Everything Action Theater: Japanese Spider-Man

One of the many Spider-Men having a cameo in this weekend’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, you can watch the first episode of the Japanese Spider-Man series for the latest Everything Action Theater.  Spawned from a deal between Marvel Comics and Toei, the Japanese Spider-Man series debuted in 1978 and starred Shinji Tōdō as Takuya Yamashiro aka Spider-Man.  When an alien named Garia crash lands on Earth and is mortally wounded, he tasks Takuya with continuing his battle against the evil Professor Monster and his Iron Cross Army.  Garia injects some of his blood into Takuya, giving him the powers of a spider and gifting him a gauntlet that can summon the Spider-Protector costume and control the spaceship Marveller, which can transform into a giant mecha called Leopardon. The show was much more Super Sentai than anything traditionally Spider-Man but it has it’s own wacky charm that has made the series a cult classic.  Along with his upcoming cameo in Across the Spider-Verse, Takuya has appeared in comics like Spider-Verse and Spider-Geddon and he also appeared in Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One.  You can watch the first episode of the series, “The Time of Revenge Has Come! Beat Down Iron Cross Group!!”, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l-3AoOHNAg