As with any superhero movie, not everything gets wrapped up in the closing minutes of
Into The Spider-Verse; after all, they need to leave room for sequels.
Here are the biggest unanswered questions in Into The Spider-Verse.
And obviously, swing on out of here if you haven't seen the movie yet: spider-spoilers
ahead.
Into The Spider-Verse might share a name with the Spider-Verse comic crossover, but the
two stories don't have much else in common.
For one thing, the big villains of the comic book crossover are the Inheritors, a family
of sadistic vampires who prey on the life-force of multiversal Spider-Men.
As you can tell from that description alone, they were probably just too complicated to
use as the villains for Into The Spider-Verse, or maybe the filmmakers wanted to save them
for a possible sequel.
In fact, them showing up in a sequel would certainly be dangerous enough to get the spider-gang
back together.
At the end of the film, we see Miles reveal his identity to his private school roommate
— a character whose name never actually learn.
Still, his roommate does bear a passing resemblance to Ganke, Miles' best friend from the comics.
Ganke's visual look and personality were repurposed into Ned Leeds in Homecoming, so maybe the
filmmakers were trying to show the original character some love.
Or maybe Miles just figured he owed the truth to his roomie:
"Do animals talk in this dimension?
Cause I don't wanna freak him out."
Like its live-action counterparts, Into the Spider-Verse makes sure it's worth it for
audiences to wait until after the credits.
The post-credits scene features Miguel O'Hara, a.k.a. the Spider-Man of the distant year
2099.
Miguel mentions that he's going to go back to the beginning, and transports himself to
Earth-67, the home of the Spider-Man cartoon of the '60s.
The scene that unfolds between Miguel and the '60s cartoon Spider-Man is hilarious,
but it begs the question of why Miguel bothered to do it at all.
Is it possible that the post-credits scene represents Spider-Man 2099's first effort
to recruit a spider-army to face the looming threat of the Inheritors?
Or maybe he just wanted to learn from the best.
"This time they won't get away.
No one's gonna knock down bank doors while I'm around.
Loud noises interrupt my sleep!"
Or maybe we should assume this was just a gag and not think too hard about it...
The main universe in Into the Spider-Verse most closely resembles the reality inhabited
by Marvel's now defunct Ultimate line of comics.
Villains like Prowler and Green Goblin more closely resemble the Ultimate versions of
the characters, and of course, Miles Morales first appeared in the Ultimate comics.
But Miles didn't stay in the Ultimate universe.
As part of the line-wide event Secret Wars, the Ultimate universe was destroyed, and Miles
became a part of the prime Marvel Earth, the place that the majority of our favorite Marvel
characters call home.
So what, if anything, could this mean for the main universe of Into the Spider-Verse?
On one hand, there's no reason any follow-up films have to mirror the comics in any specific
ways.
On the other, it seems strange that we now have a popular and lucrative Marvel franchise
tha seems to be set in a world that no longer exists in the comics.
Does this mean that the Ultimate Universe will be resurrected in the Marvel comics?
Or will Miles' universe be threatened with destruction once again?
One of the most subtle mysteries of Into the Spider-Verse isn't how Miles Morales becomes
Spider-Man, but rather why.
Miles is bitten by a radioactive spider that's going through the same glitching that affects
the alternate Spideys.
That suggests that the spider who bites Miles is also from an alternate Earth.
But how does the spider get there, and when?
The super-collider event that brings the alternate Spideys to Miles' world happens after Miles
is bitten by the spider.
The likeliest explanation is that, like Gwen Stacy and most of the other spider-folks,
the irradiated arachnid traveled not only across dimensions but into the past.
“I was blown into last week.
Literally."
If so, then the fact that it bit Miles might suggest something a bit more than an accident.
It feels more like providence — like the spider chose Miles specifically because it
sensed something about him.
Is this something we might learn more about in a sequel?
With all the alternate Spider-folk back in their home realities and her own nephew gone
to the Great Beyond, will Aunt May continue to help Miles now that he's taken up the mantle
of Spider-Man?
After all, she has access to his Spider-Cave and all its cool suits.
At the very least, someone's going to have to teach Miles how to make more web fluid
so that he can keep swinging around New York.
Not to mention that with the original Spider-Man of Miles' world gone and Peter B. Parker returned
to his home universe, May could fill the role of Miles' mentor.
The last we see of Peter B. Parker, he's back on his own Earth with a bouquet of flowers,
hoping to reconcile with his now ex-wife Mary Jane Watson.
However, Peter and Mary Jane have a long, stormy history, and there's no guarantee Mary
Jane will take him back.
Even if she does, there are plenty of reasons to think it's only a matter of time before
they split again.
Part of the tragedy of their relationship is that Peter's identity as Spider-Man is
part of why Mary Jane loves him, and it's also the biggest threat to their relationship.
So who knows?
There may be no happily-ever-after for these two.
“Only a friend, Peter Parker?"
"That's all I have to give."