Let’s talk Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This latest bit of Spider-Man
animation is a fun and yet kind of dark film portraying the rise of the most
popular character to bear the moniker Spider-Man, after Peter Parker himself
that is, Miles Morales. Some might scoff at an animated Spider-Man movie, in my
humblest of opinions this is one of the best movies starring a Web-Head that I’ve
seen. Enough preamble, let’s get to it.
We open to the usual Spider-Man
explaining his thing. Peter’s been Spider-Man for around a decade, has been knocked
down, but gotten up time and again. He’s got a wife, the respect of New York City,
and even a Christmas album. He unfortunately did the Saturday Night Fever strut,
too. So, life is hard but doable.
| It takes him a while, but once Miles gets into the... swing of things he looks damn good. |
We switch over to Miles Morales. He’s an
intelligent but insecure young man that is on his way to a private prep school
he’d recently been forced to attend by his parents. Officer Jefferson Davis and
Nurse Rio Morales just want what’s best for their son, despite his own protests.
He struggles through a very difficult Monday, which was topped off by being assigned
an additional essay by his physics professor after he tried to tank a T/F test.
Seriously kid, who intentionally gets every answer wrong on a T/F test? Rookie
mistake. The one silver lining of the day being he met a suspiciously familiar blonde
girl that laughed at one of his stupid jokes… how odd.
Feeling burnt out and stressed out,
Miles snuck out of his dorm to see his Uncle Aaron. Aaron is one of those
uncles that the kid loves for being cool and carefree, but his own brother tries
to actively keep his son from because he’s a bad influence. In a bid to improve
Miles’ confidence, Aaron takes Miles to an abandoned subway station to paint
with his graffiti art. While Miles is absorbed in painting, an oddly colored Spider
with Alchemax 42 stamped on its abdomen starts crawling around and no him. Said Spider also occasionally jitters
and morphs oddly before reverting back to normal. The spider is courteous enough
to let Miles finish his art before biting him. Miles rather unceremoniously swats
the thing and goes about his night.
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| It's a good group. |
The next day, he notices the usual
Spider-Man changes. He’s bigger, more muscular, and suddenly is showing off weird
abilities. The worst of which being his adhesion, which gets his hands stuck to
the blonde girl “Gwanda’s” hair. What an odd name, Gwanda. It’s like she was
initially going to say a name starting with a G but chickened out halfway through.
Her hair is shaved to remove Miles' hand, which makes odds of him impressing her seem small. He’s
then chased around school by a security guard, climbs around the building, and
ends up in his room following getting mostly stripped and attacked by pigeons. Feeling
overwhelmed, Miles tries to get in contact with Aaron, but his uncle has left
town for work. He also considered calling his folks, but how do you tell your
dad you have spider powers? Desperate, he goes back to the subway station and
the spider, hoping to get some answers from its body. He finds the spider, but
is distracted by from his examination of it by Spider-Man and Green Goblin crashing through.
He dodges around Goblin and Spidey’s brawl, ending up in a secret laboratory Wilson
Fisk built under New York. Fisk had built a MASSIVE particle accelerator and
turned it on, despite Spidey trying to convince him that potentially creating a
blackhole is a bad idea. While fighting, Spider-Man saves Miles, and the two
sense that they’re both Spider-People. While Peter clearly wants to help the
fledgling Spider-boy, he tucks Miles away and attempts to shut down the stream.
Got to save the world before training a rookie. This proves all the more
difficult when Prowler joins the fight alongside Goblin. Despite the two-to-one
odds, Spider-man is able to hold his own. Goblin grabs Spidey and tries to kill
him by shoving the web-head into the accelerated beam. While his head is in the
beam, Peter sees the breath of creation and a cosmic web connecting realities. The
machine blows, causing a massive energy wave throughout New York, killing Gobby
and injuring Spidey. Miles finds Spidey, who promise to teach Miles all he needs
to know about being a Spider-Man after he climbs up and disables the accelerator
permanently using a USB drive Spidey had. Mile is unable to climb up to the top
of the accelerator, since he can’t completely control his powers, but is able
to hide before Fisk and his goons, Tombstone and Prowler, find Spider-Man.
