Friday, March 13, 2009 Spider-Man Has A Giant Robot


And a motorcycle, and a ginourmous wristwatch, and..

Grainy episodes of the 1978 Toei Spider-Man television series have been floating about the intertubes ever since they were wide enough to squeeze video through. But now Marvel is hosting subbed episodes on their website, with a new one uploaded every Thursday. Now we can finally follow the dialogue, and at long last confirm that it still doesn't make any fricking sense.

The Japanese series is vastly different from its comic book inspiration. Our Hero is a hot-blooded motorcycle racer given spider-like powers, a spider-like costume, and a leopard-like spaceship by aliens who obviously knew nothing about thematic consistency. The spaceship transforms into a giant robot, and legend has it that the success of Spider-Man resulted in all subsequent Japanese TV superheroes to be likewise saddled with the things. Yes, the Power Rangers are the direct descendants of Spider-Man and there's nothing we can do about it.

The first episode is posted below. You'll have to head over to Marvel's video site to watch the rest.


And because you'll want to listen to the catchy theme tune on your iThing while performing your superheroic workout, here's a link - courtesy of the late, lamented CosmoBells blog - to download the soundtrack album in mp3 format. Now let's head to the gym.

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