While the future of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is currently up in the air following the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel Studios has a different kind of Spidey-centric goodie heading our way for the animated realm. In November 2021, it was announced that Spider-Man: Freshman Year is in the works for Disney+, and today a lot of new information for this upcoming Marvel TV show was revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, including that it will feature Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and a ton of other Marvel characters.
During SDCC’s Marvel Animation panel, it was announced that Spider-Man: Freshman Year Season 1 will premiere to Disney+ subscribers in 2024. That’s right, Season 1, as it was also announced that Season 2, a.k.a. Spider-Man: Sophomore Year, has been greenlit. Turning to the character lineup, arguably the the biggest piece of news is Charlie Cox reprising Matt Murdock/Daredevil following his outings as the character in Netflix’s Marvel universe and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Cox is also set to appear alongside Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in the MCU series Echo, which spins out of the events of Hawkeye.
But Daredevil’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as other Marvel characters who will pop up in Spider-Man: Freshman Year include Doctor Strange, Nico Minoru from The Runaways (who was described as Peter Parker’s best friend in the series), Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn, Amadeus Cho, Lonny Lincoln, Doctor Octopus, Rhino, Unicorn, Scorpion, Chameleon, Speed Demon, Tarantula and Butane the Pyromaniac. Whew, that’s a lot of people! It’s worth noting that as far as Norman Osborn goes, he will act as Peter’s mentor in Freshman Year, though it’s unclear if he’s secretly Green Goblin at this point or if that’s coming later on.
Spider-Man: Freshman Year head writer and executive producer Jeff Trammel also said during the panel that this series is set before the events of Captain America: Civil War. However, given the inclusion of Doctor Strange and various other elements, I can't help wondering if Freshman Year doesn’t truly exist within the main MCU continuity, and will instead take place in a different corner of the multiverse. Freshman Year will also see Peter wearing multiple kinds of Spider-suits before landing on the costume that looks ripped straight from the pages of the early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko Spider-Man comics. Also, instead of going the 3D CGI route, Freshman Year has a 2D animation style.
So now we have a much better idea about what to expect from Spider-Man: Freshman Year in just a couple years. Recent Spider-Man animated TV shows include Disney XD’s Spider-Man, which concluded in 2020, and the currently-airing Spidey and His Amazing Friends on Disney Junior, but I’m especially interest to see how Freshman Year stacks up against Spider-Man: The Animated Series from the ‘90s. The Spider-Man property is also getting animated attention in the near future through Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (which using The Spot as its main villain) and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, which respectively come out in June 2023 and March 2024.
Spider-Man: Freshman Year is also just one of many animated Marvel shows coming to Disney+ in the future, with others include future seasons of What If… ?, Marvel Zombies and X-Men ’97. Keep your eyes peeled on CinemaBlend for updates on those series and more.
