How did Spider-Man, Firestar, and Iceman become best friends and also a superhero team? And how did they afford that massive super-computer in their secret lair, when they're also broke college students who can barely afford to pay their rent to Aunt May? "The Origin of the Spider-Friends" tries to answer these questions, although after watching this episode, we really don't know why Peter Parker is friends with these two. Bobby and Angelica relentlessly bully Peter at school, although it's not entirely clear if they even know they're doing that. Also, Tony Stark is in this episode, because he turns out to be the reason the Spider-Friends have that super-computer. This episode's plot doesn't make very much sense, but we all found it to be a delight to watch... that's classic Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends! We repeatedly refer to the GENO pilot in this episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcOGmOX79nw), which was a pilot for a TV show that Ryan and Maddy made in 2016. We never made any other episodes of the show, though. Also, Todd refers at one point to this amazing clip from the Wonder Woman TV show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCJsCM_4BNI Next episode: "Spidey Meets the Girl From Tomorrow," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

"Attack of the Arachnoid" gives us an evil version of Spider-Man in the form of a villain named Zoltan. We can't help but feel bad for his girlfriend Monica, who wears a yellow jumpsuit just like April O'Neill and seems to have a more brilliant scientific mind than her evil boyfriend. Anyway, Zoltan managed to replicate the circumstances that created Peter Parker's version of Spider-Man (bite from a radioactive spider), but his version just doesn't work as well, and it results in some true body horror and also one of the better episodes we've seen in a while. We all liked this one! Next episode: "The Origin of the Spider-Friends," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Video-Man is back yet again in "The Education of a Superhero," but he's not the Video-Man we met twice before. That's because this episode was actually a backdoor pilot for a Video-Man TV show in which Video-Man is a superhero who joins the X-Men, who also appear at the end of this episode. That's right, the formerly villainous Video-Man is now a budding superhero, whose civilian identity is the video games-obsessed nerd Francis Byte. His origin story includes a wholly original villain named Gamesman, who is kind of a rip-off of Arcade, but we actually liked this episode anyway. Maybe because it's about video games, and... zombies, kinda? Next episode: "Attack of the Arachnoid," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

If there's one thing we know about Dracula, it's that he's supposed to be sexy. Not so much on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, where the "Bride of Dracula" episode makes the famous vampire decidedly unappealing. Firestar gets kidnapped to be his bride and is therefore out of commission for almost this entire episode, much to our chagrin. Meanwhile, Spider-Man and Iceman spend the whole episode ragging on each other and competing over Firestar in the process of trying to rescue her, which isn't that fun to watch either. We do make it fun to recap, though, and we also manage to make several references to Castlevania and Ryan's self-insert fanfiction about his vampire OC Fearix Wolfgang. Next episode: "The Education of a Superhero," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Here's the audio-only version of the wild-ass YouTube performance that Maddy, Ry P, Ry T, and Todd did to raise funds for The Trevor Project (https://tilt.fyi/lWsgWRSOJc). We re-enacted the entirety of the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode, "Seven Little Superheroes," featuring the Chameleon kidnapping the Spider-Friends along with Doctor Strange, Namor, Shanna, and Captain America. Despite facing a copyright strike from YouTube near the end of the show for showing footage of the original episode, the Mutant Agers persevere and continue their performance in a second video (both available on our YouTube channel, reinstated thanks to fair use guidelines). WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/@themutantages/streams Next episode: "The Education of a Superhero," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Who is Sadie Sink playing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and why won't Marvel just confirm that the answer is Firestar? We take a minute to discuss this before diving into our review of "Spider-Man Unmasked!" in which the Spider-Friends go on vacation at the same place as Flash Thompson and decide to ruin his life (again). Because Peter Parker decides to change into his Spider-Man costume while hiding behind a sandcastle on the beach, Sandman discovers Peter's secret identity, because of course the sandcastle was actually Sandman (go with it). Angelica's solution is to trick Flash into putting on a Spider-Man costume and put him next to civilian-clad Peter, so as to confuse Sandman into thinking he didn't know what went on. Which was worse for Flash, this or the Video-Man episode? Hard to say. Next episode: July 5th livestream on our YouTube channel!! We're re-enacting the Chameleon episode. E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

This is Firestar's origin story, arguably a more accurate and official one than the (worse) one that she gets in the comic books later on because Angelica Jones was invented specifically for Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. We loved this origin story for her because it involves her pushing back against a sociopathic mean girl at school and, perhaps best of all, the X-Men are in this episode. Storm makes the mistake of asking Firestar for her backstory, which is why we get to hear an extremely lengthy summary of every single time Angelica got bullied for being a mutant (and for being poor). You know who else is in this episode? The Juggernaut, bitch. Further reading: https://screenrant.com/xmen-emma-frost-firestar-horse-butter-rum/ Next episode: "Spider-Man Unmasked," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

We all know Peter Parker's origin story, but Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was obligated to give it to us all over again, because this is Spider-Man's show. Before we get to the mandatory flashback depicting Uncle Ben's death, we get a modern-day story about a villain named The Shocker whose superpower involves vibrating people. We make all the jokes you'd expect us to make about that, but also, most of this episode is about how Ryan's apartment has been haunted by an old-timey shopkeeper who was murdered there in the early 1900s. Why is that something we discussed on this episode, and so often? Who knows??? Next episode: "A Firestar is Born," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Kraven the Hunter has hatched a plan to breed a dinosaur army that will help him take over New York, and the technology that he's using to do it requires Firestar's heat powers. To Bobby and Peter's chagrin/jealousy, Angelica is easily seduced by Kraven and doesn't realize what's going on until after he's kidnapped her and put her in an airplane hangar. But this isn't just any airplane hangar; it's a glorified Danger Room made up to look like the Savage Land, and it's full of traps designed to stop our heroes. With Ms. Lion in tow, because she gets to go everywhere with them, Spider-Man and Iceman set off to save their BFF. Unfortunately for us, Kraven and his traps are far less entertaining than those of his more beloved sibling Chameleon (or at least, more beloved on *this* podcast). Next episode: "Along Came Spidey," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!

Currently removed from Disney Plus, "The Quest of the Red Skull" is both offensive and poorly written. The Spider-Friends team up with Professor Hiawatha Smith, an indigenous American version of Indiana Jones who would be a really cool character if he weren't also a Noble Savage stereotype with magic powers based on "Indian lore." In this episode, Red Skull and a couple of Nazis are seeking out an old map to Hitler's hidden stash of missiles and cash, and Hiawatha Smith is the one who's been holding onto the map for protection all these years. Once the Nazis steal the map, our heroes follow them to the island, overcoming a series of Legend of Zelda traps and swastika-based environmental puzzles once they arrive. Next episode: "The Crime of All Centuries," Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends E-mail us questions and feedback at [email protected], or follow us on social media at TheMutantAges. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting us via patreon.com/themutantages. Thanks!