Information on Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s upcoming sequelSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Versehas been kept under a tight lock and key. After the first teaser, fans have some big questions, many of them surrounding the dynamic new Spider-Man who came out of nowhere and took the whole thing over.
Into the Spider-Versewas an absolute masterpiece, simultaneously telling a deeply personal superhero origin storyand a sprawling multiversenarrative in a singularly beautiful package. One of the most fun aspects of the film was the interplay between the film’s many takes on the eponymous wall-crawler, so the one who takes prominence in the trailer has naturally piqued interest.
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Into the Spider-Versecenterson Miles Morales, the up-and-coming new Spider-Man in his home universe. He takes the mantle from the recently deceased Peter Parker and grows to become a hero over the film, with the help of a few other Spider-folks. The first dimensional foreigner is Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman of her universe, with whom Miles forges a hard won bond. Miles' main mentor is Peter B. Parker, an alternate universe take on Spider-Man who has been at it for over twenty years and has lost the spark he once held.
This trio is joined by three much less traditional takes on the character. Spider-Man Noir, who is also named Peter Parker, is a black and white private detective and vigilante from a dimension in which it is currently 1933. Peni Parker comes from a reality set in the year 3145 wherin she is psychically linked to a spider that lives within a robot and together they fight crime as SP//dr. Finally, Peter Porker, AKA Spider-Ham is a cartoonishly offputting genetic mixture between pig and spider created when a radioactive pig bit a spider. These are the Spider-People who serve as the film’s main team, but the film featured an end credit scene that teased thenext film’s new entry.
The sleek-suited heroofSpider-Verse’s post-credits sceneand the mysterious figure in the new trailer is none other than Miguel O’Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099. Miguel was a brilliant genetic engineer, working on a method to graft existing DNA onto human subjects. After some surreptitious assassination attempts from his bosses at Alchemax, Miguel was accidentally combined at the genetic level with a spider. Despite superscience being the source of his power, Miguel’s take on Spider-Man’s suite of powers is much more biological. He has razor-sharp claws on his hands and feet, venom-laden fangs, and organic spinnerets to shoot his trademark webs. He wears a web-patterned cape that acts as a glider, enabling short-distance flight, and as established in the post-credit scene, a wristwatch capable of dimensional travel. This is Miguel O’Hara’s first-ever appearance on the big screen, though he has played a part in a cartoon or two and several video games. The character was,and seemingly will still be, portrayed by movie star Oscar Isaac.
Spider-Man 2099 was createdin 1992 by Peter David and Rick Leonardi as part of a line of futuristic takes on classic characters. TheSpider-Man 2099series followed many of the stylistic norms of the franchise by adding an anti-corporate cyberpunk take on the character. Spider-Man’s leap forward was by far the most popular of these series, remaining the only one consistently discussed by fans. In the comics, Miguel has crossed over with some ofhis interdimensional counterpartsa number of times, including the seriesSpider-Versefrom which the films seem to borrow their name. As a character, Miguel is quite different from most Spider-People. His initial quest is to cure his spider-powers, but over time, he devotes himself to fighting the corrupt megacorporations that rule his home city of Nueva York.
There is vanishingly little information about the upcoming film, but with what little is present about Miguel’s role in the teaser and post-credits scene, some guesses can be made about the narrative. The brief post-credits scene is mostly a joke, in which Spider-Man 2099 interacts with his AI assistant Lyla, who has created an autonomous multiverse travel device. Miguel then uses the device to jump straight back to “Earth-67,” the world of the veryfirstSpider-Mancartoon backin 1967, with the apparent intention of recruiting that older design. This does not work out, however, and the scene simply ends with the old show’s end slate and music cue. The very next sighting of the character is when he appears suddenly from a portal, tackling Miles Morales and dragging him aggressively into a new futuristic universe. A brief glimpse of his wrist device reveals their destination to be Earth-928, Miguel’s home universe in the comics.
Spider-Man 2099 seems to have methods of monitoring the multiverse, being shown an array of screens with footage from the previous film as Lyla informs him. He is also capable of jumping through dimensions with much greater ease than was possible in the previous film. It is unclear how Gwen and Miles travel through dimensions in this new teaser, but every other incident of universal travel came fromKingpin’s massive machine. Miguel’s goals are unclear, but he seems to be hunting down the alternate versions of the hero he’s become, and Miles Morales is his next target. Whatever his intentions, fans will have to wait to see Spider-Man 2099’s full feature debut whenAcross the Spider-Verse: Part Onepremieres on July 28, 2025.
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