"Great Power... Great Responsibility"

Introduction

As stated in my previous post this one will be about the pilot episode, "Great Power... Great Responsibility" I wrote for a Spider-Man fan series titled "Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man" 

Premise

I said in my previous post that this series is set in the 1960s and will focus on a college-aged Peter Parker. I chose to focus on a college-aged Peter because I'm sick of every new interpretation of the character once again having him stuck in high school and with a young adult Peter I can tell more mature stories. 

Since the series is set during the 1960s and focuses on a college-aged Peter, each season will take place over a semester or year of Peter's time at Empire State University. Thus each season Peter grows older as he gets closer to graduation. Each season is a new year starting with Season 1 taking place in 1965, Season 2 in 1966, etc. Why 1965? That's the year (in real-time) that Peter graduated from Midtown High School and started attending ESU in the comics. 

For the first episode, much like my distaste for every new incarnation of the webhead being seemingly stuck in high school, I decided to skip over the origin story. In this episode there will be flashbacks to key moments in the origin namely the spider bite, letting the thief go, and catching Uncle Ben's murderer because those are key moments that not only shaped Peter Parker as a character (and of course changed his life forever) but also shape Peter's/Spider-Man's relationship with other characters in the pilot. 

Since the origin already happened in this version, what's the episode about? After reading the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man where instead of becoming a superhero right away Peter tries to make money as Spider-Man to help out his Aunt rather than himself. That was the main inspiration for this pilot. It's about a young adult trying to help his Aunt using what he's done before until he realizes his true calling as a hero. It's something unique that's not featured in many adaptations of this character. 

Plans

Now, I will go over my plans for at least the 1st season. This season is set in 1965 and concerns Peter Parker's 1st year at Empire State University where he adjusts to his double life as a young adult and fledgling superhero. I want each season to have a major villain. This season's major villain is Doctor Otto Octavius a.k.a. Doctor Octopus. In the first episode, it's revealed that not only is Octavius one of Peter's professors but that he gave a demonstration during the summer where he used a harness with mechanical arms to control a particle accelerator without the need of laboratory technicians. This demonstration was where Peter was bitten by a radioactive spider. 

At the beginning of the season, Octavius is Peter's professor and will be a mirror of Peter showing what he might have grown up to be if Uncle Ben hadn't died and will later become Doctor Octopus towards the end of the season. Since he's one of Spider-Man's greatest foes, I wanted to build him up and have the audience get to know him before his unfortunate accident. Now there will be other minor villains such as Sandman, Electro and Vulture that will but they won't be getting as much character development. 

In my previous post, I said one of the inspirations for this series was the Lee/Ditko stories which will serve as the inspiration for many of the episodes' plots and also gave me a way to make my vision of Peter Parker a bit more unique. Normally Peter Parker is portrayed as a nice guy but in the Lee/Ditko stories, but he's an outcast - a bitter, resentful outcast. Both before and after the spider bite. But he gradually grows out of it by the Lee/Romita Sr stories and becomes a better person. Peter's early bitterness is usually ignored in most adaptions which is why I want to explore that side of Peter in mine. 

Here's a few examples of Peter Parker's bitter, resentful side:

Art by Steve Ditko

Logline

A young college student with superhuman abilities wants to help his financially struggling aunt after finding himself racked with guilt over the death of his uncle but struggles to find his true calling. 

Synopsis

Recovering from the recent death of his beloved Uncle Ben, Peter Parker finds himself now strapped with a newfound sense of responsibility as he decides to use his powers as Spider-Man to help his Aunt May. One failure after another leaves him unsure of what to do he finds with his powers until he finds his true calling as a hero.

Teleplay

Here is the link to read the pdf of my Writer's Draft for this teleplay:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1McubyI7JP4ZwdBdENiJHexMqguuZfyJz/view?usp=sharing

Here is the link to read the pdf of my Writer's Rev Draft for this teleplay:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e0DAPhrU011kIK9hhsnPISCrMI94CNch/view?usp=sharing

References to the Source Material

Now I know I said that I'm skipping over the origin but I decided to include flashbacks to key moments in the origin as I mentioned above. But in these flashback scenes, I decided to reference the source material by ripping the dialogue straight from Amazing Fantasy 15. Here's what I mean:

Since this episode is heavily inspired by the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, I also included scenes and dialogue taken from there as well but I hope you find them while reading my teleplay. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below