Heroic Transformation

[This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse]

During a time when we’re inundated with superhero movies, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stood apart from the pack, not only with its bold animation style, but also by asserting that Spider-Man was a unique presence in the gamut of superheroes.

What has always set Spider-Man apart was his normalcy. Superpowers are a dime a dozen; what makes Spider-Man special is that he still has to go to work and pay his rent. That’s not to say that other superhero stories are unimportant or don’t have dramatic weight, but Into the Spider-Verse correctly asserts that anyone could be Spider-Man because it’s simply a matter of getting bitten by the special spider that gives you powers. Furthermore, getting bitten by that spider won’t solve the problems in your life; it will only compound them as you struggle to use your powers for good only to run up against the demands of a normal life. This makes Spider-Man—more than Batman, Iron Man, Captain America, or even Superman (an immigrant story)—the great American superhero, because his normalcy is entwined with his ability. He is inspirational, aspirational, and (most importantly) relatable.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse does what all great sequels do: takes the idea further and then confronts the hero with the most difficult revelations to challenge the their beliefs in order for them to grow. With the tide of superhero movies not subsiding in the last five years, Across the Spider-Verse is a strong blow against staid, predictable storytelling, showing us how blindly adhering to what is “fated” or “canon” can become empty-minded cruelty. Like prior works of writers/producers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, this movie revolts against story and character tropes that come at the expense of creativity and growth.

To do a brief recap: The events at the end of Into the Spider-Verse restored the multiverse, separating various Spider-People back into their universes. In Across the Spider-Verse, main character Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) discovers via his friend Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) that the “Spider-Verse” is actually much bigger than he realized: There are countless Spider-People because there are countless universes.

The film’s twist is that that Spider-Verse—or specifically, the Spider-Verse’s leader, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac)—doesn’t want Miles. Miles is an “anomaly” because his universe’s Peter Parker (Chris Pine) died saving Miles, who was in turn bitten by a spider from the wrong universe, thus denying that universe its Spider-Man. As the anomaly, Miles threatens to disrupt “canon events”—that is, life-altering events that all Spider-People have in common. Think the death of a father figure (typically Uncle Ben) teaching them that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Throughout this film’s Spider-verse, the outward trappings may change (you can have a Spider-Person from India or a Spider-Person who’s punk), but each Spider-Person’s major story beats must remain intact.

A recurring critique of the superhero genre is that superheroes don’t make the world a better place; they simply restore the status quo. I’ve always felt this is a somewhat thin critique. It would be like asking why firefighters don’t work in construction. The problem isn't that superheroes are saving the world; it’s that they don’t really get a say in how the world looks beyond its original state. Supervillains always have a vision. That vision is typically destructive, but say what you will about Thanos—at least he had an ethos. Superheroes, in their selfless way, do not believe it’s on them to argue for what a better world could look like, but they also believe they have unilateral authority to stop the villain (it does help that there’s not really any grey area in these villains’ plans; it’s not like they’re attempting wealth distribution and you need Thor to weigh in with his thoughts on monetary policy).

But as a character story, this template can lock your superhero in place. A story that a writer came up with decades ago starts to become holy writ, and questioning the building blocks of that story can sound like blasphemy. Fans take joy in feeling like they know the story of a character, and any deviation can play as disrespect. As a result, when it comes time to make a new film about an established superhero, creators skip over “Do these deviations make some kind of narrative sense?” and go straight to “Straying even a little from the long-established story beats will ruin the universe.”

You can see these debates in recent stories like the question over “Should Superman kill?” or “Should Batman use guns?” It’s not that these questions aren’t worth asking, but it’s really a matter of orthodoxy to the narrative. In the case of Spider-Man, the story demands repeated personal loss in order to stress the burden of his responsibility.

In Across the Spider-Verse, Miles recoils at the idea that people he loves are required to die simply because that’s what always happens to Spider-Man.

This rebellion against the norm is common for Lord & Miller, whose work often contends that it’s not good enough to say, “Well, it has always been thus.” Moreover, Lord & Miller love heroes who rebel against a prescriptive role, and who choose to buck the stereotypes placed on them by the world at large.

In the duo’s 2012 comedy 21 Jump Street, cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are supposed to infiltrate a school by playing to their stereotypes, which also happen to reflect who they were in high school. Schmidt should be a nerd with a limited friend group while Jenko should get in with the cool kids. Eventually, they end up swapping roles only to discover that Schmidt can be cool and charismatic while Jenko can be smart and like nerdy things. In high school, Schmidt and Jenko weren’t friends because of the roles assigned to them through the arbitrary identities assigned by high school life. As adults, they learn their friendship is stronger than such narrow identities. The film itself also rebels against becoming a tired retread of a 1980s TV series, breaking the stereotype to instead serve as a parody of buddy-cop movie tropes.

Lord & Miller’s follow-up, 2014’s The LEGO Movie, goes even further by making Emmet (Chris Pratt)—a boring, blank slate of a construction worker—into “The Special,” a hero who will save the universe. It turns out that the prophecy of The Special is made-up, but Emmet doesn’t have to fill his prescribed role as construction worker. He’s special not because an external force wrote him as such, but because he made a choice to be special. Furthermore, the villain, Lord Business (Will Ferrell), learns that his plan to glue everything together so it’s all in its “right” place is creatively destructive and it’s more important to let others be creative even if he doesn’t totally understand those creative impulses.

The film wisely sidesteps an “Everyone is special” message by adding the specificity that what makes you special A) comes from the belief that you have something unique to share; and B) the fruits of that creativity is what’s special. In essence, there is no Chosen One, but we have the capacity for specialness if we’re willing to believe that we can be more than what the world tells us we have to be.

Which brings us back to Spider-Verse. Miles thinks that he’s entering a world where he’ll be accepted because people are like him. Instead, he’s told that he doesn’t belong, and his very existence is threat to the world because he shouldn’t exist.1 According to Miguel, there is a right way and a wrong way to be a Spider-Person, and Miles is wrong. That’s great drama because Miles realizes that his “want” (being Spider-Man and accepted by other Spider-People) is secondary to his need (protecting the people he loves). Other Spider-Man stories wrestle with this conflict by having Spider-Man embrace the sacrifice. Across the Spider-Verse answers with a question: “Why?”

Everything about the movie, from its explosive animation to its thoughtful plotting and character development, is a pushback against the staid, tired status quo. It takes a movie like this to snap you out of your complacency where you see so many animated films look the same without only some minor tweaks or that so many superhero stories are telling the same thing over and over again. If you’re creative (and in addition to being heroes, Miles is an graffiti artist and Gwen is a musician), then being told you have to stick to a formula is enervating. It’s safe, it’s predictable, and while it may serve the status quo, it’s not inherently a story worth telling when we’ve seen it so many times before.

Across the Spider-Verse argues that heroism isn’t passively accepting that you have to do things the way they’ve always been done. Sometimes, you’ve got to break away from a world that gives you a box and forces you to cram yourself inside of it. When others want to stifle creativity and demand the status quo, heroism looks like breaking free and demanding a better world.