Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Hides Even More Easter Eggs, Including Stan Lee's Secret Cameos

When Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse arrived on digital HD in early 2019, it became much easier for those of us obsessed with little visual details to go hunting through it. On a rewatch, I found even more Easter eggs the animators snuck in, including Stan Lee showing up far more often than his memorabilia shop cameo, a machine borrowed from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and a run of callbacks that make Miles Morales' final act hit so hard.

The film won the Oscar for Best Animated Film, and I think it probably should have been nominated for Best Picture as well. I had already broken down a ton of Easter eggs in my first pass at the movie, but the digital version showed me there were plenty more.

Uncle Ben's line in the opening reuses Cliff Robertson's audio

The opening montage has the Peter Parker of the 1610 universe, voiced by Chris Pine, catching us up on his backstory. I covered the mini Spidey Easter eggs there before, but listen closely to the Uncle Ben moment. Producer Phil Lord confirmed that the line about great power coming with great responsibility actually reuses the audio of actor Cliff Robertson from the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie.

It is a bit like the way the late Marlon Brando's voice was reused for Jor-El in Man of Steel.

Miles' bedroom and hallway set up his height gag

Here is just a fun thing I noticed. As Miles sings Post Malone's Sunflower in his room, he taps the marker as if it might help him hit the high note of the song, and the animators include little impact lines for it. One of the toys in his room is Leopardon, from the Japanese Spider-Man TV series.

As Miles heads out to school, he passes the height markings on the wall, and when he squeezes past his mom he jumps up a little. It is a small thing, but it sets up the recurring visual gag about Miles' height throughout the movie, like how he suddenly shoots up after he gets bitten. It also ties into the deeper thematic arc of him learning to stand tall enough to be worthy of the Spider-Man identity.

The news ticker's Bitcoin and giant baby headlines

As his dad drives him to school, Miles sees a news report, and the headline crawling along the bottom of the screen reads that Bitcoin hits a new high with an intro to the futures market. That gets a callback later during the report of Peter's death, when the ticker says Bitcoin hits a new low.

I also love another headline on that earlier newsreel about the largest baby being born today. I wonder if this could be a nod to Kingpin. He does kind of look like a giant baby, and his whole evil plot essentially gets born on this day.

Miles botched the date on his test too

Later at school, Miles' teacher hands back the test he intentionally bombed to try to get expelled. Notice that he also wrote a made up month that mashes December and February together, so he was trying to get that wrong too, I guess.

This could be a nod to the months Spider-Verse was released, theatrically in December 2018 and digitally in February 2019. And who knows, it is an alternate universe, so maybe they really do have alternate months.

Uncle Aaron is watching Donald Glover in Community

This is one of my favourite details, and I thought I had seen it before but was not sure. On Uncle Aaron's TV when Miles visits is an episode of Community in which Troy, played by Donald Glover, wakes up in Spider-Man pajamas.

Glover has always been connected to Spider-Man. He voiced Miles Morales in the Ultimate animated series, and he played Uncle Aaron in the live action Marvel Cinematic Universe. Back when Community was on, there was a big push to reboot the live action Spider-Man with Glover as Miles. Unfortunately he is probably a bit too old now, but it does not matter: he is a global superstar making music videos, winning Grammys and selling out Madison Square Garden.

The Alchemax spider foreshadows Miles' cloaking power

As Miles and Aaron work on their graffiti wall art, the Alchemax spider creeps up on Miles. Notice how it blends in with the spray paint colours on the surfaces it crawls over. That foreshadows the cloaking ability that becomes one of Miles' new powers after the bite.

Later, when Miles scrolls through his contacts, there are mini cameos among the names, as I pointed out previously, including Jason Reynolds, author of the Miles Morales young adult novel.

Five spider streaks burst out of Fisk's collider explosion

When Fisk's collider explodes, we get a wide shot of New York as a shock wave knocks out the lights. The movie returns to that shot every time we meet a new Spider person, but if you look closely you can see five streaks blasting out of the explosion and scattering throughout the city.

Another little detail I appreciated: when Wilson Fisk slams down on Peter to kill him, he roars with rage, and the animators added drool flying from his mouth.

Post Malone's cameo is a Banksy joke

I mentioned before that Post Malone, in addition to singing Miles' favourite song Sunflower, makes a cameo somewhere in the movie. Now we know where. When bystanders are marvelling at the glitchy interdimensional mess on the sidewalk, Post Malone voices the art snob who says, "yeah I think it's a Banksy."

Stan Lee appears far more than once

As the world learns of Peter's death, Miles visits the Spider-Man memorabilia shop where the late Stan Lee makes his cameo. But if you pay close enough attention on a rewatch, and ruin your vision as much as I have, Stan Lee shows up all over this movie.

He pops up for one frame in the subway train scene transition. He is one of the pedestrians who steps over Miles and Peter B. Parker on the crosswalk. And in the final seconds of the movie, he shows up for one super quick frame, saluting Miles with the famous Spider-Man web slinging pose as he passes him on the train. In a way, Stan Lee is a kind of guardian angel for Miles, and his moment in the shop plays a major role in the final act, as I will explain further down.

