2018’s been pretty great for everyone’s favorite wall-crawler; a starring role in Avengers: Infinity War, his own critically acclaimed game and now an entire film devoted to the different versions of the much-adored character. Not many other pop culture figures could warrant so much success in a single 12 month period. Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse is the crowning achievement, complete with an all-star cast including the likes of Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, and Nicholas Cage, its sure to dominate the box office when it releases on the 14th December.

So to celebrate the animation’s much-anticipated release, we’re going to recap what has been an incredible year for the swinging superhero.

Avengers: Infinity War -26th April

Hot off his debut standalone Spidey flick, Spiderman: Homecoming (2017), Tom Holland stole the show once again in one of the biggest events in cinematic history, Avengers: Infinity War (2018).

The culmination of 10 years’ worth of inter-connected and inter-woven films starting with Iron Man all the way back in 2008, the box office behemoth was, as you know, chock full of A-list stars – Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth to name a few. But, it was a certain Peter Parker who dealt the biggest emotional blow with a single line.

I don’t want to go…

Five words uttered that drove mass audiences to tears, as the teenage superhero ceased to exist in front of our very eyes. The young British actor is actually reported to have improvised the chilling line himself, with co-director Joe Russo confirming Tom Holland came up with the adlib during filming.

You needn’t worry though about his unfortunate fate; Holland will make a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his follow up to Spider-Man Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man Far from Home which has already begun production this year. The only question that remains is exactly how Spidey will recover from Thanos’s snap, a query we’re sure will be answered in the Avengers sequel set to hit theaters in 2019.

Spider-Man PS4 – 7th September

Spider-Man PS4, was one of several Marvel games to release this year, however, it stood head and shoulders above the rest. With fans waiting for over two years since its first announcement at E3 in 2016, the game certainly lived up to the hype.

Greeted with critical acclaim from every major games critic, Spider-Man PS4 broke numerous records including the biggest launch month in dollar sales for any PlayStation exclusive in history. It topped sales charts for any other title throughout 2018 at its launch and generated 37% more sales than every other Spider-Man game released since 1995.

The game’s success is without a doubt due to the developers’ (Insomniac) devotion and passion for the project. Adapting the Spider-Man mythos for a new generation, we meet Peter Parker fresh out of college, who has been the wall-crawler since he was 15, setting on an adventure after the imprisonment of Wilson Wisk.  You play through a remarkably emotional campaign facing many of the most famous villains from Spider-Man’s rogue gallery.

Rated 9/10 by GameSpot, the review site stated that ‘there have been open-world Spider-Man games before, but none so riveting and full of personality, none that explore and do justice to this many facets of the universe’ as Spider-Man PS4 does.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse- 14th December

The final Spidey-based media set to release this year is Spider-Man: Into The Spider Verse, an animated film which will see the famous web head cross parallel dimensions and team up with a set of different Spider-Men to stop a threat to all reality.

Produced and co-written by the team behind the Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and Jump Street franchises, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the film will follow Miles Morales, a teenager from Brooklyn who recently attained his spider powers under the mentorship of an aging Peter Parker.

Set to also include several lesser known iterations of the character who have appeared in the comic books over the past 50 years, including Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Ham and Peni Parker (SP//dr), the film will serve as the ultimate celebration of the wall crawler’s heritage and a great tribute to creator of the character Stan Lee, after his recent passing.

Already having recorded his cameo for the feature, Stan Lee will make a posthumous appearance in the animation, which is said to be at the heart of what he and co-creator Steve Dikto started all those years ago. According to co-writer Phil Lord, the film pays homage to those initial comics where its titular character is “an unexpected hero who feels too young and too unqualified and doesn’t fit the archetype of a superhero.”

All in all, 2018 has been a fantastic year for Spider-Man, only marred by the unfortunate death of the creator of Stan Lee. However, opposed to feeling sad that the much-beloved writer has passed, we feel that these three titles are the perfect opportunity to celebrate what he created in 1962.   Excelsior!