Miles Morales Fights Teen Mental Health Crisis in Important New ‘Spider-Verse’ Short
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In the new animated short, “The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story,” Miles Morales is haunted by the extraordinary pressure of his life and must decide how he’s going to deal with the stress. Shameik Moore and Brian Tyree Henry reprise their franchise roles as Miles Morales and his father, Jefferson Davis.
As he heads home after a long day of school, an active social life and being Spider-Man, Miles begins to feel the exhaustion of it all weighing on him. In fact, he’s so tired, he can’t even bring himself to enjoy the night of scary movies his dad has planned.
He desperately tries to relax, but is soon plagued by nightmares. As the title suggests, he’s attacked by visions of spiders big and small. This is where I warn you that if you have a thing about insects, you should skip this one. In the end, Miles decides that talking to his dad might actually help and they go for a walk.
Promoting a stigma-free world for mental health concerns is always an important topic. Using one of the most popular superheroes on the planet to do it is genius. Let’s be honest: Your kids may not listen when you tell them it’s okay to open up and talk about their anxiety and fear. But if their favorite hero is saying it, they might hear that loud and clear.
Unfortunately, mental health is always going to be an issue that’s difficult for Black people to discuss. Over the years, we’ve been conditioned to suppress our feelings and just keep it moving because we don’t have time to stop and examine every slight or microaggression. Of course, those insults add up and can only be ignored for so long. We don’t need to pass these painful traditions down to the next generation, which makes projects like this so crucial.
The “Spider-Verse” films have become a cultural touchstone, so using them to showcase this important issue is brilliant. This franchise hasn’t gotten a thing wrong since its debut and we can’t wait to see where it goes next.
“The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story,” is now available for free on Sony Pictures Entertainment’s YouTube page. If you want to catch up on the first two films “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is available to rent or buy on digital platforms, while “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is currently streaming on Netflix.
