ANI-MOVIES, *Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

After several animated movies based on Marvel Comics(either made-for-TV or OVA), their biggest solo-star finally gets his own full-length cartoon feature! Being the also the first animated Marvel movie to be initially released in theatres, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse takes a fairly recent story arc from the Spider-Man comic series, and narrows it down reducing the amount of dozens of Spider-heroes shown in the original crossover. Another thing to bear in mind is that none of the other non-Spider-Man heroes in it, so don't expect to see any Avengers or X-Men show up.

Beginning in reality based on the Ultimates Universe, teenage Mile Morales is feeling the pressure of attending an upper class academy instead of expressing himself as a graffiti artist, much to dismay of his police officer father. His uncle Aaron encourages him to pursue his inspiration, which Miles does in subways, and just happens to get bit by a stray radioactive spider. Another trip underground leads him to witnessing Spider-Man fighting Green Goblin(who here is more like the Hulk)in the middle of a particle accelerator experiment, scrupulously hidden by the Kingpin. Spider-Man gets killed during the battle after discovering Miles similar powers, but Miles escapes with a special flash drive designed to take down Kingpin's infernal contraption. People morn the Spider-Man's death, publicly revealed as Peter Parker, however and older and out of shape Peter Parker encounters Miles. Turns out, this Peter is from another universe, but one that has been at the superhero act for a decade longer, and has paid for the keeping of the "great responsibility" with his life having one setback after the other. Turns out when the Spider-Man of that universe made contact with the particle accelerator, it ended up pulling other Spider-persons from other realities. This includes a Spider-version of Miles classmate Gwen, a Shadow-inspired Spidey, a Japanese schoolgirl with a spider-robot, and the anthropomorphic pig Spider-Ham from a cartoon world. The Spider-Family converges on Kingpin's hideout, leaving Miles behind believing his inexperience might get him killed. Miles however manages to master his new powers, gets a leftover suit from May Parker, and joins the Spider-Persons mission to stop Kingpin, whose efforts to bring versions of his dead family into his universe might be sympathetic, but could ultimately destroy the city.

The animation produced for this film gives off the feel of a comic book in motion, but not in the way Ang Lee's Hulk tried to do, although the only drawback is the motion isn't exactly as fluid as other CGI pictures, and at times looks like a 3-D movie without using the glasses. The adaptation of most of the characters is spot on, even though the older Peter Parker is somewhat more original, as if he's a Spider-Man that had been around since the 90s with no reboots or faustian bargains resetting his timeline. The other Spider-heroes represent their comic counterparts well, specifically Nicholas Cage voicing the noir Spidey, also check the end of the movie for two other Spider-Man cameos! Into The Spider-Verse is setting up for sequel, hopefully leading to other Marvel characters being included, but also possibly bleeding into the live-action MCU.