5 Old School Marvel Films That Need More Attention

3. The Suprisingly Existent Amazing Spider-Man (1977) Live Action Series It's strange how few people know this actually exists, especially with all the attention our favourite Marvel hero gets. The show also had good ratings and a low budget, so it was a solid win for CBS. In #5 of this list I spoke of Hollywood mistreating it's employees, and here is an example of television doing that very same thing. In 1979, the show was cancelled along with Wonder Woman because CBS didn't want to be "The Superhero Network." Karma has again gotten this studio back as they are now known as the "Chuck Lorre Network." Sucks to be you, CBS (well, apart from the fact that you make billions, it sucks to be you. Okay, maybe it doesn't). The series departs vastly from the comics, the only returning character being the angry, mustachioed newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson. Aunt May made two appearances (played by different actresses each time for no good reason), and Robbie Robertson also made an appearance in the pilot. The lack of failiar faces is evident, as even Spidey looks a little confused in the opening titles. For the 70's, it's pretty good, but is somewhat deterred by it's, shall we say, "limiting" suit. It restricts the action of what would otherwise be some fine action scenes and would be very good at representing the elasticity of Spidey in the late-70's, which would certainly have been very impressive. As it is the 70's, the show has a pretty "groovy" theme song. You know what else is groovy (aside from Bruce Campbell's cameos)? The script consultant was Stan Lee. Although he didn't actually like this series, calling it "trouble". On that note, let's skip ahead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uRLgeEepzg Additionally, whilst the unfaithful American television adaptation of Spider-Man was airing, thanks to Toei, Japan was gifted with another unfaithful American television adaptation of Spider-Man, this time just simply titled "Spider-Man." A basic plot can be seen in the video below, and it's pretty much Power Rangers: Spider-Ranger (give that idea five to ten years and it'll be a real thing). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxGtH-2duM Spider-Man is also very out of character, his lyrics and the advertisement suggesting him to be more like the Punisher than anybody else. He's firing a machine gun at his enemies! That's most definitely not the Spidey we know and love (hell, it's not even the "Superior" Spider-Man we know and kinda like). I also love the lyrics of the theme song, which can also be found on YouTube, which state: "" I do find a sort of smug pleasure in theme songs outright questioning the motives behind the character (Hello, Larry anyone? Just me? Probably). *Translated from Japanese (see what I did there, comic fans?) Finally - and not to bombard you with YouTube videos - Stan Lee holds a huge amount of respect for the Japanese show (he found the American one to be a disappointment, and is quoted as saying it was "too juvenile" and "a total nightmare". I really recommend this video as it gives great insight to the shows, and the last three minutes really do prove that he is worth of the title "Stan The Man". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mg5FIPldLs