The following story gets into massive spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. So if you haven’t yet seen the animated sequel, and still want to be surprised, hop on over to one of our other many stories.
It took five years for the creative team behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to continue the story of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), but it ended up being worth the wait. Critics went gaga for the masterpiece of an animated movie, and Across the Spider-Verse set box-office records over its extremely successful opening weekend. Because the movie ends on a cliffhanger, fans likely left the theater eagerly anticipating the trilogy capper, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. Here’s everything we know about that sequel. But at the same time, fans spent the weekend combing the first Spider-Verse movie, where they found a few fascinating clues.
As you know, thanks to the ending of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the spider that bit Miles Morales wasn’t supposed to bite him. It was removed from its proper dimension and dropped into Miles’s universe, turning him into Spider-Man. Only, this meant that the person who was supposed to be bitten in Earth-42 never got bit, so that world never for a Spider-Man. And in that alternate reality, Morales didn’t become Spider-Man. He became The Prowler.
Because of that twist of destiny, some Spider-Man fans went back to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and picked up on the fact that when Miles first meets Spidey, the initial color palette behind him shows the colors of The Prowler. And they eventually turn into the red-and-blue color scheme of Spider-Man. Here, see for yourself:
By the way. Go back to the first movie Miles colors change from the Prowler green and purple (which is what he supposed to be in the Canon) to Spider-Man red and blue. The anomalies started right here. pic.twitter.com/Vcdqm9kEfqJune 4, 2023
Coincidence? Knowing how much attention is placed into every frame of these Spider-Verse movies, I’m going to say, “Absolutely not.” What this likely refers to is Miles’s intended origin. Meaning, if the spider from Earth-42 wasn’t transported from its original universe to Miles’s world, the Miles Prime who we have been following for two movies wasn’t supposed to become Spider-Man. He was destined to become The Prowler in his universe… likely following in the footsteps of his criminal Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali).
When we leave Miles at the end of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, he is confronted by his Earth-42 counterpart, who has become The Prowler. At the same time, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is putting together a super team to go rescue Miles. And The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) has just landed in Miles’s world, ready to enact revenge on the Morales family. We have to wait until March to see how this all resolves, which is exactly why Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has become one of the most anticipated 2024 movie releases on our movie-going radar.
