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SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS
COMPLETE SEASON 2 & 3 - UK DVD REVIEW

By the skin of our teeth, this release seeped out AFTER the company that produced it folded. After years of thinking the show would never be on DVD, then finally getting Season 1, it began to look like this portion of the show wouldn't make it out. This release is very similar to the Season 1 release except that it has a few disappointing details missing. It is available from AMAZON.CO.UK in limited supply. (If they've sold out, try your luck on Ebay.)

Video

The picture quality is a little better than the Season 1 release if only because the film it was transferred from isn't quite as old. Again though,quite a few episodes seem to have the contrast set too high. Iceman often appears white (he's a light blue) and his interior lines are washed out at times. Flesh tones (people's faces), can be washed out at times too. The yellow in Firestar's costume comes out much better in this release probably due to the age.

Audio
Sounds great.

Extras
There is only a "restoration" video like the other Marvel/Liberation videos have had.

Package
Another nice package but, just like the Season 1 release, the artwork and color scheme are big disappointments.

Menus
Great job just like on the Season 1 release. I love the transitions and especially love the use of the background music on the sub-menu screens.

The Bad News - (Differences from the original airings)

Just like Season 1 this title card (right) is missing. It was shown in the NBC airings and hasn't been seen since. Spidey's eye in the pic zoomed toward the camera to reveal the episode title card. I supplied this to Liberation from the 16MMs I have. Unfortunately, various factors such as time and cost prevented it from being included. Apparently, it would have thrown off ALL of the subtitles which had already been completed. It IS something I would liked to have seen included. Having the episodes (mostly) unedited makes this seems like a small concession though.

The big difference in this release and the Season 1 release is that THESE episodes originally had Stan Lee narrating them. All of Stan Lee's narrations are missing from the Season 2 episodes. And many narrations are missing from the Season 3 episodes. For a complete list of what is missing, check out the STAN LEE NARRATION LIST.

Also, neither the second season or third season have their original intros. They both have not been seen since the NBC airings and are most likley lost except for video tape copies. Both can be seen in the MULTIMEDIA section of this site..

One other small difference: In the episode "Along came Spidey", Peter, Angelica and Bobby are eating on a sidewalk with Aunt May before an attack by the Shocker. In the original version, Peter's eyes glow when his Spider-Sense warns him. For some unknown reason, they do NOT glow on the UK masters.

History of this release
As mentioned in the Season 1 review, this volume was released AFTER Liberation's UK entertainment division closed it's doors. (A Complete Series release was released too that simply packaged the previous two releases together in a box with new artwork.) Since Liberaton closed, it means all three of the releases are in limited supply. At the time of this writing, another company, Clear Vision, had picked up the rights to the Marvel Cartoons in the UK. It remains to be seen if they will re-release any of the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends DVDs. There was a Dan Gilvezan (voice of Spider-Man) interview that was filmed for a potential Collector's Edition release that Liberation had mentioned to me. Hopefully Clear Vision will decide to release it.

Summary
Better than nothing, at least the video can be seen in DVD quality for the first time even if we didn't get all of the Stan Lee narrations.

Excelsior!

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