Spider-Man tells Fisk his plans won’t work, and the enraged gangster executes Spider-Man
via crushing. That was a dark end to Spider-Man. Miles makes a run for it, but
Fisk notices and sends Prowler after him.
Miles bids a hasty retreat, and barely
escapes Prowler. He runs home, and spends the night at his folks. The next day,
word spreads about Spider-Man’s Death. Miles buys an ill-fitting Spider-Man
costume from a charming old man, miss you Stan, and attends a eulogy delivered by
Mary Jane Parker. Inspired by Spider-Man and his widow, Miles attempts to
figure out his powers to live up to Peter’s legacy. Unfortunately, he smashes
the USB after failing to leap from a building. He goes to Peter’s grave, to apologize.
He’s approached by a mysterious man that Miles ends up shocking with his Venom
Strike powers. The hobo is knocked back, but he webs Miles before hitting the
ground, unconscious. Miles exams the guy, only to discover a very worn out,
very shabby Peter Parker.
 |
| He's so damn big! |
This isn’t the same Peter we were introduced
to at the start of the movie. This is Peter B. Parker… which is an odd
difference considering both Peter’s are Peter Benjamin Parker, but whatever.
Peter B. was Spider-Man in his universe for twenty years. His career started
out similar to Blonde Peter, saved the day a bunch, he married MJ and he was
generally beloved. But, years of financial trouble, the accumulated bruises and
broken bones of his hero life, Aunt May dying and his divorce from MJ left him
a jaded and nearly broken man. He was pulled into this universe by some sort of
rip in space time. While not expressly stated, it’s implied that Blonde Peter
being forced into the Accelerator beam drew this Spider-Man into this world.
Once Peter B. wakes up, he’s
initially very dismissive of Miles, see above about him being jaded and nearly
burnt out. But he agrees to help train Miles when he learns he has to steal a new
Goober, his word for the USB and any McGuffin that helps him save the day, to
hack the accelerator. They take a bus to the Alchemax facility that made it.
Outside the building, Peter B. leaves Miles to stand guard while he breaks in
and hacks their system to get a new Goober. Miles initially stands guard, but
rushes in to warn Peter B. when Fisk and Tombstone arrive. In the vents, Peter
B. and Miles listen in on the villainous plan. Basically, Fisk is giving his
head scientist 24 hours to finish the experiment. Once they leave, the Spider-Men
slip into the lab.
Peter is forced to distract the
head scientist while Miles, who reveals he can turn invisible as part of his
fight-or-flight response, hacks the computer. Peter gets strapped into a chair
and is examined by the scientist. She notes that Peter B.’s cells seem to be
reacting poorly to being in the wrong universe and he’s falling apart on the atomic
level. And that she’s excited to watch. It’s at this point that she drops her
labcoat and does up her hair, revealing a familiar harness with four tentacle-like
appendages coming out of it. Turns out, this is Doctor Olivia Octavius, aka Liv
aka Doc Ock. Whoops. Miles helps Peter B. escape and the two make a run for it
with Ock’s computer tower. They’re nearly caught by Ock and her small battalion
of scientists, but are saved at the last minute by a Woman in White, aka Spider-Woman
aka Spider-Gwen aka Gwanda. Yeah, saw this one coming.
 |
| Somehow, the stickers make it MORE intimidating. |
We get another flashback intro with
this new Spider. In her universe, Gwen Stacey has been Spider-Woman for two
years. She’s had fun, being the drummer in a band and having saved many lives
including her father, Officer Stacey. She, though, was unable to save her Peter’s
life after he became her version of the Lizard. She’d been pulled across
dimensions a week prior during one off Fisk’s earlier tests. It was a
transdimensional bore into Space/Time, getting knocked literally back into last
week is not that unusual of a side effect. She wants to help the two Spider-Men
and herself get home.
