Into the Spider-Verse Is Making Some Major Changes to the Comic's Story

A new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse debuted today, showing a lot of the animated Miles Morales film. Though the trailer is fairly light on the overall plot of the film, one thing it makes clear is that it's very different from the comic book event it's based on.

See, Spider-Verse borrows its core concept from the similarly named Spider-Man comic event from 2014, written by Dan Slott and drawn by Olivier Coipel and Giuseppe Camuncoli. That story concerns various Spider-heroes from alternate universes -- not just Peter, Miles and Spider-Gwen, but Spider-Ham, Spider-Punk and so forth -- banding together to fight off the evil vampire Morlun, who's been traveling the multiverse and picking them off one by one.

Morlun is part of the Inheritor family, who come from Earth-001 captured a being known as the Master Weaver that allowed them to universe hop and kill all Spiders. Morlun previously tried to kill Peter back in the 2005 arc The Other, but Peter accidentally used his then-new powers and ripped Morlun's heart out, though he was later resurrected in 2008 with Dark Reign.

After a whole bunch of chases and Spiders dying, Morlun and his Inheritor family are defeated by sending them to the irradiated universe of Earth-3145, which only has one bunker, but also a bunch of radioactive spiders for them to feast on.

Obviously, a dimension-hopping vampire family going on a killing spree is a bit of a hard sell for a movie targeted towards families, so it makes sense that part would be omitted for Miles' solo film. And though it's not really dealt with in this first full trailer, it seems the plot may revolve around a much more well known villain, the Green Goblin, now looking more monstrous than he ever really has across any of his previous incarnations.

It's in that respect that Spider-Verse the film appears to borrow most of its inspiration from the third season of Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man animated series. In that, the Green Goblin used a crystal known as the Siege Perilous (supercharged by Electro) to travel to various alternate universes to acquire DNA from different Spider-heroes and become a Goblin Spider. In the show, one of the heroes he stole blood from was Miles, the Peter of his universe having already been dead for quite some time.

With Spider-Verse's trailer, it appears that he isn't looking for Miles, but rather the Peter of Miles' universe -- though that could and likely would change when he learns there's a new Spider-Man in town. From what we see in the trailer, it looks like Miles acquires his spider powers only moments before he sees his Peter and the Goblin fight, at which point that Peter will likely perish. Beyond that, it's unclear what role the Goblin will be playing in the film after the Peter Parker/Spider-Man's death.

More that a simple Spider-Man story, Spider-Verse comic was where readers met a variety of Spider-heroes. Some we had met previously, such as the Spider-Man of the Noir universe and Peter Porker the Spider-Ham, while others were brand new, like Spider-Punk and Spider-Gwen.

While this trailer makes it clear Spider-Gwen is a character who exists in this reality, it's unclear if she's from Miles' universe as well, or a world on her own. It wouldn't be a shock either way -- in the comics, she's the only Spider in her home of Earth-65, but the universe of the animated Spider-Man show features Peter and Miles as heroes. while she doesn't get her powers until the season is nearly over.

If there are more Spiders set to show up in Spider-Verse, Sony has yet to disclose their identities. For now, though, the core Spider trio of Peter, Miles and Gwen are here, and that's reason enough to get excited for what the film has to offer.

In theaters this Christmas, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stars Shameik Moore, Brian Tyree Henry, Jake Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Hailee Steinfeld and Liev Schreiber.