s origins were with the new animated series, Spider-Man: Freshman Year.
Does Spider-Man: Freshman Year Take Place in the MCU?
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The key word here is “seems” as though it was originally presented as being set in the MCU, more recent details revealed on Marvel Animation panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 have cast doubt on the canonicity of the anticipated show. This is mainly due to what characters had to face, as well as those who seem to be missing in action. Some of Peter’s closest friends from Homecoming trilogy seems to be absent so far in the series, namely his “guy in the chair” Ned Leeds and his iconic love interest MJ. There are also characters present that we know Peter has yet to meet, e.g Doctor Strange, Doctor Octopus, and Doctor Norman Osborn (many Doctors he meets later in his MCU career obviously). Osborn himself has been touted as a mentor figure, with a piece of concept art shown at SDCC directly reflecting Peter’s first meeting with Tony Stark.
Despite these apparent continuity breaks, Marvel has yet to fully rule out the show taking place in the MCU. Perhaps it is a case of Peter taking on the role of narrator and embellishing his origins a bit. The changes could also be the cause of a rights issue, as Marvel still shares the live-action rights to the character with Sony. Or the most likely possibility is like that What if…? and the future Marvel zombies show, First G will take place in a parallel universe and will not be directly fed into the main MCU universe. In general, it’s a bit up in the air which universe the show takes place in, so we’ll just have to wait patiently for more details to reveal themselves.
Is there a trailer for Spider-Man: Freshman Year?
Footage was not shown to the audience at the Marvel Animation panel, nor was any trailer released online. That doesn’t mean we didn’t get a good look at the series though, as there was a pretty hefty amount of stills and concept art from First G it was shown to the masses.
Art stylistically, First G seems to draw heavy inspiration from the original Fantastic Fantasy Spider Man cartoons from the 1960s, with the classic cell shadow that permeates every image of the displayed art. Most of the art was character design, including both friends and foes as well as various suits that Spidey will wear, including a new homemade suit, his classic Homecoming design, and even a costume that appears to be from his time with The Fantastic Four‘s Future Foundation of the comics. Aside from the character designs, we got a few stage stills, like the encounters with Norman Osborn that we mentioned earlier, and a fight sequence where Spidey and Doctor Strange are about to fight some four-armed shadow monster (maybe a symbiote? ).
Is there a release date for Spider-Man: Freshman Year?
No official date has been set for the premiere of Spider-Man: Freshman Yearbut we do know that the new animated Spider-Man will swing into Disney+ sometime in 2024.
What is the plot of Spider-Man: Freshman Year?
The self-explanatory title tells us that this will take place in Peter Parker’s very first year of high school and his very early career as Spider-Man. As usual, Peter will probably have to juggle his life as a normal teenage nerd and as a crime-fighting vigilante. He will have to hide his identity from his friends and family and come face to face with some of his most iconic enemies, but with the help of some familiar heroes like Doctor Strange and daredevil as well as his mysterious mentor Norman Osborn, he will be able to survive high school and learn what it means to be a true hero.
Who’s Making Spider-Man: Freshman Year?
Since the series is so early in development, we don’t have too many concrete details about the creative team’s putting First G together. We do know that while the series may or may not be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios will still be producing the project, meaning that Marvel Studios is leading Kevin Feige will still be involved in the series in one way or another. We also know that the main author of the series is Jeff Trammell who has plenty of experience with recent serialized animated gems like Amphibians, The owl houseand Craig of the Creek.
What characters and actors will we see in Spider-Man: Freshman Year?
There are conflicting reports that the MCU’s own Peter Parker Tom Holland will not return to the role to lend his voice to his beloved character. Although there has been no hard confirmation yet as Holland did not return to voice the character What if…?it seems unlikely that he would return for another project that appears to take place outside of the MCU.
We got some casting news at SDCC, the most exciting of which is this Charlie Cox would reprise the role of Daredevil in the series prior to his appearances in She-Hulk: Lawyer, Echoand Daredevil: Born Again. Comedian Paul F. Tompkins will also be apart of the cast as Bentley Witman, who in the comics is a mad scientist who eventually becomes the Fantastic Four villain, the Wizard.
That’s about it as far as casting goes, but we did get a glimpse of the friends and foes that will be joining the Spider-Show. In addition to Daredevil, Peter’s friends will include Doctor Strange, Aunt May, Peter’s historical best friend Harry Osborn, future smart Hulk Amadeus Cho and Runaways member Nico Minoru. The villains that Peter will face range from deep cuts to iconic antagonists including Unicorn, Scorpion, Tarantula, Tombstone, Speed Demon, Chameleon and Doctor Octopus. The show’s version of Norman Osborn has been cast as a mentor figure, but if we know Norman, he has ulterior motives of his own.
Is Spider-Man: Freshman Year Getting a Second Season?
The most of Disney+ Marvel shows have been season-long limited series, but we can confirm that won’t be the case Spider-Man: Freshman Year.
A second season is already in development, with a new and clever title officially marking it Spider-Man: Second Year. Whatever shenanigans Spidey gets up to in his first year of high school, he’ll only get up to even more the following year.