Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Is An Unprecedented Assault On Easter Egg Hunters
This post contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse."
Screenwriters Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, along with directors Joachim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, are having a little laugh at our expense.
The filmmakers' new movie, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," is a story about Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) tripping merrily through apertures in space-time and traveling to parallel universes where alternate versions of Spider-Man exist. The last film, "Into the Spider-Verse," already introduces several fun parallel Spider-Men and -Women in the form of Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), an anime Spider-Girl (Kimiko Glenn) and her robot buddy, a black-and-white Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), and a middle-aged Spider-Man in sweatpants (Jake Johnson). This seemed pretty mind-bending at the time, but "Across" does its precursor one better by including literally hundreds of Spider-Men from across Marvel Comics history.
Some of the many, many Spider-Men are recognizable. Pavitr Prabhakar, from "Spider-Man: India" plays a part, as does Spider-Punk. The Scarlet Spider is in there, and Spider-Man 2099 plays the film's central villain. Someone shouts out, "Is he from 1602?" in a reference to the Neil Gaiman Marvel universe set in that year. Sharp-eyed Marvel nuts will catch all of these references.
And there are dozens and dozens of other Spider-Cameos besides. Some filmmakers like to linger on such Marvel Comics Easter eggs, hoping that deep-cut Spider-Fans will have a moment of blissful recognition. Not the "Across" team. They want to make sure the Easter egg hunters are disappointed. Indeed, the sheer volume of Easter eggs seems deliberately enormous just to keep the hunters stymied. Did you want to see your favorite? Can you recognize them in .004 seconds? 'Cause that's all the time you're going to get.
How fast can you count?
There is a scene partway through "Across the Spider-Verse" that sees Spider-Man entering an interdimensional "lobby" where all the known Spider-People have gathered. The hallways are full of Spider-Men, -Women, and -Animals that are both from the pages of Marvel Comics and wholly original. Miles is astonished by the sight. Given the style of the movie, each Spider-Being is accompanied by a small, on-screen chyron explaining who they are and what comics they come from. The camera pans across the hundreds of Spiders, and the chyrons pop up fast and furiously. Pretty soon, the chyrons vanish too quickly to be able to read them. Yes, the Marvel Comics references are technically included in "Across the Spider-Verse." But not so you'd be able to comprehend them.
This is, of course, the screenwriters f***ing with us. They know that fans — and, yes, even outlets like /Film — love to compile Easter eggs for discussion and for mutual fanboy enthusiasm. An entire online cottage industry has arisen devoted to understanding Easter eggs, ensuring that everyone can enjoy that brief-yet-familiar shock of recognition.
As a result, Easter eggs have become a tactical exercise. A push-and-pull between studios and fans. A studio will drop something obscure into their blockbuster, and only 1% of the audience will understand. But for that 1%, it's bliss. We will write articles explaining to the remaining 99% what the reference meant and why it might be significant to the Marvel universe at large. Some fans will demand something even more obscure be included, and the studio will step up their game. Where's the .01% reference? Who, for instance, remembered the yellow THANOS helicopter? Someone who made the TV series "Loki" sure did.
Easter egg overload
Knowing about the tactical game that studios play with audiences, the makers of "Across the Spider-Verse" were careful to subvert it. Yes, they'll play the game by including gossip-worthy and obscure Spider-Man references, but they'll play by their own rules. Here, in four seconds of film, are 150 Spider-Man references. No one in theaters will be able to even absorb the amount of information thrown at them in those four seconds; the human brain simply isn't capable of it. This is a moment for the obsessives who will buy the Blu-ray in a few months time and watch the scene frame-by-frame, hoping to gather up all the images on a written list. Then, list in hand, they will dive for the internet, hoping to decipher what each character might mean, where they came from, and why they're important to Marvel Comics.
What will be the result of this? Nothing, of course. All that research will be done as a playful gag. Maybe the more tenacious Spider-Fans will include the references on a list somewhere, more for purposes of trivia than edification. I suspect the makers of "Across" are testing their audiences, trying to see if anyone will be determined enough to decipher the reference spaghetti — the Easter egg omelet, if you will — into digestible information. These references aren't there to make "Across" a better piece of cinema. It's a gag played on obsessives. This is not the filmmakers offering a hearty handshake to fans. This is the filmmakers putting on a hand-buzzer before offering that handshake.
How many references did you spot? If it's more than five, congratulations. You win a Marvel No-Prize.