SPIN OFF

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Spins Off Spiders Of All Kinds

By Bryan VanCampen

If the underlying message of 2018’s Oscar-winning animated film “SpiderMan: Into the Spider-Verse” was “Anyone can wear the mask”, in “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and his friend Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) find themselves zapped into an alternate world where everyone wears the mask.

In the first film, Miles got to team up with a great crew of alternate Spider-folks. I really fell for John Mulhaney as Peter Porker/Spider-Ham and Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man Noir (“I like to drink egg creams, and I like to fight Nazis. A lot.”)

Across the Spider-Verse”

In the new film, Miles and Gwen are on the trail of a bizarre bad guy called The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) whose body is covered with interdimensional portals that allow him to travel into space and other dimensions. This leads Miles and Gwen to a whole new company of alternate spider characters known as the Spider Society, led by Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), and Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/ Spider-Woman, a pregnant badass woman warrior who rides a chopper. You can’t get more inclusive than that.

There’s a great gag in the Spider-Verse where we see a therapy session in an elegant, wood-paneled office. A Spidey patient lying on a couch begins tearfully talking about his uncle, and then the Spidey therapist, sporting glasses over his mask, says, “And let me guess. He died.” And at that moment, a hundred different web heads crash into the office like the stateroom sequence in The Marx Brothers’

“A Night at the Opera” (1935).

True-blue arachnid fans will want to see this movie multiple times because it’s so dense with characters, details and Easter Eggs. You will see literally hundreds of dif- ferent Spider-People culled from decades of comic books, movies, TV series and video games. The movie has dozens of actual footnotes splashed across the screen, some so brief that fans will be pausing their Blu-Rays in a few months to figure out all the details.

If anyone thought that the filmmakers would get lazy and rest on some wellearned laurels, think again. As much as a game-changer as the first film was, you can see the artists who wrote and drew every frame of “Spider-Man: Across the SpiderVerse” trying to go farther, to be more ambitious and audacious, to push storytelling and the art of animation even farther than they did back in 2018. There’s a heartfelt scene between Gwen and her policeman father Jim Stacey (Shea Whigham), where the room around the two characters gradually turns pastel and transparent, a lovely effect.

One more thing. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” ends in a classic cliff- hanger of danger and suspense. Everything picks up again when “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” opens on March 29, 2024, and a little web-crawler told me that a female-focused spin-off movie is in development. ‘Nuff said, true believers! Excelsior!

RIP Ray Stevenson (HBO’s “Rome”, “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant”, “The Book of Eli”, “The Other Guys”, “Thor”, “Thor: The Dark World”, “Thor: Ragnarok”)

LEAGUE OF WOMEN’S VOTERS

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Sharp said that she would “like to see Cornell contribute more to TCAT, matched by city and county funds. Free TCAT rides is a goal worth working towards for the good of those with the least and for addressing climate change.”

Jackson recently told the Ithaca Times that the most important issues facing the city are high costs of living and making bold moves towards achieving the goals of the Green New Deal. If elected, her top priorities would include maintaining stability within City Hall, setting “solid benchmarks” relating to the Green New Deal and reimagining public safety, and finding “creative funding sources” to adequately fund city services.

When asked if she thinks Cornell should contribute more to the city, Jackson said that “Cornell needs to be a better neighbor, they need to contribute more to the city.”

She continued by saying that “it is essential that the team that is working on renegotiating the MOU be strong and creative in their efforts. And as of right now I’m not feeling confident that that’s the case. We have a golden opportunity to help lower the cost of living in the city and across Tompkins County, we must take the initiative and truly serve our community.”

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Regarding the need to balance reimagining public safety with the public perception of increasing crime, Jackson said that equating the two issues is a “false equivalency.” She continued saying, “We don’t need to choose between lower crime or our efforts to reimagine public safety. If we are being honest, it is the reimagining itself that will increase safety and wellbeing.”

The Ithaca Times is awaiting a response from West Fox. This story will be updated with their responses as soon as they are received.

The Third Ward

The Third Ward will see a race for a 4-year term between David Shapiro and Dr. Nathan Sitaraman. Shapiro is a longtime Ithaca resident who currently serves as the Executive Director of Second Wind Cottages, a local organization that builds homes for the County’s unhoused community. He has said that his role at Second Wind has made him increasingly aware of housing affordability issues within the City of Ithaca. Former Third Ward representative Donna Flemming and former Public Works Commissioner Jon Greene have both endorsed Shapiro while Sitaraman has received endorsements from the Working Families Party and the Solidarity Slate. Sitaraman has said that the city needs more affordable housing with stronger tenant protections, expanded and improved public transit, better maintenance of roads and sidewalks, and more childcare options for Ithaca’s parents.

Sitaraman recently told the Ithaca Times that job and housing instability are among the most important issues that the city is currently facing. Sitaraman said that these issues “create a cascade of further problems by destabilizing communities, making them less safe and increasing the burden on social services.”

If elected, Sitaraman has said that his top priorities will include pressuring Cornell to pay their fair share to the city, improving housing and job security, and ensuring progress on the Green New Deal.

According to Sitaraman, “Bargaining a favorable deal [with Cornell] would greatly improve the city’s ability to address the issues of public safety, sustainability, infrastructure, inequality, and housing. The city can create leverage by threatening Cornell’s reputation, which it relies on for fundraising, through public actions. The city can further create leverage by working with organized labor to threaten Cornell’s construction projects and its general operations. Such an alliance would be tactically beneficial to both the city and to organized labor, as tapping into Cornell’s endowment would allow the city to create more jobs and pay higher wages in the future.”

Sitaraman also believes that Cornell needs to do more to support the implementation of the Green New Deal. “Ithaca could and should be a leader in the Green New Deal, but this is only possible with a financial commitment from Cornell,” Sitaraman said.

Regarding housing issues, Sitaraman has advocated for policies such as Good Cause Eviction and the Emergency Tenant Protection Act. According to Sitaraman, “The city needs to promote efforts to create safe, affordable housing, not pursue policies like camping bans that further endanger the most vulnerable members of our community.” Additionally, he says that “Construction of new apartments that cost far more than the average Ithacan can afford has done nothing to stabilize the rental market, where prices have continued to rise in lockstep with rising property values and rising property taxes.”

When asked about how he would improve public transit, Sitaraman said that “the most important step to take is making TCAT fare-free, which would immediately make TCAT a more convenient and affordable transportation option. But before we do so, we need to increase TCAT staffing to a level that can accommodate higher demand.” He continued saying that additional funds from Cornell could be directed towards free TCAT service.

The Ithaca Times is awaiting a response from David Shapiro.

The Fifth Ward

Finally, the Fifth Ward will see two primary races between Clyde Lederman and Jason Houghton for a 2-year term, and Michelle Song and Margaret Fabrizio for a 4-year term. Lederman is going into his sophomore year at Cornell and has received an endorsement from the Working Families Party. Like many candidates, he has identified housing affordability and transportation issues relating to Cornell’s tax-exempt status as some of the priorities of his campaign. Houghton has also made housing affordability a concern of his campaign, along with improving public transportation and wages for city workers.

Houghton recently told the Ithaca Times that he believes the most important issues facing the city are a housing affordability crisis due to high property tax burdens, and low staffing levels within city departments. If elected, his top priorities would be fully staffing city departments and fairly compensating city employees, addressing housing affordability by making tax-exempt entities contribute more to the city, and investing in climate-resilient infrastructure.

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