Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Features Nearly 100 Original Spider-People Not From Comics
We've had a great deal of multiverse storytelling over the last handful of years, and it's not just limited to comic book films at this point. Let us not forget that "Everything Everywhere All At Once" won Best Picture, after all. But most moviegoers would probably argue that nobody is exploring the multiverse quite as well as the filmmakers behind the "Spider-Verse" films. With "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," they pulled the curtain back even more than they did in 2018's "Into the Spider-Verse," introducing us to dozens of Spider-People. Yes, many of these Spideys trace their roots to the comics, but 100 of them were created just for the film.
In the newly released book "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie" by Ramin Zahed, the filmmakers discussed the process that went into crafting all of the many, many Spider-People we see in the film, from Spider-Punk to Spider-Cat. Co-writer and producer Chris Miller had this to say:
"All kinds of people really got inspired to see themselves as a Spider-Person. We got to see designs of Spider-People of every background, shape, ability and interest. That was very inspiring for us to see, and it became a guiding light for us to create the menagerie that we could find at the Spider Society headquarters. Of course, we also mined all the comics for the great, weird spiders that exist in that world, but thinking through that all-encompassing lens from the audience perspective was also very important to us."
The Spider-Verse is much bigger
The multiverse is, indeed, a concept that originated in the comics, and Marvel has been using it for years. That's how we got Miles Morales in the first place, as he became Spider-Man in the "Ultimate" universe, which was divorced from the main Marvel Comics continuity. Naturally, over the course of 60 years, we're going to get lots of different Spider-Men. The filmmakers were able to incorporate around 40 of them from the comics, including Oscar Isaac's Spider-Man 2099, aka Miguel O'Hara.
But the movie required a great many more Spider-People than the Marvel Comics canon could provide. As a result, the team had to come up with many, many more on their own. Artist Kris Anka explained:
"This was our chance to hint that the Spider-Verse is much bigger and has more possibilities than we have even seen in the comic books. It was a really cool opportunity for our character designers to really explore the different realms philosophically. While I was able to add forty-plus preexisting characters into the movie, there's always a need for more, so I ended up creating almost an additional one hundred completely original Spiders. These are supposed to be Spiders from all over the multi-verse, which allowed me to experiment wildly with both the costume designs and the render style."
With "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" in the works and poised to further explore the multiverse, one imagines we'll be meeting even more Spider-People, both new and from the comics alike.
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie" is in stores now.