Todd Jensen writes...

I recently got to watch the first two episodes of Season Two of "The Spectacular Spider-Man" on YouTube (I hadn't seen them before now, since I don't have cable) and enjoyed them.

I noticed at the end the MasterPlanner's line to Kraven about "hunting in packs". While it works in its own right as a hint of things to come (presumably super-villain team-ups), I thought "pack" was appropriate. Kraven was hunting Spidey for the same reason that the Pack initially hunted the gargoyles - the "Most Dangerous Game" motive - and, like Wolf, had himself upgraded into a mutate (though feline rather than canine). He even got photographs of Spidey at the start of the episode from the MasterPlanner, just as the Pack got the photographs of Goliath at the start of "The Thrill of the Hunt". I don't know if the "hunting in packs" line was intended as a "Gargoyles" hommage or in-joke or not, but I liked it and thought it appropriate.

Akeem M. writes...

Hey Greg,
At the end of Spectacular Spider-Man, Norman going into costumed crime is public knowledge. The question is, how many people know about his strength enhancing formula, Globulin Green and how it affects people? Norman showed his family (Emily and Harry) and Donald Menkin; and by extension Peter and Gwen know about since Harry told them about the formula and what it does to people. Is the Gobulin Green formula public knowlege in New York City? Or is it one of the only secrets the Osborn family has about Norman goblining it up?

Zach writes...

Greg Do you think The Spectacular Spider-Man would ever be continued in a comic?

Bad Lyre writes...

If (somehow) you were given one final 13-episode season in which to wrap up the Spectacular Spider-Man, how would you do it?
How, if at all, would you try and resolve hanging plot threads, like Gwen and Peter's relationship and Norman's Houdini act?
Would you take advantage of being owned by Disney by introducing other Marvel characters that you didn't have the rights to use before? If so, would you bring more Spidey-related characters in, like Kingpin or Daredevil, or better-known heroes, such as Iron Man?

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Phillip writes...

Do you know of any plans for a complete second season release of Spectacular Spider-Man?

Xanatos writes...

I was just recently watching "Destructive Testing" from Season 2 of the Spectacular Spider-Man, and I was wondering, what was the creative decision to make Kraven a genetically altered human rather than just him being a "normal" guy?

Also, did you have any plans on MIles Warren creating clones or becoming the Jackel later down the line had a season 3 been made?

Anonymous writes...

A couple of years ago, I heard that some deleted scenes from The Spectacular Spider-Man had been shown at Comic Con. The details surrounding those deleted scenes have been kept under wraps for so long now - is there any chance you could give a breakdown of the sequences that didn't make it into the episodes, please?

I know that one deleted sequence was Shocker being rescued by Fancy Dan and Ox in Group Therapy, and that another was a line by Norman in Final Curtain that he hated how vulnerable Vulture had made him, but could you elaborate on the other stuff that was cut for time please?

Jonathan writes...

Do you have any plans to further the plot of Spectacular through means outside of television? Like, something written, perhaps in the way of a script or in a more novel-like style of writing?

The Question writes...

Since it appears that it is unlikely that your version of spider-man won't finish it's storyline, did you already know how it would have ended if given the chance? If so, was there any major storylines you wanted to address during you're intended run? This is in case father time catches up with you and you don't take your vision to the grave. :)

Todd Jensen writes...

The first season of "Young Justice" takes place over the course of half a year, starting on the Fourth of July and continuing to New Year's Eve in the Season One finale (with episodes set on Halloween and Thanksgiving along the way). I remember that the first season of "The Spectacular Spider-Man" similarly stretched from the start of the school year in September to Thanksgiving (with a Halloween episode along the way), and that the second season got up at least to Valentine's Day. The time progression in "Gargoyles" was more vague, but we had two Halloween stories ("Eye of the Beholder" and the Double Date story) and three wintry episodes in New York ("Her Brother's Keeper", which ends with a snowfall, "Re-Awakening", and "The Price"), as well as a clear timeline for the Stone of Destiny story.

I like this sense of the year's progress through the seasons and landmark days (like the Fourth of July and Halloween), but it doesn't seem that common in animated series outside your own work. I've seen two speculations on why that element is so rare in animated series. One is that a lot of the people who engage in such creative work aren't big on continuity and change, far less than you are. Another is that most people involved in creating animated television series live in or near Los Angeles and other parts of California, where the climate is pretty much the same year around and there's less a sense of four seasons than in other parts of the United States. I was wondering what your thoughts were on these theories.