Back at Alchemax, Fisk flashes back
to what started all of this. Turns out, his wife and son discovered that Fisk was
a crime boss during a fight with Spider-Man. In their hurried escape from Fisk
Tower, they were killed in a car accident. Fisk is forcing this cross-dimension
experiment through in order to try and get them back. Or a reasonable facsimile.
Doc Ock returns and tells Fisk about the Spiders escape. Fisk is infuriated by
the Web Warriors, but is really unable to do anything about it. He orders the
Accelerator be finished by that evening.
Needing a safe place to examine the
computer and program a new Goober, the Web Warriors go to one of two places
that Blonde Peter would have, Aunt May’s house. The dear old woman is shocked
to see a shabby version of her very dead nephew on her doorstep along with two
teenagers. But recovers quickly. It’s Aunt May, she’s a fighter. She takes them
to Blonde Peter’s secret… well… Spider-Cave where they can program a new
Goober, and introduces them to three more Spiders that had a similar idea.
 |
| I kind of love Gwen's costume. |
We have Spider-Man Noir, a Peter B.
Parker from a 1930s universe who works as a PI, fights Nazis and sounds like
Nicholas Cage doing a Humphrey Bogart impression. Then there is Peni Parker, a Japanese
girl from a far future universe who has giant fighting robot she co-pilots with
a spider she has a psychic link to. And finally Peter Porker aka Spider-Ham, a
living cartoon character. After the intros, everyone not native to Miles’
universe starts having a warping stroke that they call glitching. It’s only
then that the Web Warriors realize that if any of them want to get home, one
will have to stay behind to destroy the accelerator after they’re gone and ultimately die. Miles volunteers
to help, but the more experienced Spiders doubt his skills. Miles leaves after
its clear that no one besides Peter B. has any confidence in him.
Miles goes to his Uncle Aaron’s apartment,
in order to write a goodbye note to his beloved uncle, only for the Prowler to
come in and reveal that he is in fact Aaron Davis. Shocked by this, Miles tips
off Prowler that there’s someone in his apartment and a new chase commences. Miles
is able to evade Prowler, but accidentally shows the hired gun where to find the Web
Warriors. Prowler brings along Tombstone, Doc Ock, and Scorpion as back up. A
massive brawl occurs, trashing Aunt May’s house. Miles ends up on the roof with
Prowler, and reveals to Prowler who he is. Fisk orders Prowler kill that Spider-Man,
but Prowler refuses. He’s shot by Fisk and mortally wounded. Miles escapes Fisk
with Aaron to a back alley. He stays with his uncle as he dies. He is nearly
caught by Jeff, but Miles camouflages and escapes.
 |
| Jeff Davis is a Cop, Aaron Davis is a criminal, Miles Morales is a superhero. Crazy family. |
Back at Miles’ dorm room, he starts
smashing things out of frustration. The other Spiders arrive and, after scaring
the piss out of Miles’ roommate, give Miles the “You can’t save everyone”
speech. Between the seven Spiders featured in this movie, we have two dead
Peters (Miles and Gwen), three dead uncles (Peter B., Noir, and Miles), one
dead unnamed father (Peni), and whoever Spider Ham couldn’t save. Weird that he’s
the only one who didn’t name a name. They're also there to let him know that Peter B. is going
to be the one to shut down the accelerator. Miles protests, but Peter B. tells
him that so long as he can’t control his powers, he’s going to be a liability.
