The CW made an official announcement today that their new animated Spidey series is a go, reports E! Online. (Long-time Firefox news readers already heard about the new series, under the supervision of animation great Greg Weisman.) The new series, tentatively titled The Amazing Spider-Man, will air on Saturdays on Kids!WB alongside such hits as The Batman and The Legion of Superheroes. Much like those series, TASM will focus on Peter Parker's early years of crime-fighting against classic Spider-villains.

"Our goal is to reinterpret these great characters and concepts for our millennium," says Weisman. "We'll have plenty of resonant material for the Spider-Man fan, while engaging the Spider-Man novice with the same thrills we experienced when we were first exposed to the character."

As fans know, this is hardly the first attempt to animate everyone's favorite Webhead.  Gen Xers and late Boomers grew up on the 60's 'toon, and relieved the glory days with short, animated segments on the 1970s children's educational show The Electric Company.   Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, which aired Saturday mornings on NBC in the early '80s.  Spider-Man: The Animated Series ran on Fox from 1994 to 1999 and jumped on the new bandwagon of season-long story arcs.   Spider-Man Unlimited aired on FOX in 1999 and Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, a CG-animated show featuring the voice of Neil Patrick Harris in the title role, aired on MTV in 2003.

In the live-action end of things, "Spider-Man 3" is gearing up promotions for a May release this year, including a special crossover promotion with NBC's Heroes this coming Monday, in which fans will get a one-minute cliffhanger preview of the film, followed by a 24 hour chance to view seven and a half minutes of additional exciting footage on NBC's website, the networks first ever HD-streamed presentation.

(Content edited slightly from original.)