The Writer's Poke

Into the Spider-Verse (2018) introduced us to four Spiders from other Earths, but Across the Spider-Verse opens it up and introduces us to, or at least shows us, dozens more. Spider-Gwen, who we met in the first movie, is the main Spider focused on from a different Earth. It seems like she and Miles, our Earth's Spider-Man, are more than friends, or they would like to be. There's only one problem, and it's not that they're from two different Earths. It's that a relationship between Spider-Man and Gwen never works out in the long run.  Even though there are all those different Spiders out there, we find out that the "canon" stories each of them follows generally have events that cannot be changed. Spider-Man and Gwen not working out is one of the canon events. Another is: Spider-Man cannot save the people closest to him -- be it, Aunt May, Uncle Ben, their father, etc.  Does freewill not exist anywhere in the multiverse? Miles cannot accept that. He wants t...

So, at the same time the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise is going on, there's also this animated multi-verse franchise. The Holland Spider-Man works in the context of what's going on in all the other Marvel movies, and this one is its own separate deal. Of course, right now, the Marvel movies are in "Phase 9" or something like that, and they're all currently into the multiverse theme... but this movie came out in 2018 and I guess offered a sneak-peak at what the multiverse would look like.  This movie's Spider-Man is named Miles Morales (Shameik Moore). One of the ideas forwarded is that anyone can be Spider-Man. That said, the movie still features Peter Parker, but he dies. Then, the multiverse opens, and we get to meet a few other Spiders from other places -- including Spider-Woman (aka Spider-Gwen), Spider-Man Noir, and even Spider-Ham. To say that the movie is non-stop and fast-paced would be an understatement. I still remember watching this one in the th...