For the past few decades, it’s been reboot after reboot after reboot for Spider-Man.
Fans have been showered with movies, TV shows, and video games featuring the
Web-Slinger saving New York from his endless catalogue of villains.
Sony’s acclaimed 2018 film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,
follows Miles Morales - a young teen who is thrust into the role of Spider-Man once
he uncovers a plot by New York’s criminal masterminds which threatens to destroy the
city.
Miles isn’t alone though, as he discovers many other Spider-People pouring
into his dimension who all must join together to stop Kingpin before they disappear
forever.
This cinematic masterpiece has garnered a lot of well-deserved attention,
and now it’s time for us to give it the Good-to-Evil treatment.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
Good-to-Evil.
As usual, we’ll be starting with the purest character and working our way down.
The gold medal of good is going to the Original Peter Parker from Miles’ dimension.
He’s the Spider-Man that everyone knows and loves who has been protecting the city
from crime for the past decade.
The opening montage shows his drive and determination, and despite being beaten down
by every single villain in New York multiple times, he always finds a way to get
back up and save the city - that is, until he
meets Miles Morales.
After Miles stumbles into Kingpin’s secret laboratory, he finds
Spider-Man battling Green Goblin and gets caught up in the fight.
Luckily, Peter spots him before the villains do and saves Miles
from falling to his death.
He is able to keep a cool head and calm Miles down while trying
to destroy the super-collider before it activates.
Goblin ends up doing this for him, but it leaves Peter severely injured.
He then tasks Miles with finishing the collider
for good before he has one last encounter with Kingpin.
Peter tries to convince him not to go through with his project, which angers
him enough to deliver the killing blow, leaving the city without a Spider-Man for the time
being.
Peter is not only an inspiration to Miles, but a role model for the entire city who
gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect the innocent.
His introduction hints that he has a bit of an inflated ego, but considering everything
he’s done for the city, I’d say a bit of
bragging is warranted.
Peter is certainly the most heroic character and worthy of the top
spot on the list.
In second place is going to be May Parker.
This version of Aunt May knows all about her nephew’s exploits and helps him by maintaining
his hideout, even after his death.
She’s clearly fed up with the whole hero and villain business (as shown when she
answers the door with a baseball bat), but that doesn’t stop her from helping the other
dimensional Spider-People put a stop to Kingpin’s plan.
Unfortunately, the bad guys decide that the best place to have a massive
battle is in the middle of her living room, which gets her mad enough to smack Tombstone
upside the head.
Afterwards, Miles finds her in the Spider-Cave where she is
waiting to help outfit him with brand new web
shooters and his own real Spider-Suit.
Despite her jaded attitude towards hero work, she is clearly still dedicated to the memory
of her nephew and to helping the city, which is certainly admirable.
Taking the bronze medal of good is our hero, Miles Morales.
You all know the story by this point: High school kid, spider bite,
strange powers, and so on.
However, the difference this time is that Miles is not
the first person to have this happen to him, strangely enough.
When meeting Peter Parker, Miles admits that he’s afraid of his new
role and doesn’t want to become the next Spider-Man.
Not long after, though, Peter is killed by Kingpin and Miles feels responsible
for not saving him, which gives him the final push he needs to accept the title.
Soon enough, he meets Peter B. and convinces him to show Miles the ropes since he’s the
only other Peter Parker who can, and Miles immediately risks his life to go rob top-secret,
high-tech information from the biggest crime lord in the country.
Now that’s pretty damn brave.
While Miles is eager to help the other Spiders defeat Kingpin, he does get
in way over his head trying to take him down before he has a chance to hone any of his
skills.
Then, in one of the greatest scenes in the movie, Miles takes his leap of faith and
proves that he’s ready to meet any challenge that comes his way.
He saves the city and the Spider-Gang from dematerializing, and even helps his dad to
overcome his hatred for Spider-Man.
Speaking of his family, Miles very clearly loves his mom, dad, and uncle, even though
he doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with his father.
But they do come to a better understanding by the end, even if Miles has
to do some of his part from behind the mask.
Miles is a courageous kid who works to become a worthy successor to Peter
Parker and a hero to the city.
Whatever trouble he gets into in his civilian life is fairly
typical teenage behavior, like trespassing and doing graffiti, but I think that can be
forgiven considering his heroic actions.
Just below Miles are his mom and dad, Rio Morales and Jeff Davis.
They both love their son very much and offer him advice to
deal with school and other struggles, though Rio initially seems better at understanding
Miles.
She reminds Miles not to run away from his problems, which helps him both in
school and in his superhero life.
