‘Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’: ‘Spider-Man: Freshman Year’ Gets a New Title!!

Before Spider-Man: Freshman Year has had the chance to premiere on Disney+, its title has already been changed to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. The name change was shared by ComicBook.com while revealing the series is set to arrive in 2024. The animated series is still set to pay homage to the early years of the character’s comic book history. The web-slinging hero will be sent back to high school in the upcoming story, with Norman Osborn as his mentor. And while the show takes place in an alternate reality within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s not connected to the iteration of Peter Parker played by Tom Holland in the latest live-action movies featuring the hero. After all, the MCU is currently going through its Multiverse Saga.

Ever since the MCU moved away from Avengers: Endgame, the franchise has been exploring different realities featuring its biggest heroes and villains. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker got to meet variants of himself from other universes, and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will add yet another wall crawler to the expanding franchise. Since the animated series will take place in a different timeline than the films directed by Jon Watts, characters that haven’t appeared in those adaptations will be able to show up, such as the Osborns and the Rhino.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was announced shortly after the release of the first season of What If…? on Disney+, with that show being the first MCU production to directly explore how different narratives can develop in the multiverse with only a small change taking place in a story. After their first animated series was released, the studio felt confident enough to show audiences what they had planned for the future, including the Spider-Man show and X-Men ’97. Peter Parker will have to get ready to face some of the most famous members of his rogues gallery, in a new story from the minds behind What If…?

Spider-Man Across the Animated MCU

A release date hasn’t been confirmed for Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but more details should be revealed in the near future considering the second season of What If…? will premiere on Disney+ this month. Multiple variants of the web-slinging character appeared What If…? which followed The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) across multiple realities, but none of them were the one that will lead Spider-Man: Freshman Year. It remains to be seen if more variants of Spider-Man can appear in the second season of What If…? or even during its upcoming spinoff, Marvel Zombies. In the meantime, audiences are one step closer to seeing Peter Parker back in high school in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.