When last we saw Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), he was celebrating a win over The Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) and rejoicing over the fact that he successfully sent all of his Spider-Verse friends back to the original worlds. As Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came to a close though, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) returned through a portal and asked Miles if he had a minute… setting up their next adventure. That’s where Spider-Man: Across the Universe appears ready to pick up when it lands in theaters on June 2, and now the full trailer for the movie explains exactly why Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099, has it out for our teenaged, Brooklyn webslinger.
Start out by watching the trailer above, and then we’ll dig into the MCU references, the introduction of The Spot, and a dark secret that seems to be resting in Miles Morales’s back story.
First, let’s get to that surprising MCU reference in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, because it confirms (we believe) that Tom Holland’s live-action version of Peter Parker is somehow on the radar of Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) as he monitors the various activities of Spider-People throughout the multiverse. At least, that’s who we assume he’s referencing when he says:
And don’t even get me started on Doctor Strange and the little nerd back on Earth 19999!
That COULD be a reference to a different Doctor Strange collaborating with a Spider-Man we aren’t familiar with yet. But my guess is that it’s a direct nod to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker tearing a fabric in the multiverse and allowing multiple characters to spill into what the MCU might now be referred to as Earth 19999. That’s a lot of nines. And it explains why Spider-Man: No Way Home received a perfect grade from us in our review.
But one question we had, based on the early Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse trailers, is why Miguel O’Hara is distrusting of Miles Morales. In early footage from the movie, Miles very clearly was running from Spider-Man 2099, and they did not appear to be on the same “team” in any capacity. What did Miles do to make Miguel so angry?
We get hints of that in this trailer. When Miles learns about an elite team of multiversal Spider-People formed to guard the multiverse, O’Hara barks:
You can never be part of this.
And later in the trailer, when Miles’s original mentor Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) yells, “Miguel, this isn’t what we talked about,” Miles looks betrayed, as if Peter knew something about the kid that none of us – including Miles – were aware of yet. That’s going to cause some issues.
As will the fact that Miles apparently will face a difficult choice: Save his father from dying, or preserve the entire multiverse. Miles swears he can do both. But Spider-Man fans far and wide know that doing both isn’t possible. Being Spider-Man requires sacrifice, and loss. Just look at this shot, from when Gwen Stacy lost HER version of Peter Parker. You know that scene is going to rip your heart out.
Our hopes are extremely high for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. We ranked the first movie extremely high on our list of every Spider-Man movie, ranked. Could the new movie surpass its predecessor? We’re going to find out on June 2, so get your tickets as soon as possible.
