With the conclusion of What If…?, Marvel Animation released the teaser trailer for their upcoming animated series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Originally announced as Spider-Man: Freshman Year, the series seemingly would be a new take on Peter Parker’s origin story of becoming Spider-Man in the MCU, as when audiences met him in Captain America: Civil War, he had already been operating for a few years. Yet since the series’ announcement, it has pivoted away from the main MCU canon, as signified not only by the new title but also by the presence of characters not in the MCU, like Norman Osborn.
If anyone had any doubts that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man was not MCU canon, then Marvel Studios’ head of streaming, television, and animation, Brad Winderbaum, is setting the record straight. Speaking with Phase Hero’s Brandon Davis (see video below), Winderbaum revealed that while the animated Spider-Man series was initially intended to be a prequel to the MCU, it is now not canon with the MCU sacred timeline. The decision was made to allow the creative team more freedom, as sticking to the MCU canon would have limited the stories and characters they could use. Winderbaum said:

“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man started as Spider-Man: Freshman Year. He’s going to be a freshman, can we get away with it being entirely in the MCU and very early on in the development process we realized how locked in that actually made us. Like we couldn’t really use his rouges gallery or this aspect of his origin. It was not fun, honestly. We would’ve had to put so many limiters on our story to get it to lock into canon so quickly that we were like, ‘Throw the doors off this place, blow it up.’ What do we want to do, what is Spider-Man about? Through Jeff’s vision it does have a lot of the DNA that is similar to the MCU’s depiction of the Tom Holland Spider-Man but it also draws all the way back to Steve Ditko and it tells a standalone story that like many comic books is adjacent to the main continuity but speaks to what is inherent about the character.”

It became pretty clear early on that Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man would not be MCU canon, as the pitch at D23 in 2022 revealed a What If…? inspired scenario where instead of Tony Stark recruiting Peter Parker early on in his career, it would be Norman Osborn. Spider-Man: No Way Home also established that Norman Osborn, his son Harry, and OsCorp do not exist in the MCU Sacred Timeline. Plenty of other Spider-Man villain variants, like Doc Ock and Venom, who Peter Parker had not met in the MCU before Captain America: Civil War, are set to appear.
‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’ is Not Worried About Canon

The news of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man not being part of the MCU canon is part of a new trend at Marvel Animation that harkens back to pre-MCU days. Marvel tended to release a separate animated series to air in between live-action films that were their separate canon. X-Men: Evolution debuted one year after X-Men opened in theaters and concluded just a few months after the release of X2: X-Men United. Marvel has often released a Spider-Man series alongside a new movie. The Spectacular Spider-Man debuted shortly after Spider-Man 3. Ultimate Spider-Man aired two months before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man, and Marvel’s Spider-Man debuted in 2017, the same year as Spider-Man: Homecoming. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will tide fans over until Spider-Man 4 in July 2026.

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It also shows Marvel Animation’s willingness to tell stories outside the MCU canon or with their own unique spin. Since being acquired by Disney, Marvel Animation has often been accused of trying to synergize with the MCU into one brand image as opposed to various different styles. The popular and beloved Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes was canceled in favor of the more MCU-inspired Avengers Assemble. Even the MCU’s first foray into animation, What If…?, was part of the MCU canon as it connected directly to the events of the multiverse unfolding in Loki. Yet series like X-Men ’97, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and the ending of What If…? Season 3 symbolize a new era for Marvel, one where they don’t need to stick so closely to the template laid out by the MCU and can be free to tell their own stories.

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