The Amazing Spider-Man has become a household name since making his big splash in comics back in 1962, and over the past twenty years has proven a major draw on the big screen with multiple mega-dollar blockbusters. But back in 1978 the character made one of his first live-action appearances on a Japanese television series (not to be confused with the short-lived CBS series from 1977) featuring a very different Spider-Man than we have come to know. This bat-shit-crazy version–known as Supaidāman in Japan–delivered a series that looked something like the web crawler meets Ninjas meets The Power Rangers meets the Shogun Warriors meets Ultraman, and you can watch episodes on the web!
You see, Marvel entered into a licensing agreement back in the 1970’s with Toei Company that allowed for Japanese adaptations of several of their better known comic book characters. Toei started with Spider-Man and produced a 41 episode series with a character whose costume and powers closely resembled the Marvel version, but who added quite a few changes from the original. This web crawler had alien origins and he received his powers from his 400-year-old “brother” who originated from the planet Spider (where else?). He is tasked with fighting the sinister Professor Monster who commands the Iron Cross Army in his attempts to conquer the Universe. Along with his customary powers, the Japanese Spider-Man has at his disposal the giant space ship known as “Marveller” that transforms into a Shogun Warrior-like robot known as “Leopardon”. He also has the use of a super-high-tech car (known as The Spider Machine GP-7) and a vast assortment of other high-tech little gadgets. And he also has a tendency to slip into martial arts poses before fighting.
The series quickly headed into Power Rangers type absurdity and offered bonkers episode titles like “To the Flaming Hell: See the Tears of the Snake Woman”, “The Hero’s Shining Hot Blood”, and “From the Unexplored Amazon: Here Comes the Mummified Beautiful Woman” (you can see some highlights of the show in the video clip above). It’s all great cheesy retro fun (Leopardon was even referenced in the Ready Player One novel) and definitely worth checking out for some over-the-top superhero action. All of the episodes are available at the Internet Archive (with subtitles) where they can be streamed or downloaded. This would definitely provide some great viewing late at night with a group of friends and plenty of alcoholic beverages!
You can read more about the show at its Wikipedia page.
