Spider-Man: Maximum Venom part 1, 2020
The last time I wrote about working on a Spider-Man series, it was about my contribution to a single episode in season 1 of Marvel’s Spider-Man, which made its debut on DisneyXD in August 2017.
Two years later, the show was still going and they pulled me back in. Okay, more accurately, I asked to come back in. It was 2018, and my multi-season run on Avengers Assemble finally came to an end when we wrapped up the last episode of Black Panther’s Quest.
Marvel Animation Studio was starting to lose steam, since all the shows we made were destined for Disney XD and the rise of streaming services meant XD’s days were numbered. It was another case of “nobody knows what’s going on right now,” which had been a common refrain in TV animation since I first walked in the door in 1996.
The downside this time was that when a series ended at our studio, it wasn’t replaced by a new one. After Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy dropped off, the only shows left were Marvel Rising and Marvel’s Spider-Man. It was too late for me to join Rising (which was fully staffed), but Spider-Man had been renewed for a third season and the timing was right for me to jump on board.
On the other hand, it was only going to be a half-season. Disney XD only wanted 12 episodes rather than the usual 26, so it would be a shorter run than usual. On the other OTHER hand (how many hands is that?) they gave me an uncommonly long time to ramp up.
Our supervising director, Dan Duncan, had already done a lot of groundwork in advance. As soon as all 12 scripts were ready (Feb 2018), he put them through the design phase. When I started in June, there were still six months on the calendar before we had to get up to full speed (Jan 2019). To this day I still don’t know how they justified this in the budget, but they gave me that entire six month period to solo-storyboard the first episode. It was just plain wacky.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved getting to do that. My favorite part of storyboarding for animation is that there’s just one pair of hands on the steering wheel. One artist gets to make all the decisions that everyone downstream will follow to the end. I hadn’t had the pleasure of solo-boarding an entire episode since Heavy Gear in 2001. And I had certainly never been given the luxury of six months to do it. It was such a strange, dream-like time. For six years straight, Avengers Assemble was a constant deadline crush. Now I could come in late, work until lunch, then just sort of do my own thing until it was time to go home.
It took a while to get over the guilt. But nobody expected me to go any faster. So after a while I started looking at it as my karmic reward for six years of high-pressure stress tests. And it sure helped me get PITSBERG done.
When 2019 finally rolled around, the pace picked up quite a bit. A second episode director named Sol Choi joined the crew, and we mapped out our production plan. The season would run 12 episodes, but consisted of six stories. Each story was a 2-parter. I’d direct the first part and Sol directed the second part. That gave us six episodes apiece. And we’d each have our own in-house storyboard crew. My solo-storyboard phase was over, and now I’d get to work with friends again.
Wikipedia describes the series like so:
Season 3 (Maximum Venom)
Taking place two weeks after the previous season, Spider-Man uncovers two separate plots centered on Venom. The most prominent is helping Max Modell save the Earth from an invasion of Klyntar summoned by Venom. The secondary plot is a conspiracy helmed by Curt Connors to frame Modell for Venom’s actions. Backed up by Hobgoblin, the Spider Team exposes Norman’s conspiracy, resulting in Modell regaining his job. During the battle with the Klyntar, Horizon High is destroyed, with the Spiders planning to build a tech laboratory called the Worldwide Engineering Brigade to replace it.
The series’ incarnation of Spider-Man made guest appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy and the fifth season of Avengers Assemble, which were set in the same continuity.
“The Spiders” isn’t a typo, by the way. In this Spider-Man series, Peter Parker was just one of four spider-kids going to high school together. The others were Miles Morales (Spy-D), Gwen Stacy (Ghost Spider) and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl), all well-established before I stepped in. They had various relationships with the faculty of Horizon High (a school for geniuses) and plenty of interaction with other Marvel heroes and villains.
With that said, let’s get into the first episode.
Web of Venom
Broadcast on DisneyXD April 19, 2020
Storyboard production period: June 2018 to April 2019
Watch it on Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV, Roku Channel, and Hulu. Or right here if you scroll down.
Part 1, directed by me
Finished Animatic
I storyboarded the entire thing, then Supervising Director Dan Duncan went in to revise a few parts. This includes the opening teaser. After that, you’ll see it switch over to me. Dan’s work pops in and out afterward (along with that of a few revisionists). The overall result of having six months to draw a storyboard is that it’s much cleaner and more on-model than average. Try not to let it spoil you.
Synopsis:
While Gwen, Miles, and Anya are away on a college tour, Peter learns that Max has created a synthetic yet non-sentient copy of Venom and Curt Connors has been hired as the new bio-mechanical professor. While Peter gives new student Grady Scraps a tour of Horizon High, Grady accidentally unleashes a technology-eating monstrosity called the Technovore from Horizon High’s project graveyard. Spider-Man has to take an enormous risk by using the synthetic symbiote copy to defeat the rampaging machine before it eats the Arc Reactor donated to the school by Tony Stark.
Finished Episode
Part 2, directed by Sol Choi
Finished Episode
Synopsis:
Peter continues testing the synthetic symbiote copy while stopping the Stark Industries train system when it runs out of control upon adapting to the electrical current of the train’s Arc Reactor. During the incident, Peter discovers that the symbiote can render itself immune to the original Venom’s weaknesses. While working under the orders of his benefactor to expose the “corrupt operations” that Max is doing, Connors accidentally frees the original Venom. Spider-Man must rescue Connors and stop Venom from unleashing an alien weapon of unknown purpose.
Next time: Amazing Friends