The version of Peter Parker in Disney Plus’ alternate-timeline animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is facing a dilemma that his previous incarnations would find familiar: He’s taking on more than any one person could probably handle, and it’s tearing him apart. But YFNSM’s version of that conflict has built up to an unnerving point, and it’s unbalancing what’s otherwise an enjoyable reimagining of the standard Spider-Man story, with a familiar mix of superhero adventure and high school drama.
Peter is overloaded with other people’s expectations. He’s trying to excel at his ritzy new magnet high school, which has a killer robotics program and is meant to finally challenge his scientific super-brain. He’s trying to be a present, engaged friend for his new buddy Nico Minoru. He’s trying to support his Aunt May through whatever happened to his Uncle Ben. He’s trying to manage his exciting but demanding internship with Norman Osborn’s super-science company Oscorp. And of course, by stealing time from all his other responsibilities, he’s trying to wedge in a bunch of heroing around town, following the sounds of sirens or shouting through Queens and foiling crimes in progress. Attempting to do all these things at once means he isn’t doing any of them well.
Stories about relationship-testing tensions between a secret hero identity and a standard civilian life date back to Marvel’s earliest days. It’s fertile ground for angst and frustration for superheroes who want to save people and make the world better, but find that means sacrificing their personal relationships and private lives. And it’s no surprise to see a hero setting the bar for themselves impossibly high.
Image: Disney Plus
But in YFNSM, it’s extra tough, because the show codes Peter less like the usual teen prodigy of the live-action movies, and more like a kid being burdened with a ridiculous level of adult responsibilities. At the same time, he’s getting so little support from the adults in his life who should know better. Someone needs to just tell Spider-Man to stop multitasking.
I mean — yes, I get the point of this plot arc. The feeling of being pulled in a dozen different directions at every moment has become a major societal bugaboo with the rise of always-online culture, with constant studies saying that people are addicted to multitasking “for efficiency,” but that it puts additional stress on our brains while actually damaging our accuracy, memory, and commitment to any given task. Peter’s deep-seated sense of responsibility (“With great power,” etc.) is part of what makes him a hero, but it also gives him a super-sense of guilt and a belief that he has to do everything at once, and do it perfectly.
His feelings of being overwhelmed by his idealism and the endless opportunities in front of him are relatable — it’s even admirable that he tries to take on so much. But Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s writers throw in a weird swerve in episode 8, “Tangled Web,” where Peter breaks down weeping in May’s arms. He confesses that he’s terrified he’s letting people down. “I feel like there’s so much that I have to do, and so many people that I have to do right by,” he says, tears running down his face. “And if I can’t handle that responsibility, then I’m weak.”
Image: Disney Plus
May doesn’t know he’s a secret superhero, or that he nearly just got killed by a much older, meaner, more ruthless villain. But even thinking that he’s just running himself ragged over school, his internship, and keeping up with his friends, she still gives him the worst advice possible: “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
In essence, she’s telling him he can handle all these conflicts, in spite of his clear exhaustion, and on top of the family traumas she already knows he’s processing. What she isn’t doing is helping him strategize or prioritize, or reminding him that a 15-year-old shouldn’t feel guilty about not being able to hold down what seems to be a full-time corporate R&D job on top of a demanding school regimen.
The way Norman coldly pushes Peter past his limits, regardless of the damage done, makes sense — Norman Osborn is clearly selfish, ruthless, and using Peter as a tool in his vendettas. He’s edging closer to overt villany with each episode, gradually becoming the Green Goblin we know him to be in other universes.
But May isn’t meant to come across as a villain, or as the type of incompetent, out-of-touch adult that’s so common in stories aimed at kids or young adults. Her effectively telling Peter to just continue handling all his conflicts on his own (and then pivoting to talking about herself, so he pivots to comforting her!) is a horrible character beat, and a weird miss for a narrative that’s already over the top in terms of what it dumps on this kid’s head. Framing his entirely real and excessive burdens as a problem he’s creating by just not trusting how strong he is is entirely the wrong message here. Ironically, it’s somewhat in keeping with older Spider-Man stories where Aunt May is just one of the many burdens adding to Spider-Man’s emotional load. But the way she fails him in this animated series doesn’t seem to be intentional and thematic so much as just off base.
Being Spider-Man is always going to involve a certain amount of multitasking, and a certain amount of choosing between the hero and civilian personas. But there have to be some kind of reasonable limits if this show isn’t meant to just be about the way the world kicks Peter’s ass, and the way he has to handle that more or less entirely on his own.
Many previous iterations of Peter Parker have certainly felt that sense of loneliness and isolation, but there’s no sense that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is meant to be that kind of angst-fest. If anything, it’s mined comedy out of Peter’s awkwardness and his lame excuses as he sneaks into class mid-lecture, or wiggles out of work to respond to a criminal crisis. But there’s nothing funny about a kid breaking down crying in his guardian’s arms because he’s overtaxed and miserable, while being told the answer is just to keep on doing everything he’s doing, but be less sad about it.