Tombstone is driving the bus that hits Peter B. Parker

When Miles meets Peter B. Parker, Peter's recap includes a shot of him getting hit by a bus. If you look closely, the driver of that bus is the villain Tombstone, who ends up being one of Kingpin's henchmen in this universe too.

Olivia and Aunt May may have been friends

In my first breakdown I pointed out that Olivia's reveal as this universe's Doc Ock was foreshadowed by recurring number eight imagery, like her octagonal glasses and the octagonal furniture. Another detail I found interesting is how she introduces herself, saying her friends call her Liv. Later, when Olivia arrives at Aunt May's home, Aunt May greets her by that nickname.

So does this mean May and Olivia were friends? It could be a nod to the fact that in the 1970s Spider-Man comics, Doc Ock and Aunt May actually had a relationship and got married, which was weird. But since this Aunt May seems pretty involved in Peter's tech, maybe she used to work with Olivia in research and development or engineering, perhaps as a kind of mentor figure.

One of my favourite details from the first breakdown came when Miles throws a bagel at one of the pursuing Alchemax scientists and it hits with the action word bagel. Listen again and there is an extra sound slipped in, too. I guess bagels do have a lot of gluten.

Times Square signs hide Google's and Snapchat's original names

Spider Gwen recaps her backstory and we see the moment she lands in Times Square. I already pointed out most of the billboard Easter eggs, but this angle shows another one: Backrub, the original name for Google, which is why it is in Google's multicoloured font. You can also see Picaboo, which I previously called this universe's Snapchat, and I have since realised that Picaboo was actually Snapchat's original name. Also in Times Square, Spider-Man Noir later sees a sign for a water polo game.

Peter's weight bench and a missing Electro suit in the lab

When they meet up with Aunt May and head down to the lab, there is a lot I already covered, but one new detail is Peter's weight bench with so many weights. That is probably a joke about Peter B. Parker's comparatively slouchy figure, but the weights also say Marvel on them, which could be a joke about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes have to get ridiculously jacked to play their roles.

There is also a ton of different Spider-Man suits on display. I ran through them before, but one I missed is the Electro suit to the left of the main suit Miles looks at.

The collider finale borrows a machine from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Jumping ahead to when the spider people fight Fisk and his goons as the collider goes haywire, one of the alternate dimension set pieces floating through the particle stream is the food weather machine Flint builds in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. That was another animated feature from producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and that film's visual effects supervisor and art director filled the same roles on Spider-Verse. The whole chaotic finale feels like something directly out of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Also notice that when Spider-Man Noir fights Tombstone, his action words are old timey expressions like applesauce.

Fisk's family visions include a son dressed as Matt Murdock

I pointed out before that the showdown between Miles and Kingpin appeared to include some Daredevil imagery, a nod to Kingpin's role as a Daredevil villain as well as a Spider-Man villain in New York. When the train passes through the particle stream, Fisk sees his wife and son alive again in the alternate dimensions flying by, with lots of interesting variants flashing through, including Vanessa and Richard having grown older, and versions where they are different races.

One of the train flashes includes Japanese kanji lettering on the wall, suggesting these could be Fisk's family in Peni Parker's universe. Most interestingly, one version shows his son dressed as Matt Murdock, with the suit and the sunglasses. Maybe this hints at Fisk's complicated relationship with Murdock, seeing him as a son figure.

Miles' reflection in the suit, and Stan Lee's joke, foreshadow his victory

Jump back to the shot of Miles gazing at the Spider-Man suit in the lab. His reflection lines up so he looks too short to fill the suit, because in this scene we learn he is not yet ready to become Spider-Man. Later, when he returns to the lab having changed, his reflection lines up perfectly with the mask, as he is now ready to bear that responsibility. Stan Lee himself foreshadowed this victorious moment with a seemingly throwaway joke in the shop, and the guardian angel was exactly right.

Miles' final act moves restage his earlier failures

The film emphasises this transition from humiliating defeat to proud victory: Miles' big power moves in the final act are restaged versions of moves he learned along his journey. His leap of faith off the skyscraper is inverted so it looks like he is rising. He is able to let go of the glass, when his past anxiety forced him to stick to things, and now he is totally relaxed with Sunflower playing in his head on repeat. He swings up with a cheer following him, compared to the scream following him down earlier, and rather than smacking into the pole, he uses a pole to propel himself up.

This victory lap continues in the collider sequence. He swings in sync with Peter just as they did earlier in the trees, and to prove to Peter that he has got this, Miles sweeps the leg and grabs him by the chest, perfectly replicating Peter's earlier move on him. When he goes to face Kingpin alone, his moves are an exact callback to the bravery he saw from the first Spider-Man of this universe, the one who died: he clings to the rising turbine, swings around in a backflip and lands upside down on the ceiling.

All of this shows that "this is a spider-man who doesn't exist in a vacuum," one who lucked into his powers by accident. His rise feels so powerful and heroic because it is made of moments in which he was weak, answering his past failures. He learned from them and proved he belongs with the others. I love that Stan Lee sneaks into this movie again and again, because his wisdom was right from the beginning.

Which of the alternate spider people would you most want to see get an entire movie of their own?