Ranking Every Marvel Animated TV Series From Worst To Best

by Ewan Paterson

1. Spider-Man (1994)

This series really did have it all, didn't it?

I mean, you've got the brilliant intro, an iconic voice actor in Christopher Daniel Barnes (who, by all means, did for Spidey what Kevin Conroy did for Batman), the late, great Joan Lee as the voice of Madame Web, a brilliant cameo from Stan Lee, crossovers galore and, to top it all off, one of the best page-to-screen adaptations of a comic book story-arc ever (it involves the Black Suit, obvs).

Like X-Men, an argument can be made that the show hasn't aged that well, and indeed, if there's anything that really holds it back it would be the very obvious censorship that it had to navigate. I mean, everyone has lasers, no one was allowed to say 'blood' (which kind of made things awkward for poor Morbius the Vampire), that sort of thing. Despite the notable censorship, the show thrived on adapting story-arcs straight off the page, even going as far as to include Secret Wars. Not that they didn't do their own thing or anything, it's just that well, when they did, it made for some great nightmare fuel (Man Spider says hello).

There's just so much to love about Spidey's nineties incarnation - even more-so when you consider the lengths it went to adapt some of the most iconic storylines from the pages of Amazing Fantasy onwards. We can credit this with the fact that the show was, for the most part, written by actual comic book writers. Guys like Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway and J. M. DeMatteis brought a wealth of experience to its construction, and given just how influential the show was, it makes sense that it's continually accredited with raising the bar for what a superhero show could achieve, along with the other heavy-hitters of the era, like Batman: The Animated Series (it's no coincidence that writers fluctuated across both shows).

So yeah, nineties Spidey is fab, and is without doubt the best animated series Marvel has ever produced.

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Do you agree with Spidey taking the top spot? Think H.E.R.B.I.E. is actually a better FF member than Johnny? Be sure to post your thoughts in the comments below!

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.