While Spider-Man: The Animated Series really started to find its own groove in season 2, it fully thrived in season 3. It kept its momentum going by giving another solid set of 14 episodes, and giving some of the best storylines that are seen in the series.

Much like how every episode in season was prefixed by its “Neogenic Nightmare” overall season storyline, season 3’s episodes all have the prefix of “Sins of the Father.” Honestly, though, season 3 doesn’t quite have the same kind of overarching story that season 2 did. There’s not a clear meaning or theme to the “Sins of the Father” story, but there are multiple storylines throughout that play into the season’s story. The big one involves Green Goblin being introduced, but there are other storylines that come in, such as Spider-Man meeting a child who is his biggest fan, Peter Parker getting framed, and the Venom symbiote returning to Earth.

This is just a really solid set of episodes, and I love what they did with it all. The only episode that truly sticks out as being bad is “Rocket Racer,” which is probably one of the worst episodes of the whole series. However, it’s eclipsed by so many other great episodes that I completely forgot it existed. The season finale of this season is also easily one of my favorite episodes of the whole series, so it all balances out.

In terms of characters introduced, there’s not a ton here. We do get to see some more classic Marvel heroes like Doctor Strange, Daredevil, and Iron Man, who are used in just the right capacity. But with the villains, there’s only a few new ones, with the aforementioned Green Goblin playing the biggest role. However, this isn’t really a problem at all, because what season 3 does really well is play with the existing pool of villains in really interesting and new ways.

Overall, I think season 3 is probably the strongest season of the show. Granted, I haven’t rewatched seasons 4 and 5 yet, but I don’t think they’re as highly regarded, so season 3 seems to take the top spot. It does have a few missteps that prevent it from being perfect, but for the most part this is just a really solid set of episodes, with some really interesting storylines done throughout. You could easily just watch the three Green Goblin episodes from this season if you ever want an example of how good this show can be. I loved this season, and it’s one of the highest peaks of what a Spider-Man show can be.

4.5/5