The most curious thing about Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the potential to weave every single one of the studio’s previous Spider-Man films into one loosely-connected multiverse with Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker at the centre of it.

In the latest trailer for the animated feature, Peter takes a minute to explain to you just how popular his, well, no, Spider-Man’s brand is.

There are nearly 60 years of Spider-stories out there at this point, across comics, TV shows, movies and games, all in their own ways advancing the rich web of character arcs that have made Spidey endure as one of the world’s greatest superheroes. But this week’s Spectacular Spider-Man offers the simplest reminders as to why: Peter Parker’s just a good kid.

Spider-Man for the PlayStation 4 is a game worth playing, even for someone only vaguely familiar with the popular comic series and its six movie tie-ins. If that’s you, here’s a handy little guide to the characters you need to know to get the most out of Insomniac’s web-slinging adventure.

Spider-Man has one of the most impressive rogues’ galleries in comic book history - but despite what you might have read, J. Jonah Jameson is hands-down the most formidable adversary the webhead’s got.

Few couples in comic book history come close to the stature of Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker. Even though they haven’t actually been a couple in the comics for over a decade — something that could be about to change — Pete and MJ’s relationship has been one of the most dramatic and beloved in comics. Given that their complicated history might be about to resume once more, here’s a brief rundown of their shared past.

Spider-Man goes through changes, just like every other comic book superhero — people come and go from his life, his circumstances change, hell, sometimes the spirit of his dying archnemesis takes over his body for a bit like it’s no big deal. But Peter’s latest shift in the status quo might be a welcome one for many.

The great thing about Sony's new trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is that while it's (wonderfully) light on specific details about the plot, it's chock-full of little hints and clues about what we can expect to see in the film. The trailer's dense in the best way possible - so dense that we had to break it all down and highlight the most exciting and fascinating parts.

Marvel's Secret Wars event literally ripped the publisher's comic book universes apart, stitched them back together into an insane patchwork dystopia, and ended with characters from Marvel's Ultimate Universe such as Miles Morales ending up in Marvel's primary 616 universe, where all the action happens.

Over the weekend, Spider-Man: Homecoming became Sony's second-largest opening ever, pulling in an impressive $US117 million ($153.2 million) and being on track to ultimately make $US300 million ($392.9 million) at the domestic box office alone. With that financial win in its pocket, Sony finally has to feel confident again about Spidey's cinematic future.

For years, it was one of the better fan theories out there, and now it's confirmed to be true: Peter Parker was in Iron Man 2.

Miles Morales might be swinging around alongside Peter Parker these days as Spider-Man, but before that, he came from an alternate reality: Earth-1610, the "Ultimate Marvel" universe. Five years after the company first pondered the question, a new comic will answer who the hell the "original" Miles Morales of Earth-616 was.

Currently in Marvel's comics, Peter Parker isn't really the down-on-his-luck photographer that many people know him as. In fact, he's pretty much Tony Stark, a billionaire at the head of a vast international R&D company. So when you want to capitalise on, say, the character's big movie this year, you need a book that reflects what people are familiar with.