The Spider Within Tackles Anxiety in the Spider-Verse

Being a superhero is hard work. You constantly risk your life battling supervillains while trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life… and you can’t tell anyone lest you put their lives in jeopardy. The Spider-Verse films have delved into that to great effect, as Miles Morales juggles being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man with school, friendships, and most of all, his father’s expectations.

But The Spider Within — which was created in collaboration with the Kevin Love Fund — reveals the toll all of that pressure takes on Miles’ mental health, leaving him in the grip of a nightmarish panic attack.

It might be tempting to dismiss The Spider Within as some filler to pass the time while we wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse, but that’d be doing it a disservice. The short is quite effective, first because Miles is such an engaging and likable protagonist, but also because it adds another layer to the relationship between Miles and his father, Jefferson, one of the best on-screen father/son relationships in recent history.