Anonymous writes...

You said before that there isn't any recorded, on camera footage of the voice actors for Young Justice. Why did you record behind the scenes stuff for The Spectacular Spider-Man but not for Young Justice?

Michael writes...

Hi Greg!

Like many fans, I was deeply saddened to see Spectacular Spider-Man get cancelled after only two seasons. The show had so many good stories left to tell and really left a lot of open plot threads (Peter and Gwen's relationship, Norman Osborn's future plans, the Venom symboiote's whereabouts etc.) that were just begging to be explored.

With that in mind, have you given any thought to proposing a Spectacular Spider-Man comic book that would continue the storylines you and your creative team had planned? I know that you've gone this route with Gargoyles, and I think a Spectacular Spider-Man comic would really excite and satisfy fans who wanted to see where the series would have gone without incurring the expense of continuing the show (since I realize a lot of your talent has moved on to other projects -- incidentally love Lacey Chabert as Zatanna in Young Justice!). Marvel is already producing an Ultimate Spider-Man comic based on the new animated show -- would it really be out of the realm of possibility for them to produce a Spectacular Spider-Man comic and/or miniseries? After all, DC produced new issues of the Batman The Animated Series comic book, The Batman comic, and Batman the Brave and the Bold long after the cartoons were cancelled.

Best wishes

Michael

6f6ea3 writes...

Hey again, Greg. Hopefully this question will catch you while you're at your office or Beverly Hills office, but I'm just dropping by a follow up inquiry about posting the SpecSpidey bible.

Sorry if I'm being a pest, I know by the time you read this you'll have slogged through a couple hundred questions about Red Tornado's shoe-size or the like since you answered my last question. Keep the faith, you're made of sterner stuff then I.

Miten writes...

Hey Greg it's me again and I was wondering
how did you get the role of spectacular spiderman.

Eagle-Owl writes...

YJ questions:

1) Clancy Brown as Agent Faraday, and Faraday looks A LOT like George Stacy. Spectacular Spider-Man reference?

2) Parasite was working for Intergang. Does this say anything about the current whereabouts of Bruno Mannheim or Whisper A'Daire?

Codeman1992 writes...

Hi Mr. Weisman, I just wanted to give you props on developing one of the most interesting and creative superhero series on television. Young Justice is one of the greatest superhero series I've watched. I put it up there with the great Batman The Animated Series and all the Timmverse Shows. So, like I said before, I give you props and you are a extremely well versed writer and it's proof in your work. With the new Spider Man movie coming out soon, I've noticed it's very reminiscent of The Spectacular Spider man. At least in the case of turning Gwen into a potential love interest in High School, who both her and Pete intern somewhere. That's my first question, have you noticed that? My second question is regarding The Spectacular Spider Man. I'm in my Spidey Obsession phase and always turn to your show whenever I'm in that phase. Since there's not gonna be a Season 3 of the show, can you drop any potential storylines or where the show was gonna go after the finale of Season 2? I know this is really long, but I'm a huge fan and hope I can be as great of a writer as you are one day. Thank You Mr. Weisman for your time.

ILikeSpiderMan writes...

Hi Greg!

Obviously I'm a huge fan of your work, since I'm, y'know, posting on your site. I've just been sitting and listening to your Spectacular Spider-Man podcast interviews, which are offering some "spectacular" insight (haha, ha).

You talk about Gwen Stacy being the first (one?) true love of Peter's life, and her incredible importance to him. You've also discussed your desire to adapt the feel and general story of the original comics as faithfully as possible. Given that Gwen is most famous for being killed by the Green Goblin, what does that mean for Gwen's future in the series? I'm not asking what your plans for the show were (I don't want spoilers, as some small part of me still hopes that somehow this show will have a future), but I'm wondering if you and the other writers were even considering including Gwen's death in the series. Would it warp the show's tone irreparably? Would it still be possible to write a fun-loving, wise-cracking Spider-Man after this? Would the CW/Disney allow this on a children's program?

Or did you and the other writers/producers decide upfront to veto the idea?

I understand how this could easily be seen as a spoiler request. I'm less curious about the potential plotline of future SSM episodes, and more wondering about the considerations you and your writing team take when adapting material from the comics, especially grittier, less-child-friendly stuff.

Thanks profusely!

Justin F. writes...

