Across the Spider-Verse Trailer Breakdown: Every New Spider-Person, Easter Egg and Story Clue I Found

The new trailer for Across the Spider-Verse has dropped, and there is a huge amount to unpack here, from returning characters to brand new Spider-People pulled from decades of comics. I want to go through this properly, beat by beat, including what we now know about the story compared with what we knew when the film was first covered.

A Time Jump, a Fix for the Glitching, and Miles Grounded

Into the Spider-Verse ended with Miles in bed looking up as Gwen opened a portal above him. In this trailer he looks slightly older, and there are extra clothes added to his room that suggest this is not exactly the same moment we left off on. That could mean Gwen has been visiting him from time to time, or it could just be a retcon of that ending altogether.

The first film had multiversal travel physically affecting anyone who crossed into another universe, causing them to glitch. The post credit scenes showed Spider-Man 2099, real name Miguel O'Hara, had built a device that could stabilize someone in another universe, and I think he is going to be the driving force pulling all these characters together across the film. If you look closely at Gwen's wrist in the trailer, she appears to be wearing something that will likely stop her glitching too, and we see similar devices on other Spider-people throughout the teaser.

The earlier first look also told us Miles had been grounded, but since he was not grounded as Spider-Man he was still allowed out, which is what lets him travel across the multiverse into alternate realities. The first of those confirmed was Spider-Man India, pulled from the Spider-Verse comic storyline that this movie is potentially based on.

An Archie Comics Opening and a Theme That Runs Through Every Spider-Man

The trailer opens with the Sony logo transitioning into the Columbia one, and if you slow that section down to quarter speed you can see it change into an animation style similar to old Archie comics. From there we join Miles's mother talking to him on a rooftop, in a shot similar to ones from the first film. She tells him she feels she has lost her son, that he is not the child she knew.

That line matters because it is a character trait that shows up in every single Spider-Man: in order to protect the people they love, Spider-Man has to stay distant, which makes it look like he is not really part of their lives anymore. We saw this at the end of the first Raimi movie when Peter turned MJ down, and it is a sacrifice that all the versions of the character seem to go through.

Familiar Callbacks Before the New Footage Kicks In

From here we get a run of shots from the first film: Miles buying the costume from Stan Lee, trying it on, swinging with Peter B. Parker after robbing the computer from the Alchemax labs, riding the bus with Gwen, and feeling in the spider cave like he does not measure up to being Spider-Man, before that doubt is shut down by the leap of faith moment that defined his life.

Then we get genuinely new footage of Miles leaping through the streets, shooting webs to stop a taxi from hitting pedestrians, which is similar to how Andrew Garfield's version stopped a car during the Electro fight in Times Square. He also snatches a hot dog, and if you slow the footage down you can actually see the sound effect text on screen. We then cut to his dad telling him he loves him.

The Number 42, an Amazing Fantasy Cover, and Gwen's New Jacket

Miles's room has more added to it here, and he is now wearing a basketball jersey with the number 42 on it. That number appeared constantly throughout the first movie, and it carries a lot of weight, since it is also the number Jackie Robinson wore in Major League Baseball, which the first film used as an ode to him. We also catch a glimpse of the cover of Amazing Fantasy 15, the first ever appearance of Spider-Man.

Gwen calls out to Miles wearing a pink jacket, whereas she was not wearing one in the earlier first look. Bringing Gwen back also brings her world with it, since we know we will be traveling there and meeting her father, Captain Stacy.

Gwen's World and a Father Who Is Alive in This Universe

Captain Stacy died in mainline continuity, but the first Spider-Verse film changed things around. From the backstory breadcrumbs we got about Gwen, it was actually her Peter who died, and lizard scales on his body suggested he became the villain instead of Curt Connors in her universe. That means her father being alive makes sense in this version of events, and I am interested to see what dynamic he brings to the film.

