How Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Quietly Rewrites the MCU's Multiverse Rules

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse completely redefines the Marvel multiverse, not just within its own animated corner but, I would argue, it fixes the broken or incomplete logic of the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe as well. This movie has an insanely ambitious plot that both deepens and clarifies multiverse rules we have seen before across the MCU's various titles, picking up loose threads from that mythology and binding the animated Spider-Verse closer than ever to the live-action side, using similar imagery and even the exact same actors, just from a different perspective and with different terminology.

Miguel O'Hara Name-Drops Doctor Strange and Earth 199999 in the Opening

In the opening sequence, Miguel O'Hara tells Gwen Stacy "don't even get me started on Doctor Strange" and refers to Earth 199999, the past designation for the live-action MCU. That is Miguel telling us he is aware of Doctor Strange and Tom Holland's Peter Parker tampering with the multiverse in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the film that brought back both Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's versions of Peter Parker.

Donald Glover's Live-Action Prowler Cameo Bridges Animation and the MCU

Later, at Spider Society headquarters, Margo shows Miles the imprisoned multiversal anomalies from across the multiverse, including a live-action cameo by Donald Glover as Aaron Davis, the Prowler. He tells Miles it is rude to stare and yells "Boo" as Miles runs past him, a live-action actor placed in the same room as animated characters.

Glover played Aaron Davis in the 2017 MCU film Spider-Man: Homecoming, though not yet as the Prowler in a suit like this one. He also cameoed in the 2018 Into the Spider-Verse through a clip from NBC's Community, playing Troy in Spider-Man pajamas. It is not yet clear if this Aaron Davis is the same one from Homecoming, but it is possible given how many years have passed since that film. In Homecoming, Aaron Davis mentioned having a nephew in the area whom he called Miles in a deleted scene, so this cameo signals that same Miles may be established in the MCU's canon.

The Spot's Bodega Stop Links Earth 688 to the Venom Symbiote in the MCU

When the Spot joyrides the multiverse, he stops at Miss Chen's Bodega from Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This movie labels that universe Earth 688, meaning it is a codified part of the wider Spider-Verse, which also connects to the MCU through the post-credit scenes of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, both of which leave a Venom symbiote loose somewhere in the MCU.

Miguel's Web of Life and Destiny Echoes the MCU's Sacred Timeline

All of this leads to the big scene where Miguel O'Hara explains the multiverse from his perspective, projecting a web of red lasers and saying, "This here, this is all of us, all of our lives woven together in a beautiful web of life and destiny." The web of life and destiny is the name of the cosmic force connecting all spider things in Marvel Comics. When Miles calls it "the spider verse," Miguel calls that stupid, then admits his own line about "no humanoid poly multiverse" sounds pretty stupid too.

For a brief moment, a separate projection shows the web of life and destiny as a white snaking vine with branches, the same imagery used for the sacred timeline in Loki and in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with the Kang dynasty. That was Miguel's way of showing all of existence, specifically for spider people, connected by angular webs with nodes.

Canon Events Explained Through ASM 90 and the No Way Home Peters

Miles asks about the nodes where lines converge, and Miguel explains those are the canon, the chapters that are part of every spider's story, some good, some bad, some very bad. He offers an example he calls ASM 90, where a police captain close to Spider-Man dies saving a kid from collapsing rubble during a battle with an arch nemesis. That is a reference to The Amazing Spider-Man issue number 90 from 1970, when Spider-Man's battle with Doc Ock leads to the death of Captain George Stacy, and the film actually shows panel art from that exact comic.

Another node shows Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker crying over Captain Stacy's body from the 2012 Amazing Spider-Man film, saying "same Captain Stacy, I'm so sorry," and later a node shows Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker crying over Uncle Ben's body from the 2002 Sam Raimi Spider-Man film. Since those two Peters reference these tragedies in Spider-Man: No Way Home, by that same associative logic, this animated universe's canon is connected to the MCU as well.

Canon Events Work Like What If's Absolute Points, But Are Not Nexus Events

Miguel says canon events are the connections that bind spider lives together, later adding, "Break enough canon, save enough captains, and we could lose everything." That concept lines up with what the Marvel Studios animated series What If called absolute points, fixed and inevitable plot points in a character's destiny that cannot be bypassed without threatening the fabric of existence. In that show's Doctor Strange episode, the absolute point was the death of Christine Palmer, while in Across the Spider-Verse one example is the death of Inspector Singh on Earth 50101, the father of Pavitr Prabhakar's girlfriend, who was supposed to die but was saved by Miles, disrupting that canon event.

It is worth noting that in the What If Doctor Strange episode, reality eroding also took the form of oozing black ink, the same visual used in this movie. This should not be confused with Nexus events in the MCU, which the Loki series defined as a turning point in history from which a branch timeline diverges. Those are a different concept from the fixed canon events Miguel is trying to protect.

JK Simmons Plays Jameson Across Both the Spider-Verse and the MCU

There is an interesting wrinkle in how the Spider-Verse treats J. Jonah Jameson. JK Simmons plays the character in both the Raimi trilogy and in the Tom Holland MCU trilogy, contradicting what otherwise seems to be a rule that each universe casts different actors, though the films do make exceptions, such as Patrick Stewart playing Charles Xavier across multiple universes. In this movie, anytime we hear Jameson, it is JK Simmons's voice, heard first during an early recap montage in Miles Morales's Earth 1610 and later in the Lego universe designated Earth 13122, where his exact audio from the 2002 film is sampled.

Other than Miguel's reference to the little nerd on Earth 199999, there is no Tom Holland cameo in this film. Ganke Lee does refer to himself as Miles's guy in the chair, the same role Ned Leeds plays for Peter Parker in the MCU films. Despite sharing Ned's name, the character played by Jacob Batalon is based on Ganke Lee from the Ultimate Comics.

Miguel's 2099 Tech May Be Tapping Into Kang's 31st Century Multiverse Science

The fact that Miguel O'Hara's technology displays the multiverse using the same branching sacred timeline imagery seen in Loki and Quantumania suggests his tech from the year 2099 in Nueva York is starting to tap into the same science Nathaniel Richards will master in the 31st century, nine hundred years later. Miguel can at least observe a piece of it, and he knows enough about how the web of life and destiny works for spider people to try to maintain a proper flow of canon.

I think this is a testament to what I would call an arachno frequency, a shared awareness among spider people that gives them a stronger appreciation of one another's variants and lets them cooperate and share resources faster than variants of other individuals do. It took Loki and Sylvie several episodes to get along, and even then Sylvie still stabbed him in the back, while Kang's variants all ended up at war with each other. The Peters and the other spider people, by contrast, seem to inherently trust each other because of their shared tragedies.

Amy Pascal Confirmed a Live-Action Miles Morales Film Is in Development

Amy Pascal confirmed that a live-action Miles Morales movie is in development, which would mean the nephew Donald Glover's Aaron Davis referred to in Homecoming could finally be paid off on screen.

With the MCU steering toward events like Secret Wars, I think a Spider Society or any team-up of spider people is going to be especially important to bridging gaps in the multiverse, teaching other individuals how to trust each other, how to operate, and how to defeat multiversal threats like Kang.

Do you think the live-action Miles Morales project will end up crossing paths with Tom Holland's Peter Parker?