“Spider-Man: The Animated Sequence” was virtually as seminal a second in Spidey’s cultural evolution as a Cameron film would have been. Earlier than the character had hit the large display and gained the widespread recognition he enjoys at present, Fox Children stepped up and gave ’90s youngsters a Spider-Man repair that did not require them to trace down the comics — which in my small English city was a formidable job.

Debuting in 1994, the cartoon collection was a refreshingly mature tackle Spider-Man that took among the greatest storylines from the comics and tailored them for a youthful viewers with out robbing them of their thematic weight. It might run till 1998, and canopy all facets of Spider-Man’s universe, condensing many years of storylines into 5 seasons and even introducing the multiverse in its closing season.

However whereas the present was impressively complete in its scope, it was hampered in some vital methods. Not solely did toy gross sales dictate a lot of season 1’s tales, however the writers would additionally should watch out to not upset TV censors, who had strict guidelines in place to maintain youngsters’ programming healthful. On high of all that, previous Jimmy C would make his affect recognized by forcing producer, head author, and showrunner to keep away from sure characters — particularly notorious Spidey villains Electro and Sandman, who Cameron was planning to make use of as his predominant antagonists.

Semper was requested about that particular hurdle by the Marvel Animation Age (through DCAnimated), saying, “I by no means gave Sandman any thought as a result of I simply accepted that I wasn’t ready to make use of him and that was that.” Ultimately, as soon as Cameron’s movie fell by, Semper and his workforce would introduce Electro to the collection. However Sandman stays the one main Spider-Man villain to stay absent from your entire 65 episodes.