Spider-Man Unlimited in the 2000s

Volume 3? Did You Skip a Volume?

Yes. Yes, I did. After the first volume of Spider-Man Unlimited ended in the 90s, Marvel cranked out a second volume. That title was based on the Spider-Man Unlimited cartoon that ran from the years 2000 and 2001. The second volume of that title, like many based on cartoons that Marvel was producing at the time, started off adapting cartoon episodes until moving to original stories based on the cartoon series. However, like the TV show, the second volume of Spider-Man Unlimited was a dud and it was canceled after six issues.

What can be said about Spider-Man Unlimited? Well, it was a series about Spider-Man getting stranded on the High Evolutionary’s Counter-Earth while trying to stop Venom and Carnage from taking over a space ship. Spider-Man is given a new costume and fights mostly new villains. According to an old Newsarama interview. there were some rights issues doing a new cartoon because, at the time, Marvel and Sony were working on the first Spider-Man film. The series borrowed a page from Batman Beyond and put the Batman franchise into a new and different location. They were going to adapt Spider-Man 2099, but since Batman Beyond had already beat them to the punch about a future version of their hero. Still, despite their best intentions, Spider-Man Unlimited is still technically a rip-off of Batman Beyond, only with a weaker and less inspired premise. I mean, Counter-Earth? For real? That plot point was already 20 years old at that point.

This brings us to…..

Spider-Man Unlimited Volume 3

The third volume of Spider-Man Unlimited was launched alongside a reboot of its sister publication X-Men Unlimited. This third volume was a short lived series but featured two stories instead of one long story like the previous volume usually did. These stories were often stand-alone tales that weren’t heavy on continuity. The paired up-and-coming artists with writers who didn’t typically write in the medium of comic books.

There’s not really much else I can say about the title. None of the stories shook things up, nor were there any that were memorable for being good or bad. If you want some light reading this would be the series to check out, I guess. I wish I could say more than I could about the 2nd volume.

Anyway, the third volume only lasted 15 issues before being canceled. As I write this (June 2020) the series hasn’t been revived.