My Theory on the Hexagonal Portals

Hexagonal portals have popped up throughout a lot of MCU projects as jump points in space, and hexagons also showed up in WandaVision to signify Wanda's hex reality. Here they seem to be used as travel points between realities. The first film had multiversal travel without any hexagonal shapes involved, so my thinking is that this movie will treat the hexagons like train tracks, taking characters from one predetermined destination rather than just flinging them out anywhere, similar to how they work in space by directing rather than throwing someone into a black hole.

That said, I might be reading too much into this, since hexagons are just interesting shapes that stack together nicely, and this could simply be a visual choice rather than a piece of world building.

Inside the Nexus: A Wall Full of Spider-People

At one point the trailer shows what appears to be the Nexus, where all the Spider-Men are gathered. Most of the background figures are fairly generic, except for one wearing a suit that looks like the PS4 Spider-Man design, though it is not actually that character, just a similar suit. We also see two spider women, one in the normal suit and another in what looks like either the negative suit or the armor suit, plus a figure in the bulletproof suit from the PS4 game, a bigger Spider-Man in a similar armor-style costume, and finally someone actually wearing the design of the PS4 game's Spider-Man, whose suit had previously only been shown in the spider cave collection in the first film. I am hoping this ties in with the next PS4 Spider-Man game, especially since the Miles Morales entry already had its own spider-verse suit, and I would not be surprised if a new trailer for that game follows this teaser.

What You Need to Know About the PS4 Spider-Man Game's Story

For anyone unfamiliar with that game, it picks up with Peter Parker having just taken down the Kingpin. Aunt May is running the FEAST program alongside her partner Martin Li, who is secretly the villain Mr. Negative, having risen up in the power vacuum Fisk left behind. After attacking an event, Li's actions lead to the death of Jefferson Davis, and Peter becomes something of a mentor to Miles, who is later bitten by a genetically engineered spider created by Norman Osborn, giving him his own abilities.

Peter is also working with Otto Octavius on a new form of prosthetic limb, which ends up taking over Otto's body and turning him into Doctor Octopus. Peter manages to take both threats down, but Aunt May is killed in the process. There is a lot more in the game, including villains escaping from the Raft, but those are the main points needed to understand why this version of Spider-Man is such a major addition to the film, effectively gaining his own version of Miles the way Peter B. Parker did in the first movie.

More Suits in the Crowd: Superior Spider-Man, the Civil War Suit and Spider Cop

One figure wears a black and red costume very similar to the Superior Spider-Man look, from when Otto Octavius mind swapped with Peter and slowly turned good while wearing the mantle. Nearby is what looks like the rubber suit used to fight Electro, and next to that the Civil War suit, originally designed by Tony Stark for Spider-Man to use while he was siding with him, later given up once he switched sides.

There is also a glimpse of spider pig, and a figure I believe is Spider Cop, a character from the comics who was a seasoned NYPD veteran given spider powers and recruited by Spider-Gwen to help during the Spider-Verse storyline. Fans of the PS4 game will remember Spider-Man jokingly calling himself Spider Cop while talking to Yuri, but this appears to be the real character. There is also a steampunk looking Spider-Man in the crowd who I am not able to identify.

Familiar Faces: Fantastic Four Spidey, Spider Werewolf and the Return of Scarlet Spider

One figure wears a bag over his head, a nod to when Spidey joined the Fantastic Four and hid his identity that way, rendered here in a sixties pop art animation style referencing his original debut decade. There is also a version I can only describe as spider werewolf.

Scarlet Spider also appears, an often overlooked character who originates from the Clone Saga that dominated comics in the nineties, a period when publishers were replacing their main heroes with other versions, similar to how Batman was replaced by Jean-Paul Valley. Created by the Jackal using Peter Parker's DNA, this clone was thought to have died back in the seventies, but he actually survived, realized he was a clone, and chose to live in exile, taking the name Ben using Uncle Ben's first name and Aunt May's maiden name, Reilly.

