To most people, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is regarded as the first big screen outing for the hero. But that's not quite true; twenty-five years before Tobey Maguire was bitten by that radioactive spider there was another movie that ensures no matter what happens to the franchise in its future, its worst is decidedly in its past. Released internationally as a theatrical movie, Spider-Man served as a pilot for US TV series The Amazing Spider-Man. Typically seventies, complete with yellow titles font, the show ran for only thirteen episodes, failing to find any audience and getting heavily criticised by Stan Lee himself. And watching the pilot (although there's never been a DVD release, it's readily available on YouTube) it's easy to see why. Made before Superman: The Movie gave some semblance of legitimacy to superhero movies, you shouldn't really expect much from it, but that doesn't mean you can overlook its incompetence. Uncle Ben is nowhere to be found and budgetary reasons mean there's no web-swinging, leaving us with embarrassingly stilted action sequences. But what of the plot? Once Peter (played by Nicholas Hammond, best known for playing Friedrich von Trapp in The Sound Of Music) has his powers there must be the realisation of something exciting from the comics, right? Not at all. Spider-Man shuns a plethora of great villains and instead puts the hero up against a hypnotist. It's not even so bad it's good. A couple more theatrical movies, made up of re-edited episodes, were released. Titled Spider-Man Strikes Back and Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge, these were even more dire, easily betraying their TV roots.
