On a planet run by Animal Hybrids, someone like Spider-Man merits more respect than he does on his own planet, while someone like Peter Parker has to live on the fringes of society with the rest of the humans. Spider-Man is forced to help accomplish Jameson’s goal in order to expedite their departure to their Earth. John Jameson joined a freedom force to liberate the humans and refuses to return home until that goal happens. Crash-Landing on Counter-Earth, Spider-Man finds a world run by Animal hybrids and human beings on the lowest rungs of society. Overcome with guilt, Spider-Man steals some tech from Reed Richards and another shuttle to bring John Jameson home. Jameson’s shuttle crashes and he is presumed dead, with Spider-Man blamed.

The premise of Unlimited dealt with Venom and Carnage sabotaging John Jameson’s manned flight to an earth at the other side of our galaxy, which Spider-Man failed to stop. The fact that anything coherent came from that, let alone extraordinarily captivating, is amazing. It was one of those rare times when people are painted into a corner and build the Notre Dame Cathedral from a house of cards. That meant for the show to happen at all, it had to use the elements that wouldn’t infringe on the movies: the High Evolutionary, Counter-Earth, John Jameson, Venom. The first idea was to create a series adapting Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s original Amazing Spider-Man stories, before the Spider-Man movie by Sony put the brakes on that. In reality, the story of Unlimited’s origin is much more interesting and unusual. On its face, it could be seen as a ripoff of DC’s Batman Beyond(tech-based suit, futuristic setting, freaky nontraditional takes on enemies). One spin that I’ve always found inspired and unappreciated is the 1999 series, Spider-Man Unlimited…

It’s a familiar story that we all know by heart but tolerate so we can see how far it gets taken. We’ve seen Peter Parker in high-school and in love, fighting his greatest enemies, twice in live-action (soon to be a third retelling) and many more in animation.

Unlimited spin