Spider-Man’s Web of Intertextuality: How ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ Succeeds in Reinvigorating a Franchise
“Look, I’m a comic book, I’m a cereal, did a Christmas album. I have an excellent theme song. And a so-so popsicle…There’s only one Spider-Man. And you’re looking at him.” – Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
In 2015, before producing another reimagined, decades-old comics franchise in The LEGO Batman Movie (2017), writing-producing duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller took on the impossible task of producing a new installment of Spider-Man, a seemingly tired franchise.¹ Ever since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the character in 1962, Spider-Man has become a cultural phenomenon and brand of his own, along the ranks of Superman and Batman. Now, having worked on the animated Spider-Man project for over three years — and shaking off the debacle of directing then not directing Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) — Lord and Miller have shepherded another success, a much needed one for Sony after failing to launch a premature “spider-verse” through Marc Webb’s lackluster The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Enlisting the directing trio of Peter Ramsey, Robert Persichetti, and Rodney Rothman, the team behind the animated feature embrace Spider-Man in his rich history of retellings and reboots, particularly through the protagonist of Miles Morales, himself a fan of the hero. Grounding Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) in the franchise’s intertextuality paves the way for something unexpectedly satisfying, familiar, and new.
Julia Kristeva (quoted in Higgs) first conceptualized the term intertextuality as “an intersection of textual surfaces rather than a point (a fixed meaning), as a dialogue among several writings”. An extension from the literary text, film too contains its own modes of intertextuality. As Sam Higgs explores in “Rules of Engagement,” intertextuality in film is nothing new, but has become a staple of modern blockbusters like Star Wars and Avengers films, referencing story, character, and visual elements from other films and mediums.² Evan Puschak, YouTube’s The Nerdwriter, criticizes the use of “weaponized intertextuality” in franchise filmmaking and critiques its use as “cheap” emotional and nostalgic payoff.³ Yet, as Sage Hyden, Just Write on YouTube, responds, “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to be original…Intertextuality and influence are inescapable.”⁴ As these two prominent video essayists suggest, intertextuality can be used as a tool in successfully launching a franchise when used correctly. The filmmakers at the helm of Spider-Verse certainly have a “mastery of their influences.”⁵ Spider-Verse hinges on intertextuality; rather than depending on cheap nostalgia, the film draws attention to and respects what has come before while delivering a wholly new take on the franchise.
“There’s only one Spider-Man,” Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) tells the audience, like the fourth wall breaking of Fox’s R-rated Deadpool (2016). But Spider-Verse goes beyond the fourth wall, revealing the irony of Peter’s statement. The main conceit of the film is the notion of multiple dimensions — which collide as part of Kingpin’s villainous, albeit sympathetic, plot. The film introduces an ensemble of spider-characters, such as Spider-Gwen and Spider-Ham (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld and John Mulaney respectively), and even alludes to the multiple iterations of Peter himself on the big screen. Tobey McGuire’s Peter Parker in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007) is still relevant in much of the public consciousness, while audiences and critics were largely disappointed with Andrew Garfield’s rendition in Marc Webb’s lackluster The Amazing Spider-Man duology (2012–2014). Much of the criticism against Webb’s interpretation is its hasty reboot of the franchise.⁶ When Sony was willing to save the franchise “in association with Marvel,” Tom Holland’s rendition in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) — a pun on the character’s introduction to Marvel proper — was praised as the most genuine and accurate portrayal yet.⁷ But Spider-Verse largely harkens back to McGuire and Raimi’s Spider-Man, recreating scenes from the trilogy in animation, even the franchise’s most ridiculed scene of Spider-Man’s flamboyant dancing in the streets of New York. In anticipation of the film’s release, many even theorized the Spider-Man of Spider-Verse is a continuation of Tobey McGuire’s iteration.⁸ Additionally, the villain Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, garners some character development from Vincent D’onofrio’s portrayal in Netflix’s highly regarded Daredevil (2015–2018). Coupled with the history in comic books, television, and video games (like 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man for PlayStation 4), Spider-Verse uses intertextuality to inform and enrich the film experience by referencing previous film adaptations.
As much as the film harkens back to its comics roots and various adaptations, it unravels the familiar Peter Parker that audiences have known. Spider-Verse’s Peter Parker is older, loses Aunt May, and breaks up with Mary Jane. He’s gained weight and wallows in self-pity — far from the idealized Spider-Man. Literary critics often cite a work’s ability to defamiliarize the familiar as a component of great art, as Victor Shklovsky states, “After we see an object several times, we begin to recognize it. The object is in front of us and we know about it, but we do not see it — hence we cannot say anything significant about it. Art removes objects from the automatism of perception.⁹ After multiple iterations, and what some would say an oversaturated genre, Spider-Verse manages to make Spider-Man unfamiliar. What many criticized about The Amazing Spider-Man’s retreading is nowhere in sight in Spider-Verse. Peter is no longer a teenager in high school, and the relationships that have defined him are fractured. But this sense of loss also enriches Peter; knowing the hero he had been in the past makes his struggle to return to the familiar Spider-Man all the more engaging.