Jeff gets way more spotlight, and he has trouble connecting
with Miles due to his rigid beliefs and his desire to keep him from ending up like
his Uncle Aaron, whom Jeff seems to have dissociated from.
Despite this, he clearly regrets drifting apart from his brother and loves
him a lot.
Unfortunately, Aaron’s death is the last time that Jeff sees him, which
deepens his already established hatred for Spider-Man.
After this point, Jeff finally expresses his love and support for his son
when he needs it the most, which pushes Miles to fully assume the role of Spider-Man.
Jeff also manages to get over his animosity for Spider-Man after unknowingly
witnessing his son save the whole city.
Rio and Jeff are certainly good parents who end
up raising a superhero, so it’s no surprise that they’re high up in the good tier.
Our first dimensional counterpart is going to be Gwen Stacy, or Spider-Woman.
Gwen is the first Spider-Hero to enter Miles’
dimension, which means she has more time to investigate and figure out her situation.
By the time Miles and Peter B have even realized that the super-collider has opened
the rifts, Gwen has already found a way to infiltrate both Miles’ school and Alchemax
Labs.
She rescues those two from Doc Ock in the nick of time, and they soon meet up with
the rest of the Spider-Gang at Aunt May’s.
Gwen stands out among the heroes because she simply accomplishes more within the
story than the other outer-dimensional Spiders.
However, due to her past trauma, she’s a lot more standoffish and reluctant to be
close to anyone until she runs into Miles.
Although their first encounter was pretty awkward, Gwen does like and care about Miles
a lot; however, just like the rest of the Spiders, she doesn’t think he’s ready
to handle Kingpin and agrees to leave him behind, but
she is happy to see him return in the nick of time.
She also tries to take Peter’s place before they take down the collider, meaning
she was willing to sacrifice herself if Miles never made it there.
She can be a bit cold, but actions speak louder than words, and Gwen
certainly sees a good amount of action, so she’s gotta be placed with the good characters.
We’re going to group these next three heroes together - Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker,
and Spider-Ham are up next.
Their introductions and roles in the story are all incredibly
similar, so I think it’s fair to rank them together.
Miles, Gwen, and Peter B. all find these new heroes in the Spider-Cave, and Miles explains
how they have to return to their dimension before they disappear forever.
They “train” Miles to fight Kingpin by beating
the crap out of him until he can’t get back up anymore and they soon realize that he isn’t
quite ready for the task at hand.
However, they all come together and sympathize with
Miles when he loses his uncle since they all have endured a similar loss.
Of course, they also participate in the final battle
with Kingpin’s forces before heading back to their
own dimensions to continue their hero work.
Overall, they’re a diverse group of comedic and memorable heroes who are great additions
to the story and worthy of their good tier spots.
The last member of the Spider-Gang is going to be Peter B. Parker.
Unlike the original, Peter B. is much older, much cruder, and much...thicker.
His line of work has clearly taken a massive toll on his personal life,
and he’s been left as a shell of his former self
by his introduction into the movie.
He’s interrogated by Miles, but escapes relatively
easily and proceeds to completely ignore everything Miles tells him about the imminent
danger to his dimension.
Peter B. acts incredibly selfish and only agrees to help Miles
after he finds out that the key to activating the collider is broken and Miles guilt trips
him into showing him the ropes as the original
Peter promised.
Peter B. gradually sets into this new role as a mentor and begins to teach
Miles some actually useful things like web-swinging.
He also makes the decision to take Miles’ place and sacrifice himself to
activate the collider and send everyone else home.
Normally, this would be incredibly noble, BUT - and it’s gonna sound kinda
messed up - it really seems like this decision stems from Peter B. believing he doesn’t
have much to live for without Mary Jane rather than outright selflessness.
Obviously he still wants to keep Miles safe, so it’s not like this
tanks his ranking or anything, but it is something to consider when comparing him to the
other Spiders.
But despite being rough around the edges and inexperienced as a
teacher, his leadership pays off, and his protégé returns just in time to save his
ass.
This Peter Parker has gone through lots of hardship and has ended up in a rut as a
result, but true to his word, he still gets back up...eventually.
Finishing off the good tier is Mary Jane Parker.
Now, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between Mary Jane across dimensions,
but we’ll be counting the one from Miles’ universe for this entry.
After the tragic death of her husband, Mary Jane speaks to
the city about Peter while grieving for him.
She fondly remembers his life and attitude towards the job of Spider-Man, which indirectly
inspires Miles to carry on Peter’s mission.
She also appears at Kingpin’s dinner party, although I’m not sure how she
feels about all of the staff wearing the mask of her dead husband.
