The new Spider-Man animated TV series premiere is one week away. TV Guide went behind the scenes with the latest incarnation of the friendly neighborhood web-slinger, releasing a two-minute video featuring Patton Oswalt as Uncle Ben.
The video starts off with Uncle Ben helping young Peter Parker with his math homework, but making sure to give his nephew a vital formula for life – with great power comes great responsibility.
Oswalt explains:
“It’s the absence of [Uncle Ben] that makes him so powerful. The way he haunts one of the greatest heroes in this universe. Anybody that he met, he would try to be nice to them and he would try to help them out and understand and empathize with people, so that’s something I think that Spider-Man and Peter Parker can look back on. He wasn’t trying to form a hero, he was trying to make a person.”
Oswalt’s casting came in the wake of his work as a recurring character, the Koenig Brothers on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was there he reached out to the production team and expressed interest in working with Marvel’s animation team. While various Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. cast members like Clark Gregg, Iain De Caestecker, and Elizabeth Henstridge popped up on preceding series Ultimate Spider-Man to reprise their characters, Oswalt will be the first cast member to work on the new Spider-Man and in a more key role. Studio Vice President of Animation & Family Entertainment Cort Lane hints at multiple Uncle Ben appearances via flashbacks, in which he’ll continue to shape Peter’s life as he grows into the role of Spider-Man.
Marvel’s Spider-Man premieres Saturday, August 19.