Ben became a drifter, doing police investigations and falling in love with a woman named Janine who was also on the run, though she eventually took her own life. Ben became a janitor at a Portland high school, saved a woman from home invaders, and was inspired to use his powers again. He eventually returned to New York, confronted Peter, and helped him through difficult times, working alongside him as the Scarlet Spider. Once it seemed clear that Peter, not Ben, was the actual clone, Ben briefly became the primary Spider-Man, which drove Peter nearly insane, before it was all eventually revealed to be untrue and Peter took the role back. Still, there was a stretch where Ben was the main Spider-Man.

Peter B. Parker Is Back, and It Looks Like He's a Father Now

We cut back to Gwen and Miles and see Peter B. Parker, who is confirmed to be back for the movie. He was one of the biggest parts of what made the first film work, so there was never any doubt he would return. When we last left him, he was going to fix things with MJ, and based on a carrier visible on the front of him in this trailer, it looks like he is now a father.

There is also a shot of Miles and Gwen sitting upside down on a ledge, echoing the shot from the first film of Miles sitting there alone, which has been used a lot in the promotional material. Interestingly, Miles's spider symbol is the right way up here, which means he must actually be wearing the suit upside down. Gwen's hair is also longer and worn in a ponytail, which gives a rough sense of how much time has passed since the first film.

Spider-Woman's Comics History and Her New Movie Look

A figure bursting through on a motorbike appears to be Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman, a big departure from her usual comics look, though the multiverse setting makes that easy to justify. She was introduced back in 1978, reportedly because Stan Lee thought a rival comic book company would eventually do a gender swap of Spider-Man if they ever got hold of the rights, so he created Spider-Woman first to stop that from happening. She was originally only meant to appear once in Marvel Spotlight.

That issue, Marvel Spotlight 32, sold well enough that Marvel saw her as more than a trademark placeholder, and Marv Wolfman was given an ongoing series to push her forward. Originally she was a spider that transformed into a human, though this was quickly retconned into a human who had memories of being a spider planted by Hydra. Her name, Jessica Drew, combined Wolfman's daughter's first name with detective Nancy Drew. She can fly, climb walls and do most of what a spider can, including a Venom energy blast familiar to anyone who played the Miles Morales PS4 game, along with pheromones she can use to manipulate emotions.

The current accepted origin has her mother struck by a radiation beam containing several kinds of spider DNA while pregnant with her, though depending on which comics you read the details vary. Like a lot of characters from that era she faded over time and was actually killed off in her fiftieth issue, before being brought back in a big way during the 2005 New Avengers run. She also played a part in Secret Invasion when a Skrull impersonated her, though she will not be appearing in the Disney Plus adaptation of that story. Still, seeing her here is one of my favorite parts of this trailer.

The Vulture Gets a Renaissance Inspired Redesign

Spider-Woman appears to be attacking the Vulture, who in his classic comics incarnation is Adrian Toomes, usually shown as an old man using a vulture costume to commit robberies. For this film he is being changed up significantly, described as a Renaissance inspired criminal with an Italian accent. That choice could land oddly with some viewers, though I expect the performance will still be good. It is a big change from the more classical portrayal Michael Keaton gave the character, and I am curious what this version brings to the story.

What Charles Murphy's Report Tells Us About the Plot

Charles Murphy posted some of the first story details for the film on his site, Murphy's Multiverse, and combined with this trailer it gives a decent idea of what to expect. According to that report, after reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the multiverse, where he encounters a team of spider people charged with protecting its very existence, but when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against them and "must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most." That new threat is likely the Spot, though bigger villains could still surface later in the story.

Miguel O'Hara's Dark Backstory as Spider-Man 2099

Miguel O'Hara is half Irish and half Mexican, the Spider-Man of a futuristic Nueva York largely controlled by the Alchemax corporation, the same science division Kingpin ran in the first film. As a young adult he worked for Alchemax and was pressured into running a test imprinting genetic codes onto humans, a test that killed the subject and left him racked with guilt. When he went to his boss, Tyler Stone, he was given a drink laced with a futuristic drug called Rapture that bonded to someone's blood and caused intense hallucinations.

