One of the better cartoons of recent years was the Kids WB! airing adaptation of Spider-Man, called Spectacular Spider-Man.  With fluid animation and stellar writing, I enjoyed every minute of it.  However, I guess today's announcement is the unofficial confirmation that Spectacular is canceled.

Worry not though, kids, as Disney announced today an official animated adaptation of Ultimate Spider-Man to air on their Disney XD network starting in Fall 2011.  As far as I know, this is the first official project by Disney & Marvel combined, and aiming at such a high profile project for Marvel fans is certainly hitting the ground running.

Ultimate Spider-Man, created by comic author extraordinaire Brian Michael Bendis was a “continuity-less” relaunch of the Spider-Man comics, and ran for 133 issues from 2000-2009 before relaunching as Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man earlier this year.  Simply put, Ultimate Spidey is one of my favorite comics of all time, and to see it adapted to animated form has me BEYOND excited.

My biggest worry, however, is this - if the cartoon is a direct adaptation of the comic, and the Marc Webb directed reboot of the Spider-Man film series in 2012 is an indirect adaptation of the Bendis series - might we be getting a little too much of the same story?

Fanboys may say what they will, but adaptations of a comic are always best when each version takes advantage of their relative formats, be it an alteration for TV, film, etc.  I just worry that we may hear the stories of nerdy Peter Parker one too many times in too short a period.

Either way though, the DVR is preemptively set.

Source:  ICv2 - ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ Animated Series.