Hey Greg. I wanted to let you know that I, and a large portion of the internet community, absolutely loved Spectacular Spider-Man. The show accurately portrayed who Peter Parker was, his troubles, his difficult choices, and his life as Spider-Man. Me, being a teen in high school, thought Peter was someone I could relate to, even though he had these extraordinary powers. Being able to relate to Peter Parker is something that should be constant (and for the most part, has been constant) in every Spider-Man story. I know I'm not the only one who thinks that the series should have went on for much longer. However, I know that the series' ending had to do with Disney/Marvel purchasing the animated series rights from Sony. Since this was pretty much out of your hands, I'm here to propose an idea.
Since the rights to the theme song, character designs, etc. for The Spectacular Spider-Man are locked by Sony, and you couldn't possibly resume the show even if you wanted to at Disney/Marvel, I suggest making, if you'd be fine with doing so, an INDEPENDENT episode (about 45 min. or an hour long)of The Spectacular Spider-Man and release it online. Sean Galloway could come back to do the designs, and you could get the voice actors who would agree to it back if the scheduling works in the favor of both parties. This is more than a scheduling thing than anything, when you're not busy with Young Justice and they're not busy with anything, but it may be able to work. And since it wouldn't be
released under the Sony or Marvel banner, and if you make it perfectly clear that it's a "fan film", no breach-in-contract would occur at all.
I'm sorry if I'm sounding selfish, but the show had a HUGE, HUGE fan base, and most of this HUGE fan base, when tuned in to watch Ultimate Spider-Man on Sunday, all cringed in unison (no offense to Marvel or anyone who likes the show). It just doesn't match the charm that your interpretation of Spider-Man had. So I would definitely like for you to take this into consideration. Would you be able to make an independent "final" episode of Spectacular Spider-Man exclusively for online, one that is a "fan film" of sorts? Thank you for your time.

-Justin

Laura 'ad astra' Sack writes...

Wow! Is it hard to keep up with even the questions to post new ones. Thanks for reopening the queue!

Condolences on the lose of your Grandmother. I remember the months before my grandmother died how she had retreated into herself and was all but unrecognizable, than all of a sudden came back to herself for a week or two at the end. I still treasure it as a great gift that we were reminded who she was before the end. She was a good deal younger than 100 so we were not quite expecting the end, but I can understand what you mean by feeling that the person you love is already on the way somewhere else. I am glad you have so many years and so many wonderful memories to look back on.

1- I see someone already asked if you can explain some of the terms you used when you broke down the stages the of episodes in progress. He mentioned ‘online’ in particular. If you didn’t already do so, can you also define ‘slug’?

2- I know you prefer to record the voice actors together in conversation, unlike many other cartoons that record the voices in isolation. In live action tv and movies are recorded out of order, that’s the most efficient way to use the sets and actors. Since there aren’t sets for cartoons, and you prefer to have all the actors together anyway, are the scenes more or less recorded in order?

3- You mentioned in the past moments when stories just come together and surprise you- when the next event seems to announce herself, unplanned but seemingly totally organic to the story. Like when “Owen is Puck!” announced itself. Or when you kept hearing “Thailog” when the video was being rewound. Did you have any such moments for Spectacular Spiderman and the other shows you worked on? Have you had any with Young Justice yet? Can you share any if they’ve already happened?

4-One last question for this catch-all batch... what do you think of the new DC Nation shorts? I’m not crazy about loosing the opening credits, but I love shorts and think it is an easy trade. I love that they are all different and playful and yet often also a series. My favorite so far is the one with Batgirl and Supergirl trying to convince Wonder Girl to ‘borrow’ Wonder Woman’s invisible jet. (Oddly I have become used to (and approve) on Dianna being portrayed as someone from another country, with a light to strong intonation of something foreign, but it never occurred to me the same would apply to Donna.)

Begin pontification: I’ve never loved the Teen Titan cartoon, (plenty to like, but never loved), but I love the fact it is turning up in the shorts. Back when Disney XD was Toon Disney I wondered why they didn’t run shorts. (To be fair I didn’t have a TiVO at the time and it was possible they were already running the “Have a Laugh” abridged classic shorts as well as Shaun the Sheep. But they weren’t running any new material.) It seemed odd to me they were trying to compete with the Cartoon Network’s reach into the older demographic and didn’t, for instance, declare one night a week the 10 o’clock older folks movie night, (say a Miyazaki flik), and intersperse it with shorts- gorgeous, varied, counter expectation shorts like they gleefully did for Fantasia 2000. (I had the idea a long time ago.) If some of those shorts were back door pilots...great. It worked for the Simpsons They could have led to another late evening night of new programming of new shows. They couldn’t compete with cheap nostalgic cartoons or crude adult ones because that just isn’t Disney. Disney can never put out a Family Guy type show under the Disney label. Maybe they could do it on ABC, but not something with Disney in the name. (Even Miyazaki’s Princess Monenoke had to be released in the US under the Miramax label because a PG-13 cartoon would be problematic under the Disney label.) It a rather obvious route for a high end cartoon station to go and might have netted a few Oscars away from Pixar. Or perhaps more for Pixar. End pontification.