He webs Miles to a chair to keep him from following. Miles asks how he’ll know
when he’s ready to be a hero and Peter just tells him it’s a leap of faith. After they go, Jeff visits and tells his son
through the door that he loves his boy and that he’s sorry for all those times
he hasn’t been the best dad. This helps Miles break through, tapping into his
electrical abilities and snapping the webbing. He then travels to Aunt May’s, gets
outfitted with on of Peter’s old costumes he paints black and some web shooters,
and performs a literal leap of faith. After swinging around New York for a bit,
he rushes to Fisk Tower to help his friends save the day.
There’s a lot to like about this
movie. The animation is beautiful, blending together multiple styles to ensure
that each Spider has a look unique to them. Peni looks much more Anime-y then
her counterparts, Spider-Ham has more bounce and cartoony motions then the
rest, etc. Miles is obviously the Spider-Man of the title, and while his growth
from scared kid to new Spider-Man is the highlight, the bits with Peter B. and
Gwen’s background were really well done as well. I liked how Peter B. shifts
from a burnt-out hero to an actual hero again as he trains Miles and tries to get
back home. His personal misery is probably 60% his own fault, what with the bad
investments and running when MJ’s desire for kids scared him, and 40% just the
pit falls of life, such as the death of Aunt May. We get a little less about
Gwen, but the sample of her personal tragedy we get is interesting. See, in her
universe while she became Spider-Woman, Peter didn’t get a happy simple life.
Since he didn’t get the power and confidence boost from being Spider-man,
he was driven to drastic measures to get back at his bullies. Peter developed a
mutagenic formula and became the Lizard of Spider-Gwen’s universe. We don’t get
the details, but it’s implied either Gwen was forced to kill Peter to stop his
rampage or was too slow to get him a cure. Again, only hinted at, but even the
implication is interesting. She tries to be aloof and distant, but quickly
warms up to Miles and Peter, and by the end seems to have opened up to the idea
of friends again. Which is good. The action was amazing, and I like a lot of stylization
for characters like Fisk, Scorpion, Doc Ock, and Prowler. Fisk looks like a
walking boulder, Scorpion is more of a cyborg than he’d been previously, Doc Liv
Ock has rubber and plastic tentacles that pulse with use, and Prowler has these
massive claws that he likes to whip out at a moments notice.
 |
| Spider-Man Noir looks great in black. |
The bad is minimal but still there.
Spider-Man Noir, Peni and her SP//dr Armor, and Spider-Ham felt very tacked on.
They pretty much were there to push up the Spider-Man count. I wish there’d
been time to give each of them their due, as Noir is one of my favorite Spider Spin-Offs,
but that simply wasn’t time. The timeframe was also insanely tight. I liked
the symmetry of Peter B. being Spider-Man for 22 years, Blonde Peter for 10
years, Gwen for 2 years, and Miles for two days, it’s just that its kind of
hard to believe that Miles figured everything out in that frame. I know that
finding his confidence was the really important part, and that fighting comes
as naturally to a Spider as anything else takes to breathing, it’s still hard to process.
Also, they treated the death of Aaron Davis as this huge, groundbreaking thing,
and yet we hadn’t seen Miles and him interact after the first half hour. It’s
hard to get worked up about a man’s death who spent most of his screen time
trying to murder his own nephew. Just saying.
This is probably one of the best
animated movies I’ve seen and one of the best movies I saw in 2018. A+, easily.
Miles is a very likeable Spider-Man, and his ensemble cast help boost him up. The animation is beautiful, the story is
solid, and it was just a fun but occasionally dark ride. Like, I totally wasn’t
excepting to see three deaths in this movie, two of which involved the victim
getting squished. Into The Spider-Verse is
already locked in for a sequel and at least one spin-off, so hopefully we’ll be
getting more of this kind of high quality animation from Sony some time soon. I
hope they keep up the pace with the sequels and give us more of this awesomeness.
I’d like to see either a Spider-Gwen solo movie or Noir solo, but that’s just
me. The fun thing about having a massive “What If?” multi-verse to work with is
that there’s almost an infinite amount of ideas to use.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/24010263
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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