Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, was released earlier this month. This is the latest comic-book movie associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While Marvel movies are usually live-action, this film series is animated. The movie follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), two teenage spider-people from different universes.
In the first movie, fans got the classic Spider-Man origins story. Miles was bitten by a radioactive spider which causes him to develop mysterious powers that transform him into Brooklyn’s only Spider-Man. The movie follows Miles’ journey of self-discovery as he learns about his abilities and meets strange spider-people that have been sucked into his universe by accident. Miles and his new spider-people friends have to develop a plan to defeat the villain Kingpin and his accomplice Doc Ock, who have been working on opening a portal to another universe that will swallow the universe whole. After defeating the villain, Miles’s friends get sent back to their universes, and he gets back to being Brooklyn’s one and only neighborhood Spider-man.
In the newest movie, Miles and Gwen reunite. Miles gets introduced to the Spider-Verse, where he meets hundreds and thousand of Spider-Man variants from the multiverses, including Spider-Woman
and Spider-Punk. These spider-people have teamed up to protect their very existence across universes. Although all these spider-people have similar lives and backstories, they begin to clash on handling a new villain, Spot. Miles realizes he is set against the other spiders and must reinvent what it means to be a hero to save his loved ones.
While animated films are often seen as children’s movies, this film quickly became wildly popular with Marvel fans of all ages. The film’s quick wit, incredible graphics, star-studded soundtrack, intricate storyline and plot twists all added up to create a cult favorite.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse incorporates classic comic book aesthetics with animation to make stunning, vivid visuals of new cities, worlds and characters. In one of the opening scenes, Gwen has to fight a version of an old Spider-Man villain who is drawn in the style of ink on parchment paper. While this villain is not only from a different universe, he’s from a different artistic style, which we often see throughout the film. The Spider-Man variants are drawn in different styles to portray the other universes they are from. We see a whole Lego world, with little Lego people and large Lego buildings. We see Pavitr Prabhakar (Spider-Man India) swing through his city of Mumbattan filled with bright summer colors and unique architecture. We see Miguel O’Hara (Spider-Man 2099) shaped with clean lines and neon colors to appear futuristic. Even a grainy-animated Spider-Man looks like he popped in from a ‘90s cartoon.
Another factor of these animated films that makes them so widely popular is that Miles is the first black Spider-Man in the Marvel films. The late Stan Lee has said that the reason Spider-Man was so widely popular is because anyone could be under the mask. Regardless of race, age and gender, fans can imagine themselves as the famously masked hero.
In addition to being artistically groundbreaking, the film deals with struggles such as grief, self-discovery and acceptance. Throughout the film, we see character grieving loved ones, such as the classic Uncle Ben character, and face backlash from family members when trying to lead a secret double-life as a superhero.
The film ends on a cliffhanger. Miles is trapped in a different universe, held hostage by villains. We see his friends, some from the first movie and new ones from the latest film, teaming up to find him, and just when you think we will get a wild final action scene, the screen goes black and reads “To Be Continued…”
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the first movie in a two-part series of Miles’ incredible storyline. The third movie is set to be released in March of 2024, and fans are already taking to social media to share their theories and speculate how Miles and his friends save the world again.