‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’: The Directors on Miles and Gwen’s Importance

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Miles Morales is swinging into theaters again with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and he’s not alone. He’s once again joined by a plethora of other Spideys throughout his journey to save the day (and the Multiverse).In this next chapter of the Spider-Verse saga, after reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.And as for who viewers love most? That’s Miles himself. Speaking to Marvel, the film’s trio of directors — Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson — know that Miles is a very special character to many, especially since younger generations have grown up knowing him as Spider-Man more than anyone else wearing the mask.“To my son, Miles is the first Spider-Man that he really knew and cared about…My son, who's 15 now, that's how he met Spider-Man is through Miles,” Powers explains. “He's their everything. And you never forget that and trust me. I don't think any of us haven't been reminded of it on an almost daily basis for the past several years.”Santos acknowledges that Miles took this mantel over from Peter Parker, the first Spider-Man to appear in early Marvel comics. But with Miles, “he's become sort of the figurehead of this movement that I don't know happens with any other superhero where you're allowed to transpose yourself into this character. Peter wore the mask. So any kid could wear the mask and pretend to be [Spider-Man]. Miles has allowed anybody to see themselves as Spider-Man, truly, with the mask on, with the mask off. It's super special, and it's something that I think we've said it a few times here, but we shouldn't take for granted.”Miles, however, isn’t the only Spidey with a huge focus, and fan base, in the movie. Santos describes Gwen Stacy’s Spider-Gwen as taking “the world by storm.”“I can remember there was a specific moment where artists were posting a lot of art on social media, and I don't know what happened, but my entire social media got flooded with Spider-Gwen imagery,” he recalls. “I was like, what the heck is going on right now? So I had to crack the book open and get to sort of understand this sort of sliding door story of how Gwen becomes Spider-Woman.”