Spider-Verse doesn’t rely solely on nostalgia nor Puschak’s “weaponized intertextuality”; instead, these intertextual touchstones are in service of introducing the film’s central protagonist, Miles Morales. Although Peter Parker has been Spider-Man since the sixties, Miles’ introduction in the comics by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli in 2011 “proved [Miles as] more than just a stand-in [for Peter Parker], but a featured player in his own right, generating a passionate fan base and cultivating his own identity outside of the core mythos of Spider-Man.”¹⁰ Actor Donald Glover, known to many as musician Childish Gambino, was one of those fans, campaigning for the role of Miles Morales. While he ultimately voiced Miles in the animated series, his live-action involvement was limited to a cameo in Spider-Man: Homecoming as Miles’s uncle.¹¹ Nevertheless, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) gets his proper, spectacular theatrical debut in Spider-Verse.
Faithful to the comics, Miles is an Afro-Latino teenager from Brooklyn. When a radioactive spider bites him, Miles gains super strength, predictive senses, electrocution, and even invisibility. While his origin may seem familiar, he is not Peter Parker. As he gets ready for school, his father offers him a ride in his cop car while his mother nags him in Spanish (to which Miles understands and responds). He wants to make his parents proud through school, but his Uncle Aaron supports his creative endeavors. Unlike Peter’s gawky and bookish qualities, Miles is popular among his neighborhood friends and has an artistic passion for graffiti — itself an intertextual art form. The construction of his own Spider-Man suit is an intertextual totem, a suit previously worn by Peter Parker but is now spray painted in black and red. As Peter advises Miles, one Spider-Man to the next, “Don’t do it like me. Do it like you.” Despite idolizing Peter’s Spider-Man, owning some of his comic books, Miles heeds Peter’s advice. While Miles’ story draws heavily from Spider-Man’s original alter ego, an aspect cleverly addressed with the introduction of the other spider-characters, Miles remains his own, fully realized character.
“How can you make something original when everything has already been said by Shakespeare or Kubrick or whoever else you admire?” asks Sage Hyden.¹² While Shakespeare’s works are regarded as sacred to the English literary canon, they are not entirely original in and of themselves, as researchers not only trace Shakespeare’s sources to his English contemporaries, but also to the Italian Renaissance and Greco-Roman tradition;¹³ one of the most highly regarded bibliographies is also one of the most intertextual collection of texts. Hollywood franchises don’t usually aspire toward Shakespearean heights. Yet, the blending of preexisting content into something new and original is what most franchises attempt in order to sustain longevity. Spider-Verse is a prime example of the utility of this intertextuality. While it pulls from multiple threads of the brand and franchise in various mediums, Spider-Verse works to create a collage, a web, a masterwork of animated storytelling. Peter Parker remains in live action through Tom Holland in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Miles Morales emerges as a worthy animated counterpart. In the age of cinematic universes, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse reinvigorates the Spider-Man franchise and superhero genre with an entirely new lead hero in a single film.
Bibliographical Notes
¹Foutch, Haleigh. “Spider-Man Animated Movie Will be Masterminded by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.” Collider, 22 April 2015, http://collider.com/spider-man-animated-movie-phil-lord-chris-miller/. Accessed on 8 January 2019.
²Higgs, Sam. “Rules of Engagement: Intertextuality and Narrative.” Screen Education, no. 92, Dec. 2018, pp. 86–91. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=ufh&AN=133414054&site=eds-live&authtype=sso&custid=s8475574.
³Puschak, Evan. “Intertextuality: Hollywood’s New Currency.” YouTube, uploaded by TheNerdwriter1, 25 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeAKX_0wZWY. Accessed on 8 January 2019.
⁴Hyden, Sage. “Stranger Things and Intertextuality (A Response to The Nerdwriter).” YouTube, uploaded by Just Write, 29 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwTpsw-ufDA. Accessed on 8 January 2019.
⁵Hyden, Sage.
⁶Harper, David. “The Great Power and Great Responsibility of Spider-Man.” The Ringer, 6 July 2017, https://www.theringer.com/2017/7/6/16037130/spider-man-homecoming-iconic-character-reboot-relevance-c4f24412caa5. Accessed on 9 January 2019.
⁷Jensen, Erin. “Why a teen Peter Parker is something to marvel at in the new ‘Spider-Man’.” USA Today, 5 July 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2017/07/04/why-teen-peter-parker-tom-holland-is-something-marvel-new-spider-man/103195878/. Accessed on 9 January 2019.
⁸Woburn, Daniel. “Spider-Verse Theory: Peter Parker is Tobey McGuire’s Spider-Man.” Screen Rant, 7 October 2018, https://screenrant.com/spider-verse-movie-peter-parker-tobey-maguire-spiderman/. Accessed on 10 January 2019.
⁹Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique.” The Critical Tradition. Ed. David H. Richter, Shorter 3rd ed., Bedford/St.Martin’s, New York, 2016, pp. 426–436.
¹⁰Harper, David.
¹¹Yamato, Jen. “How Donald Glover wound up in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ and what it might mean for an inclusive future.” Los Angeles Times, 6 July 2017, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-spider-man-homecoming-donald-glover-20170706-story.html. Accessed on 9 January 2019.
¹²Hyden, Sage.
¹³Mullan, John. “Shakespeare and Italy.” British Library, 15 March 2016, https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/shakespeare-and-italy. Accessed on 9 January 2019.
