Finding togetherness in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’
Two years later, I can still conjure this whole scene in my mind if I try hard enough. Lightning bolts flicker above a high-rise. "What's Up Danger" thrums in the background. Cut to Miles' face, nervous but filled with barely-repressed exhilaration. You can practically feel his heartbeat as he looks down at the city below, preparing himself to take the leap.
When I think about my best cinema experience, the first time I ever saw Into the Spider-Verse wins by a landslide. It was December 8th, a week before the movie came out in America. I was supposed to see it with some of my friends at the time, but when I got to the cinema, they were nowhere to be found and weren't answering my messages. (Don't worry, they aren't my friends anymore.) So I entered, awkwardly alone but determined to get my money's worth, and immediately realized that the cinema was filled with nerds. It was very easy to tell that everyone around me was way more into this superhero stuff than me. It was maybe the first time I - or anyone - had ever felt sort of intimidated by comic book fans.
In the end, though, it didn't matter that my friends had bailed on me or that I knew little about Spider-Man or Marvel. Spider-Verse is very kind to its audience, regardless of where they're approaching it from. The energy in the room ebbed and flowed around me with every new development, and I got swept up in it. We were all watching this astounding movie for the first time, together, and it was the most special feeling in the world.
So, I didn't know a lot about Spider-Man before I watched Spider-Verse. But the second Miles appeared on screen, I knew that I would never forget it. I'd seen a fair number of superhero movies (far more than I would've liked; such is the price of keeping up with the cultural zeitgeist), and all of those protagonists were deliberately cool, broad-shouldered men bred in a lab to carry a franchise. Now here was this gangly kid, doodling something in his notebook, cheerily singing along to "Sunflower" and getting all the words wrong. I loved him immediately.
At first, I was skeptical about the idea of multiple, already-established spider-people coming in and encroaching on Miles' story. (It wouldn't have been the first time a superhero film meant to focus on just one character turned into a weird ensemble picture.) Luckily, the movie never strays from Miles for even a second. All the people around him have been through it already, sure, but that doesn't lessen the impact of his journey. Spider-Verse really isn't just another origin story, no matter how much it pokes fun at itself for being one, because it's about Miles. He's the perfect emotional center.
The movie is chock full of great lines, but my favorite is this one: "You're like me." Both Peters say it when they see Miles for the first time, and the spider-people say it to each other when they all meet. There's something very lonely about the concept of a superhero. It's an unspoken rule that you can't tell your loved ones, because that would put them in danger, and even the people who do know will never really get what it's like.
Peter looks at Miles and says: "You're like me." The line is so simple, but it contains such enormous meaning. After doing it alone for this long, finally, finally, someone like him. Peter doesn't need to specify how they're alike, because they both know. In these moments of clarity you realize that it doesn't actually matter where they are on their hero's journey, if they've been Spider-Man for twenty years or two years or two days. For the first time, they're all finding out together: you're like me. That immediate shared understanding - the knowledge that they really aren't alone - is a thousand times more compelling than another story about a guy having to shoulder his burden all by himself.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse makes me think of better times. Mostly because the hellish year that has been 2020 invites reminiscence, but also because there hasn't been anything else that's made me feel the same breathless joy. I'll never forget the way I rushed to the subway when the movie was over (after the greatest post-credits scene ever devised), giddy with excitement and eager to get home so I could type out everything I was feeling before it went away. I think I didn't stop smiling for hours afterwards.
At its core, Spider-Verse is a movie about finding community where you never expected it, and realizing that you aren't alone, even while you walk your own path. That was how it felt to watch it, too. I didn't know a single other person in that cinema, but all of us will always have that experience. Sometimes I wish I could go back and live in that feeling again, but maybe what made it so special was that it only lasted as long as the movie did. Now all I have is fond nostalgia.
