Overview: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative minds behind The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, bring their unique talents to a fresh vision of a different Spider-Man Universe, with a groundbreaking visual style that's the first of its kind.

'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales, and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.

Verdict: It's hard to fathom that the same Sony Pictures that, in 2012, decided the best way to expand the appeal of its live-action Spider-Man franchise was to start over with lesser movies, has now become smart enough to put its resources into a superb new — really new — Spider-Man cartoon. Maybe someone in a Culver City boardroom got bit by a radioactive MacArthur Fellow.

Whatever the reason, for a powerful corporation to relax its grip on an ancient specimen of blue-chip IP enough to let the creatives have some fun is a rare thing, and one that should not go unheralded. Marvel Comics weathered the ire of reactionary fandom back in 2011 when it introduced Miles Morales, a Spider-Man no less Amazing than that nerdy orphan Peter Parker, but for the fact he was the son of a Puerto Rican ER nurse and an African-American beat cop. Miles became the Spider-Man of the publisher's "Ultimate" line, a spiral arm of the Marvel Universe that...

...you know what? Don't worry about it. To cite the refrain of this graphically dazzling, generously imaginative, nakedly optimistic, mercilessly funny and inclusive-without-being-all-pious-about-it animated odyssey called 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse', "Anyone can wear the mask"!

Without getting all hung up on plot, some messing about by The Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) prompts what you might call a crisis on infinite earths, allowing the just-bit high-schooler Miles to meet up with confident twenty-something grad student Spidey (Chris Pine, once again getting that swagger-to-humility ratio just right) as well as divorced, depressed, forty-something dad-bod Spidey (Jake Johnson).

For all its visual dazzle, Spider-Verse is working the same optimistic side of the street as the Richard Donner Superman of 40 years ago and the Wonder Woman of last year.