Of course it would have been an ideal place to run a little Gargoyle related short. :)

JayBe writes...

Hi Greg, first off I just wanted to say you're awesome. Spectacular Spider-man was THE best Spider-man cartoon/interpretation of all time and IMO the best superhero cartoon of all time (although YJ is now a close second for me). It still pains my heart that it didn't reach past a 2nd season. And despite not being interested when I originally heard about Young Justice, it's quickly become one of my favorites due to the awesome character development/continuity that seems to be your trademark. Having just seen the new Ultimate Spider-man (which I read you won't be watching), I can safely tell you that although it's not the complete crap-fest I thought it would be, it's nowhere near the level of greatness of Spectacular Spider-man.

So anyway, my question is actually about SpecSpider-man (and sorry if it was asked already, I went through as much of the 600+ search results as I could). Could you possibly go into the general idea of what we were going to get out of the next few seasons if it hadn't been cancelled? I know there's probably a thousand details you could give (which would be awesome), but was there any overall story concepts you had that were going to blow our minds? For instance, were we actually going to see Gwen Stacy die?

Thanks for reading even if you can't/don't want to answer.

SpideyFan writes...

I've just gotten a chance to sit down and watch Spectacular Spidey, and it was absolutely mind-blowing. Between it and YJ, I am totally sold on your work. I love the way you structure your stories (on an episode-by-episode basis, and the way you build up longer arcs), and how you manage to present only the most pertinent/interesting information, and trim the narrative fat. It makes your shows a total joy to watch; the stories have such a deliberate sense of movement, everything seems to have purpose. Watching your work inspires me!

Here's the "Ask" part:
In the series finale (S2E13 "The Final Curtain"), Spidey's big confrontation sees him fighting pumpkin-headed grunts in little flying goop-shooting ships. Was this something the creative team was gung-ho about putting in the series, or was it more related to pressures from the powers-that-be about opportunities to sell toys?
Also, how often is marketing, or promoting the DC/Marvel/what-have-you brand a consideration for you when you're creating a show?
Finally: how did you start writing? I don't mean on the level of occupation (i.e. what jobs got you started), but how did you establish for yourself the discipline and confidence in your skills necessary to write professionally?

And I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother. It sounds like it was her time. My own great-grandmother just passed on, and I can tell you she was as ready for it as we were resistant to it. It certainly made the mourning process a lot harder to initiate, since there was this enormous sense of relief that she wasn't in any more pain, or so lonely anymore. I think a sort of hollow initial response is natural. Hope this is some condolences.

Thank you and adieu,

SpideyFan

akif writes...

the new spider man show isn't that good i wish that you can continue the show anf young justice at the same time

The Greenman writes...

Hi Mr. Greg Weisman,

I have been a fan of yours since Gargoyles. One of the things that interest me is the basic structure of the themes and world building in the series. One of the styles I see continue to pop up in your series is the relationship between science and sorcery. This is something I have been a fan of in comics like Iron Man and Fantastic Four (specifically Dr. Doom versus Reed Richards). I love the simple explanation that energy is energy.

1. Now I didn't see much of this argument come up in your Spectacular Spider-Man series, because Peter debunked Mysterio, but can you say that you ever planned to and who you would've used to explore that science versus mystic aspect?

2. I am upset that directors such as Jon Favreau and Shane Black have knocked down the very idea of Mandarin showing up as not to approach the so-called mystic aspect. Though, it could be be alien in origin or something, as they claim and prove that even super-science isn't allowed in the MCU. Have you read and understand the Iron Man comics specific to Mandarin and Tony's relationship to science versus sorcery? Was it influential at all in your writing?

Mike writes...

1. How did the Rhino overcome his hydration problem?
2. What are the names of Tombstone's bodyguards?
3. Is Tombstone the Big Man or is it someone else entirely?

FanMan writes...

Being that the Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled almost two years ago now, are you yet able to reveal details of what you had planned for season 3? Or do you still intend to keep that information back in order to use it on a later show or if Spec-Spidey gets (against all odds) renewed at a later time?