Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Trailer Breakdown: More Spider-People, More Problems
"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" was truly a unique film. The 2018 film managed not only to be one of the best "Spider-Man" movies of all time, and one of the best movies of its year, but it was an animated movie that changed the game, bringing about a wave of movies unafraid to explore highly-stylized visuals rather than imitate Disney's hyper-realism.
The landscape is vastly different now. There was hype around the first "Spider-Verse" movie, for sure, but less so than with other "Spider-Man" theatrical films, what with it being about a recent, relatively lesser-known version of the title character. That's no longer the case with "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," the first of two sequels to Miles Morales' highly-successful and Oscar-winning introduction to the big screen.
Far from resting on their laurels, the creatives behind the "Spider-Verse" films are aiming to push the envelope even further with "Across the Spider-Verse." So far, the trailers for the film have done a good job of providing the briefest of teases without revealing too much about its story or spoiling any of the bigger surprises. Still, there's more than enough in the latest trailer for us to obsess over, so let's break it down in greater detail.
Mothers and sons
A big focus of the first "Spider-Verse" was seeing Miles' relationship with his father, Jefferson, and Miles' struggle with his father's expectations. This is mostly true in the comics too, which tend to focus on the father-son relationship while leaving Miles' mom, Rio, mostly in the background — except for big and/or tragic moments.
But leaving Rio Morales in the background has a side effect: it ignores the Latinx side of Miles' identity, leading people to perceive him as the first Black Spider-Man rather than the first Afro-Latinx Spider-Man. "Across the Spider-Verse," however, seems to be doing some course-correcting, with its trailer focusing on Miles' relationship with his mom. We see Rio approach Miles and talk to him about how much she and her husband worked to make sure her little boy felt loved and felt like he belonged, and her worry that her grown little man will be surrounded by friends and peers that won't look after him like his parents did.
There's a precedent for focusing on Rio Morales and her relationship to Miles this way thanks to the PS5 "Spider-Man" video game, which had Rio running for City Council and Miles connecting to his Latinx roots just as much as he does his Black roots. In "Across the Spider-Verse," the franchise has an opportunity to bring Rio into the foreground and double-down on one of the best parts of the first film — Miles talking English to his dad while he talks Spanglish to his mom, showing he is not just one thing or another but both.
Meet ALL the Spider-People
The trailer for "Across the Spider-Verse" truly gives the people what they want — shot after shot full of all kinds of different Spider-People, with dozens of dozens of cameos for fans to obsess over, scrutinize, and analyze. There are so many people in costume you'll have to watch the film a bunch of times to even scratch the surface of who is who.
Some of the cooler ones include Bag-Man Spider-Man, Spider Cop, Werewolf Spider-Man, and, perhaps most exciting, Insomniac's Spider-Man from the PS4 game. That game is not only fantastic, but including that version of Peter Parker feels like the closest we will probably get to Tom Holland showing up in this film — without it being so distracting that it takes over the story.
We don't know if Spider-Man PS4 will have more than just a brief cameo appearance, but we do know that the film will see a bunch of different versions of Spider-Man. Other than the main returning characters, there's Spider-Punk, voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman (who is awesome), and Takuya Yamashiro the Emissary From Hell (from the Japanese "Spider-Man" show).
Spider-Dad, Spider-Dad, does whatever a Spider-Dad can
Peter B. Parker was one of the best characters in the first "Spider-Verse," and one of the best takes on Peter Parker ever done. As voiced by Jake Johnson, this version of Peter was going through a sort of midlife crisis after 20 years of saving New York City and being hit by drones — not to mention getting the girl, but then divorcing her, and also losing Aunt May.
Now, Peter B. Parker is back, and it seems he really reconciled with Mary Jane — because he has a BabyBjörn with him! Now, we don't see the baby in the trailer, but producer Chris Miller revealed that Parker has indeed become a dad. "Peter got back with Mary Jane and they had a baby named May Day. She has half spider-blood," the producer said during an online event following the release of the trailer.
This is a rather interesting and unique development and that we don't see often in superhero films: super-parenthood. We have seen that in comics, like the very excellent "Super Sons" comic books about Batman and Superman's kids, but not really in movies. And who better to bring that trend to the big screen than dad bod Peter Parker?
Are we the baddies?
We finally know a bit about the plot of "Across the Spider-Verse" thanks to a couple of very brief shots in the trailer and the movie's newly-released synopsis. Turns out, the film will focus on a group of Super-People charged with protecting the very existence of the multiverse. According to the film's producers, Gwen is invited to this super group, but Miles isn't, which will likely cause some tension.
Furthermore, the synopsis teases a clash of ideologies on how to handle a new threat, which will pit Miles against the other Spider-Man variants. We see this in the trailer, with dozens of Spider-People chasing after Miles with seemingly murderous intent. Having just shown Miles befriend and lead a group of Spider-People from across the multiverse, making him fight a whole host of them in the sequel is a thrilling proposition — and one often found in the "Spider-Verse" comic book crossovers.
Meet Miguel O'Hara
We already know who the villain of "Across the Spider-Verse" is, but the trailer casts some doubts on whether The Spot is the only antagonist in the film. There's also Miguel O'Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 and possibly the hottest Spider-Man yet.
In the trailer, Gwen seems to tell Miguel that she thought they were meant to be the good guys, which points to a clash of ideas. Given how angry Miguel looks in the trailer and how fervently he chases after Miles, it is safe to assume Miguel definitely does not see eye-to-eye with Miles at some point.
The thing is, Miguel is not a Spider-Man you want to mess with. Sure, he wasn't hit by a radioactive spider, but he relies more on technology and his own physical prowess. Miguel's suit is made of nanotech, and he uses the claws in his suit to just open holes in buildings to climb them rather than stick to walls. He causes so much destruction the team at Sony has dubbed him "Property Damage Spider-Man."
Pushing animation forward
"Into the Spider-Verse" remains a marvel (heh) of animation, but "Across the Spider-Verse" is aiming to take things to a whole other level. We already know about the film's six different art styles, but the trailer reveals much more, teasing a literal deconstruction of the film's visuals (à la the "Neon Genesis Evangelion" finale). When we see Miguel chase after Miles, the art style changes and sort of devolves, going from the finished product to a sketch and even revealing an artist's instructions on the margin (along with the rough lines for Miguel's character design).
At a time where superhero movies are struggling to pay proper respect to the comic book writers and artists whose work inspired them, "Across the Spider-Verse" looks to do something different. The film is not only crediting the comic book artists who laid the groundwork for its existence, but it's also bringing them into the filmmaking process itself. The movie's creatives recruited the likes of Rick Leonardi, Kris Anka, Sanford Greene, and Brian Stelfreeze to provide character designs and help translate their own art styles to the screen. It is what should be done, and it rules.
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" arrives in theaters on June 2, 2023.