To rid himself of the drug, Miguel ran the test on himself, splicing his DNA with that of the spiders, which gave him increased strength, speed and reflexes, along with the ability to move fast enough to leave behind a decoy, telepathic communication, elongated fangs that secrete a paralyzing toxin, and razor sharp claws. He looks noticeably bulkier here than in previous designs. In the trailer he is shown looking at a video of his daughter.

Spider-Punk, the Six-Armed Spider-Man and Japanese Spider-Man

Spider-Punk does not appear to be in this trailer, but he is confirmed for the film and will be voiced by Daniel Kaluuya. Originally conceived as a riff on Spider-UK, he has grown into his own character, revealed as Hobie Brown, a homeless teenager from Earth 138 who was transformed after Norman Osborn dumped toxic waste. He is a punk rocker who carries his guitar everywhere, which in the comics he used to smash Osborn's head in, and he was recruited by Superior Spider-Man to join the fight during the Spider-Verse storyline.

Elsewhere in the trailer, during a scene where several characters jump Miles, one has six arms wrapped around him, similar to the mutated Spider-Man seen in the comics and an animated series. There is also a chubbier Spider-Man gliding into the same scene. Japanese Spider-Man is confirmed to feature too, pulled from the 1978 live action television series that helped push the character's popularity worldwide. His origin is far removed from the usual story: a motorcycle racer named Takuya discovers a UFO called the Marveller, and after being injected with blood from Planet Spider, gains his powers, activating his costume by clicking bracelets together and shooting web lines from them.

The Spot Confirmed as the Villain Across Two Films

Spider-Man 2099 rushes toward Miles in slow motion, enlarging his gauntlets as he charges, in what turns out to be a red herring, since we know the actual villain of this film is the Spot, who is also confirmed to return as the villain in the sequel Beyond the Spider-Verse. Kemp Powers, who is directing, confirmed to Total Film that the character will be the villain across both films, and where the first movie dealt with the Kingpin, this more multiversal story brings in the Spot, with the idea that the further out the story travels, the further reaching its villains become.

In the comics, Jonathan Ohnn was a highly decorated MIT graduate who had been roommates with Quentin Beck, and as a divorced father working for the Kingpin, he was tasked with figuring out how Cloak's powers worked, since Kingpin wanted to duplicate the ability to create portals. Because of this origin, there is a possibility he is linked to the collider Kingpin built in the first film. After succeeding in his research, Jonathan stepped into a portal one night and was pulled into Cloak's dark dimension. He eventually mastered the realm and found his way home, but his body had transformed, covered in portals that attached to his skin in the dark dimension like leeches, effectively making him a walking wormhole capable of littering the landscape with portals that suck things in.

In the comics the Spot is largely treated as a joke character rather than a major threat, so I was surprised he was chosen to anchor two films. Thinking about it further, though, there are a lot of visually interesting things that can be done with him, especially from an animation standpoint, watching a punch land in one portal and pop out somewhere else entirely.

Six Animation Styles and Following Up an Oscar Winner

There is a shot of Miles kicking the Spot in the chest, sending the impact into Gwen standing behind them, and Miles appears to be throwing portals with his hands as well, which suggests the villain will be able to use the heroes to fight each other. I would love to see something similar to the moments in the 4K version of the first film on an OLED screen where the frame goes almost fully black with small bursts of color, applied here to the dark dimension.

The creative team behind the film have said it will use six different animation styles across the whole runtime, compared with the single style of the first movie, with the aim of making the audience feel awe every time a new universe is entered, and each style reflecting the world and characters within it, such as Gwen's home looking more impressionistic, like a watercolor painting. The first film won an Oscar, and based on this new teaser, I could easily see this one securing one as well. It looks like there are going to be so many different Spider-people in this film that it will make the gathering in the first movie look small by comparison.

Who do you think that steampunk styled Spider-Man in the crowd could be?