There's a version of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man set in the MCU that could have finally explored Peter Parker's origin story and his time in the homemade red and blue costume featured in Homecoming and Far From Home.
Unfortunately, it seems that idea was scrapped relatively soon into what was then Spider-Man: Freshman Year's development. Instead, we're getting a story in another reality where the hero never went to Midtown High and, in place of Tony Stark, Norman Osborn became his mentor.
Talking to Animation Magazine, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man showrunner Jeff Trammell further explained why the events of this series don't play out on the Sacred Timeline.
"I’m a huge fan of the MCU Spider-Man films, but if our show existed in the main MCU timeline, we would be severely limited in the types of stories we could tell and would have a pretty short shelf life," he explained. "Taking place in a sister timeline one universe over allows us quite a bit more freedom and helps us tell stories that don’t necessarily have to go down a familiar route."
"One of the big things we wanted from the series was to not only show Spidey at his peak but also his valleys, he has his fair share of victories but experiences some big losses as well, which will hopefully make him a more adept hero in the long run," Trammell added.
Addressing some of the differences that results in, he said. "Peter Parker has many friends over the years but Peter and Nico Minoru as best friends? That’s new, that’s unique and that immediately changes your perception of his world, because it changes Peter’s perception as well. The same goes for Harry and Norman Osborn, Lonnie Lincoln, and so on."
"These are characters you may know but not necessarily the ones you’re familiar with, which again, allows us to go down a familiar avenue but in an entirely unexpected way."
Beyond the changes to how Spidey's story goes, Trammell discussed what's proven to be a somewhat divisive animation style. Admitting that the Spider-Verse movies were a tough act to follow, it was all about taking inspiration from the comic books for the showrunner.
"Looking at John Romita and Steve Ditko as inspiration then being able to modernize that style thanks to artists like our lead character designer, Leo Romero, allowed us to really plant our flag in a style that feels like a moving comic book."
"Especially when it came to developing looks for our super villains and a few of the suits Peter wears over the course of the season, the comics were huge inspirations," he continued. "In addition to leaning on the classic Spidey comics, we were also lucky enough to work with many artists working in comics today, including Chris Samnee, Paolo Rivera and Ethan Young, just to name a few."
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man premieres on Disney+ on January 29, 2025.