Into the Spider-Verse and the Comic Ideal

When I was about nine or ten years old, I watched the original Spider-Man cartoon (I’m not that old but I watched old cartoons) that told its’ title characters’ origin story. I never read comics, so up until that point I’d only really seen Super

Friends and the old Batman cartoon, shows that didn’t really take the idea of being a superhero seriously, and the most impressing superhero movie I had seen at that point had been Batman and Robin. So I was surprised to be watching a story that not only explained where this character came from, but was also uniquely dramatic and meaningful. Peter Parker acquiring his powers wasn’t so special, but the series of events and circumstances that led to him becoming Spider-Man I found exceptionally intriguing and, yes a little inspiring -as have thousands who have encountered that story in some form or another over the decades since it was first written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962. When I saw it play out in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, it was equally powerful, but nothing else I saw in the realm of that character afterwards ever had an impact for me as much as that origin story -until I saw Into the Spider-Verse.

Sony’s brilliant and breathtaking 2018 animated superhero film ought to be a game-changer of the genre. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not only the best Spider-Man movie, it’s one of the best comic book movies period. And while others in that company such as The Dark Knight and Logan have earned their acclaim for transcending and subverting the genre, Into the Spider-Verse does so by embracing it like no other, celebrating the art form to its utmost. Watching it, I feel like everything that makes superhero comics appealing is there: the heroism, the struggle, the stakes, the drama, the style, the pathos, the characters, the emotions, the action, the intelligence, the ideas, the

imagination, the inspiration, the relatability, the adaptability, the profoundness, and the silliness. Above all though may be the look, and the love and understanding for that form that makes it a visual masterpiece, and one of the only truly revolutionary animated films of our era; captivating and spellbinding animation that makes you question why all comic book movies aren’t made like this?

Why aren’t all comic book movies made like this? Probably because the limits of the live-action form restrict their ability, and animation, forever struggling to be taken seriously by mass audiences, isn’t often considered. I mean there have been a few films across both mediums that experimented with more literal comic book presentations before: Ang Lee’s Hulk notoriously recreated comic panels through split-screen, and The Peanuts Movie gave their CG-animated film a very hand-drawn feel, but neither perfected the comic book look to the degree of Into the Spider-Verse -after which it seems so

obvious that animation is, and perhaps has secretly always been, the perfect medium for comic book movies. Many have already felt this, I mean one of the very best Batman movies is still Mask of Phantasm, and DC in particular has had a pretty good success rate with their direct-to-video line. However what Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and all of their supremely talented animators managed to do different was use the unique aesthetic of comic books to enhance their animation and give the film a vivacity all its own..

The ways it does this are numerous; from the texture, with its Ben Day dots, fluid motion, and ink-like outlines, to its dimensions, melding 2D character onto 3D models, to its colours, richly extravagant and vivid, to its off-the-wall energy and versatility, to of course the satisfying touches of thought balloons and text boxes, sound effect pop-words (often resembling Wallace the Brave cartoons to me), and a higher-than-usual frame rate that allows for images to stand out stronger. All of that is amazing and makes for a wildly engaging visual experience, but what’s more interesting to me though are the ways Into the Spider-Verse adapts the comic style to filmmaking techniques. Continuity panels become exquisite match cuts, splash pages become marvellously detailed and kinetic action scenes. Even the poster seems to look more like the cover of a comic issue than anything else. Comic book visual logic allows for a kind of expression even many other animated films wouldn’t allow for: the Spider-eyes that expand and contract with the mood of the person under the mask for example, something that might come across too loose and displaced but never does. And while we’re talking about

the Spider-people, we should address the films’ ability to render different styles of animation within the same space seamlessly. An anime girl fits right into the same environment with a Depression-era comic strip detective, a Chuck Jones cartoon, and a highly stylized Bill Sienkiewicz villain. And it’s because the world around them is so accommodating, containing a lot of depth but not so specific as to disallow such an alien presence. Probably my favourite thing though is how the film relates unique comic imagery in exciting and poetic ways. 

The best example of this is the montage of Miles finally becoming Spider-Man, which is almost purely made up of strung-together panel stills brought to life. That evocative shot of Miles hanging upside down in mid-air above the city could only have come from a comic book; and visualized here the way it is, against the pacing and editing of the moving picture it becomes an even more striking and beautiful moment of affirmation. Everything slows to fixate on it, which isn’t something you would really feel in a comic book even with the same image -but in film it’s enhanced, in film it’s sensational. It’s a demonstration of how

the techniques of both forms can coalesce into something extremely unique and powerful, and an argument for why they should be allowed to continue to do so. Captivating if less iconic instances of this pervade the movie, which was clearly made by people who loved and intricately understood both mediums.

I can’t imagine a superhero movie coming any closer to representing more fully and vibrantly a comic book in motion. Furthermore, any film that would attempt to would be immediately branded a stylistic rip-off. That’s kind of the double-edged sword of Spider-Verse’s existence; it’s easy to look at it and see it as the best way to reimagine a comic book world reality on screen, but coming at the period in the

genre that it does means it’s more or less destined to be an outlier –or at least it and its consequent sequels and spin-offs. Of course not every comic book movie necessarily has to look and feel like a comic book –not every comic book is designed to look and feel like a comic book. But I like seeing experimentation in the way comic book movies are presented, and it can’t be denied the form of their origin offers a lot of artistic and storytelling potential. I guess the hope is to see more of these movies, superhero films in particular, attempt in new and different ways to embody the spirit and articulate the visual grammar of the best of their magazine rack progenitors.

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