Regardless, Mary Jane realizes how much Spider-Man meant to
the city even as she grieves, and the fact that she chooses to address the public immediately
after his death shows her strength and dedication to the city.
That’s it for the good tier.
Since the characters in this movie are pretty cut-and-dried, I can think of only one person
who truly belongs in the Gray Area.
And that character is Aaron Davis.
Miles certainly seems to have a much closer relationship with his uncle than his dad at
the start of the film, which is understandable considering how much more laid back Aaron
is compared to Jeff.
Aaron is also encouraging to his nephew and wants to see
him succeed, though he doesn’t put the overbearing pressure on him like his parents
do.
However, it seems as though Jeff is correct in not wanting Miles to end up like
his uncle considering that Aaron’s a freaking supervillain.
The Prowler is a fearsome and ruthless enemy who works alongside
Kingpin as one of his enforcers, and he spends a good portion of his screen time
chasing down a teenager with explicit orders to kill him.
Once Aaron finds out that it’s his nephew behind the mask, however, all of
his concern shifts to keeping Miles safe, which shows exactly where his priorities lie.
Unfortunately, Kingpin shoots him in the back and Miles has to take his uncle to safety.
In one last goodbye, Aaron realizes that his choices led him down a dark path which
hurt his family most of all, but he encourages Miles to keep going even through
this terrible hardship.
Early on, he also teaches Miles the most overpowered fighting
move of all time which he later uses to defeat Kingpin: The Shoulder Touch.
Because of his career as The Prowler, there’s no
way we can put Aaron any higher, but his connection and love for Miles is enough to
keep him from being placed with the evil characters.
With that very short Neutral Tier out of the way, it’s time to move on to The Bad
and The Evil.
First up, we have Kingpin’s lesser henchmen, including Tombstone, Scorpion, and
the Green Goblin.
Much like those in the Spider-Gang, these villains mostly serve all
the same purpose and don’t have much individual development.
They’re dangerous enforcers who do all of Kingpin’s bidding,
which can include anything from theft to assault to murder.
They also cause a ridiculous amount of collateral damage, which I’m
sure doesn’t bother them in the slightest since their boss can pay for anything they
destroy - and in the Goblin’s case, this also includes the super-collider.
In the end, it seems like no deed is too dirty for these
villains, so long as it pays well.
The silver medal of evil is going to Olivia Octavius, or this dimension’s Doc Ock.
She is similar to Kingpin’s other lackeys in
that she has access to advanced technology and
uses it for chaos and violence; however, unlike the others, she is the head scientist at
Alchemax and lead developer of the super-collider and has a vested interest in getting it
working.
Obviously, Kingpin pays her salary, but she seems to have an agenda of her
own for using the collider.
She surpasses the other villains simply because of how
sadistic she is.
The way she talks to Peter B. about his impending death by
disintegration and how eager she is to watch it happen is just unnerving, and she’s
apparently had run-ins with Aunt May in the past, so we can only assume that Liv tried
to kill her at some point.
There’s not much else to say besides this lady seriously needs
to cool it with the whole “killing people with tentacle arms” thing.
And finally, the gold medal of evil goes to Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin.
I can hear the counters to this placement now, considering
that Fisk actually has a motivation for his plan beyond money, power, or just plain sadism.
His sole intention is to use the collider to bring an alternate version of his wife
and son, who were killed in a car accident fleeing their home, to this dimension - effectively
bringing them back to life.
Is he somewhat sympathetic?
Sure.
Does this mean he isn’t pure evil?
Uhhhh, no.
Let’s run down the list: Kingpin has had New York under
his thumb for years thanks to his control over nearly every major criminal in the city
and his ability to send them out anywhere at
any time.
He employs sadistic and evil people like Norman Osborne and Olivia Octavius
to do his bidding, which sometimes includes murder.
He deals the killing blow to Spider-Man, the only beacon of hope that the
city has left, which DEFINITELY constitutes murder.
He not only expects The Prowler to execute a teenager, but
proceeds to kill him the instant he refuses to carry out the order - he shoots one of
his most trusted colleagues like it was nothing.
And finally, he is perfectly fine with tearing apart the fabric of reality across dimensions
and destroying the entire city of New York (perhaps multiple times over) just so that
he can get his family back, whom he drove away with his criminal activity in the first
place.
At this point, it really doesn’t matter what
his intentions with the super-collider are, Kingpin doesn’t deserve to see his family
ever again given everything that he’s done.
Thankfully, after years of terrorizing New York,
Miles Morales and the Spider-Gang put a stop to Kingpin's life of crime so the city can
sleep soundly.
But what do you think?
Let us know in the comment section.
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