In 2018, the Spider-Man property made its animated feature-length debut with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which chronicled Miles Morales’ origin and saw the young hero teaming up with Spider-themed heroes from other universes. We’ll reunite with this version of Miles and other familiar faces next year in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and almost two months after the movie’s first 15 minutes screened at CinemaCon, some big news concerning the sequel has trickled in, including confirmation of who the main villain will be.
As had been rumored back in February 2021, The Spot will indeed antagonize Miles Morales and his allies, both old and new, in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Jason Schwartzman is voicing the character, and you can see how he’ll look in the upcoming movie below.
Debuting in 1984’s Spectacular Spider-Man #97, Marvel Comics’ original version of The Spot was originally Dr. Jonathan Ohnn, a scientist working for Wilson Fisk. a.k.a. The Kingpin, who was attempting to replicate the powers of the superhero known as Cloak. Ohnn succeeded in creating a portal and stepped through it to find himself in a different dimension, nicknamed Spotworld, and surrounded by other portals. When he made it back to Earth, Ohnn was transformed into The Spot and gained the ability to travel across distances by conjuring these portals to Spotworld. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be The Spot’s third appearance outside of the comics, having previously appeared in two animated Spider-Man shows.
The above look at The Spot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was shown off during Sony Pictures Animation’s presentation at the Annecy international Animation Film Festival. It was also revealed that the portals covering the body of Jason Schwartzman’s Spot were made to feel like “living ink,” and instead of these portals just letting him travel across distances, they let him transport himself, people and objects at will across other realities. He’s described as Miles Morales’ “most formidable foe yet” in Across the Spider-Verse, which is packed with 240 characters.
But The Spot won’t be the only familiar Spider-Man antagonist showing up in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. We’ll also meet an “anachronistic” version of The Vulture voiced by The Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone, while on the side of good, Boardwalk Empire alum Shea Whigham has been brought in to voice “by the books cop” George Stacy, father of Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen Stacy, a.k.a. her Earth’s Spider-Woman. These two popped up in an Across the Spider-Verse clip showing George responding to a disturbance at the Guggenheim Museum in his world. This clip also showed off Issa Rae’s Jessica Drew (a different Spider-Woman) and Oscar Isaac’s Miguel O’Hara, a.k.a. Spider-Man 2099, who we met in Into the Spider-Verse’s end-credits scene. Regarding Miguel, he wasn’t bitten by a radioactive arachnid like many of his Spider-cohorts, and thus doesn’t have a Spider-sense, but he makes up for that with his own prowess advanced technology.
As for Shameik Moore’s Miles Morales, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will see the main protagonist trying to balance his superhero life with his schoolwork and being a good son to his parents. The Spot’s emergence will only make his life more stressful, and we’ll see what craziness unfolds when Across the Spider-Verse spins its web in theaters on June 2, 2023. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse will follow on March 29, 2024.
