"Hey Dad... You got a minute?"
"Because everyone is going through something, even superheroes like Miles Morales."
— Video description on the Sony Pictures Animation channel
The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story is a short computer-animated superhero cartoon by Sony Pictures Animation in co-operation with Marvel Entertainment, set in the Spider-Man: Spider-Verse series of animated movies.
The short details the mindset of Miles Morales as he goes back to his dad's apartment, with how the toll of being Spider-Man is clearly weighing heavily on his psyche and headspace. While in his room, Miles has a very vivid nightmare about a strange black simulacrum of himself...
The short can be officially viewed for free on YouTube here
, here, or here.
The film officially serves as part of the Kevin Love Fund's mental health-focused lesson plan, "The Hero Within", and even comes with a free lesson plan to accompany the film.
The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch: As part of the Logo Joke, the Columbia logo's torch brightens and fills the screen, leading us to believe that it would transition to the SPA logo like in films like Open Season and Surf's Up... only to cut to the Marvel logo.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: The second half of the short takes place in one, with Miles having a vivid nightmare about being chased by a dark simulacrum of himself, which transforms into a spider, then a lot of tiny spiders.
- Cat Scare: Miles comes home to a scary movie playing on TV of someone sneaking up behind a victim. His Spider-Sense goes off, only for his dad to Jump Scare him wearing a hockey mask.
- Dramatic Irony: A few times in the short, Miles is haunted by voices of people (especially his parents) telling him that he's always running late and never seems to show any responsibility. As other panels during these moments show, and the audience is already aware, Miles is the Spider-Man of his universe, and showing an enormous amount of responsibility. It's just that Being Good Sucks when Miles has to keep up a Secret Identity, and the Heroic Fatigue is getting to Miles pretty badly.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Even assuming the dream that Miles had wasn't real-time, the entire short has its conflict resolve very quickly. It starts with Miles walking down the street to Jefferson's place, then ends just a few minutes later when Miles and Jefferson go for a walk so Miles can talk with his dad.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The simulacrum of Miles appears as an entirely black copy of himself except for the eyes, which are glowing yellow.
- Heroic Fatigue: Miles is in a bad place mentally after being told that he's not showing any responsibility in his life, while he's actually showing quite a bit as Spider-Man but having to keep up his Secret Identity. His grades are plummeting, he keeps being late, and he's sleep-deprived—not to mention the fact that crime-fighting is becoming progressively more exhausting and painful for him.
- Irony: When Miles sees the scary movie on the TV, he says the lady onscreen should check behind her. And then Jefferson scares Miles. And says he told Miles to have good situational awareness.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While wrong to assume that Miles isn't acting responsible at all, Jeff and Rio's disappointment in Miles is completely justified as they don't want their son to keep failing his assignments in school, don't want him to keep getting bad grades, and want him to be more early in some cases.
- Jump Scare: After resting on his windowsill, Miles lies down in his bed, panting after another set of flashbacks and Heroic Fatigue. When he looks down, there's a dark simulacrum of himself suddenly standing in his room with Glowing Eyes of Doom, complete with a Scare Chord.
- Minimalist Cast: Outside of brief cameos that sum up Miles's Heroic Fatigue, the only cast members present in this film are him, Jefferson and the simulacrum of Miles.
- Mythology Gag:
- One of the moments shown in Miles' flashbacks is his version of the "If This Be My Destiny...!" sequence from The Amazing Spider-Man #33.
- While seemingly more of a generalized nightmare than a reference, Miles' sleep demon does somewhat evoke The Thousand from Spider-Man's Tangled Web #1-3 after it shifts into a mass of spiders, some of which emerge from Miles' mouth.
- No-Sell: Miles charges up his Venom Sting to punch the simulacrum of himself, but it does nothing at all. The simulacrum doesn't even flinch.
- Ship Tease: A couple references to Gwen are made despite its short runtime. A Freeze-Frame Bonus when Miles crawls over the ceiling shows a work-in-progress sketch he's doing of her, and the ending is him telling his dad that he has a lot stuff on his mind like homework and girls, before correcting himself: "Well... one girl."
- Spiders Are Scary: The spider in the nightmare that Miles has initially appears as an enormous one that hunts him in his room. It then suddenly changes to hundreds of tiny spiders that start crawling all over Miles, causing him to panic.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Miles comes out of his dream like this, having just seen some pretty horrific things. He finally decides to confide in his dad after waking up.