Animated short The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story, revolving around Earth-1610's Spider-Man Miles Morales, is currently streaming on Sony Pictures Animation’s official YouTube channel.
“We are proud to officially debut The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story, in partnership with the Kevin Love Fund. Because everyone is going through something, even superheroes like Miles Morales,” the Entertainment company wrote in the description of the short film on YouTube on Wednesday.
Set in the world of the Oscar-nominated series Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the short shows a day in the life of Miles, who comes back home from school feeling extremely overwhelmed by his responsibilities as a teenager, student and as Brooklyn’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. He refuses to binge-watch horror movies with his father, who had hoped to spend some time with him, and instead goes back to his room to sleep. But he experiences a panic attack in the middle of the night due to stress and anxiety. He eventually realises that even a superhero like him needs to reach out for help for physical manifestation of anxiety.
The Spider-Verse animated story is a part of Kevin Love Fund’s new mental health-focused lesson plan, The Hero Within, aimed at the well-being of students.
“Miles represents so many of us doing the best we can in our day-to-day lives,” said The Spider Within director Jarelle Dampier in a statement. “We don’t often realise all that we’ve been through until our own body forces us to become aware of its experience,” he added.
Written by Khaila Amazan, The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story is produced by LENS program creators Michelle Raimo-Kouyate and David Schulenburg.