UK Only - Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends Complete Collection on DVD

It looks like the complete series for Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends has been released in the UK on DVD (Region 2; not playable on North American DVD players).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ABK7HA0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B00ABK7HA0&linkCode=as2&tag=lyinginthegut-21

Here are some details:

"All three seasons of the animated TV series in which Spider-Man forms an alliance with Iceman and Firestar. Known collectively as 'The Spider Friends', the super-trio set out to fight crime in New York City. Along the way they do battle with Spidey's arch-enemies, while also meeting other heroes and villains from the Marvel comics world.

"Episodes comprise:

• 'The Triumph of the Green Goblin'
• 'The Crime of All Centuries'
• 'The Fantastic Mr Frump'
•  'Sunfire'
•  'Swarm'
•  '7 Little Superheroes'
•  'Video Man' 
• 'The Prison Plot'
•  'Spidey Goes to Hollywood'
•  'The Vengeance of Loki'
•  'Knights and Demons'
•  'Pawns of the Kingpin'
•  'The Quest for the Red Skull'
•  'The Origin of the Iceman'
•  'Along Came Spidey'
•  'A Firestar Is Born'
•  'Spider-Man: Unmasked'
•  'The Transylvanian Connection'
•  'The Education of a Superhero'
•  'Attack of the Arachnoid'
•  'Origin of the Spider-Friends'
•  'Spidey Meets the Girl from Tomorrow'
•  'The X-Men Adventure'
• 'Mission: Save The Guardstar'."

According to wikipedia, this release "did not include any of the Stan Lee narrations from the first or second season, only some of the Stan Lee narrations were in the third season."

And lastly, according to http://www.spider-friends.com/, "The previous rights problems with the show [being put out in North America on DVD] were between Disney and Marvel.  Since Disney has now purchased Marvel one would assume that Disney can release the show whenever they feel like it. "

There's also a petition asking Disney to get their act together, so if you loved this show in the 1980s, sign it here: http://www.petitiononline.com/SPMAFDVD/petition.html

1984 - Concept art for unproduced ANT-MAN animated series

Grabbed from Marvel Comics: The Untold Story's Facebook page:

1985 - Concept art from the Daredevil animated series

Lightning the Super Dog?

Mark Evanier told Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed:

"I wrote the bible and pilot and pilot for that Daredevil cartoon series…or rather, I should say I wrote a bible and pilot for it. Others had done several of each and ABC wasn’t happy with any of the approaches. I was hired to take over and much of what I did involved throwing out concepts and alterations that others (including Stan Lee) had done to the basic premise. By that point, there were a lot of characters and gimmicks a lot less faithful to the premise than any superdog.

"I basically turned it back into the version of Daredevil drawn by Wally Wood. Matt Murdock did have the seeing-eye dog, which was not an illogical thing for a blind guy to have, and the dog sometimes aided him a la Lassie but wasn’t any sort of superdog.

"ABC agreed to buy the series and it was even announced in the Hollywood trade papers…but then a gent who worked for Marvel said the wrong thing to a top exec at ABC who, I suspect, was looking for an excuse to not buy the show and to give the time slot to another project that he preferred. Whatever the reason, we woke up one morning to find that Daredevil was off the schedule, never to return. My agent and I had a brief argument with Marvel over a bonus I was to receive if the series was picked up…and they finally paid it to me because they had to admit the series was picked up. It was just dropped again.

"I think NBC later considered the show but networks generally don’t like picking up things that their competitors have passed on."

1989 - Uncanny X-Men size comparisons for the animated series