Spidey and His Amazing Friends (Candlelight Christmas Walk)

In the holiday episode “The Candlelight Christmas Walk” from Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends Season 4, young heroes Spidey, Ghost-Spider, and Spin (aka Miles Morales) embark on a festive mission to safeguard the city’s cherished annual tradition. As a lucky citizen carries a glowing holiday candle through the twinkling streets to ignite the grand Christmas tree in the park—spreading joy and light to eager families—villains Hydro-Man, Green Goblin, and Rhino plot a watery, explosive sabotage to douse the flames and steal the spotlight.

Spidey and His Amazing Friends (S4:E14) MINI-Review

The Candlelight Christmas Walk / The Santa Trap

The last two decades have seen children’s cartoons transform from fun, fully realized narratives to digital buffing compound meant to smooth their brains into shiny, glass-surfaced ornaments. Spidey and His Amazing Friends is but one more entry.

Disney/the MCU doesn’t go out of its way to make this year’s Christmas-themed episode any different. It’s the same pro-teamwork/inner strength nonsense as 90% of the rest of children’s television today.

PARENTAL NOTES

TV-Y7: Rated Safe for Everyone

• It’s completely covered in bubble wrap, with all edges and corners sanded down and lined with rubber, and all its nutrients cooked out. That’s to say that it stays safely within the bounds of its rating.

WOKE REPORT

Ho ho ho. Merry Happy

• You can almost feel the writers’ skin crawling as they gymnastic their way out of every possible mention of “Christmas” in their Christmas episode.
  • It’s titled “A Christmas Candlelight Walk,” but in the episode, the walk is only and repeatedly referred to (even by festival officials) as the “Candlelight Walk.”
  • Despite the many Christmas decorations, the general theme, etc. “Christmas is only mentioned twice: once in reference to a Christmas tree, and once when someone wishes the audience a Merry Christmas. The rest of the time, the writers go out of their way to awkwardly replace it with “holiday,” and, to be clear, it is never intended as a catchall for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s (aka the holiday season). It is clearly meant as a substitute for Christmas.

DEI

• Historically, the series has gender-swapped a number of male villains. This episode features a female Trapster, a male character originally introduced in the comics in 1963.

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• Even for a series set in (a fictional) New York, the diversity of the crowds is silly and artificial.

The Meaning of Christmas

• Repeated throughout the episode by a multitude of characters, including Santa Claus, the meaning of Christmas is said to be about “being connected, together, and friendly, as well as helping others.
  • These are nice things, but they have nothing to do with the “meaning of Christmas.” It is so much secular nonsense, the purpose of which is solely to chip away at the holiday’s Christian core.