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Rafaela Fonseca

10 Easter Eggs You Might've Not Noticed In Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse



Even if 2023 isn't over, it is easy to say that Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse will be on the list of the top movies of the year due to its stunning visuals, amazing character design, dialogue, stimulating action, and overall amazing storytelling. This goes without saying that its creators are extremely creative in hiding little hints, references, and cinematic elements that have older Spider-Man fans screaming, filmmakers crying and artists shrivelling on their seats. That was me, shrivelling on my seat. But I'm sure you readers already know that, right? What most people don't know, however, is how the producers snuck in little details that might have passed by unnoticed even by the biggest ATSV (Across the Spider Verse) fans like myself.


This goes without saying that THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AND NO MOVIE SUMMARY! So if you haven't watched the two movies yet, I recommend that you watch them before moving on further into this article, also because all of the scenes and character names will not be contextualised into the story plot itself, so in speaking about other characters, I will not be explaining their roles. I will begin with the easter eggs from past movies and move on to the less obvious details. Because both films have probably more than 200 details, I'll fit 10 into this article, but I'll make more easter egg articles on this movie if the article reaches over 5 likes on the post! Last warning for very bad spidey puns and without further ado, let's swing into it.


1. Donald Glover's appearance


Despite having seen a small glimpse of Donald Glover as Prowler in "Homecoming", it was only his alter ego speaking. This is the very first time that we get to see him in full prowler costume! I'm sure most everyone recognizes Donald Glover, so it was a very easy, obvious, and fun reference for everyone, yet what is hard to catch on was his previous appearance in "Spider-Man: Homecoming". The scene itself, however, was very shocking and hurtful because of Miles' past, where his uncle Aaron, or so the prowler of his universe and villain of the last movie, has died tragically. Miles, upon someone that is essentially his uncle in another universe, was heartbreaking to see as he kept on staring at "Donald-Glover-Prowler".


2. The classic Spider-Men


When we see the concept of canon events (occurrences that happen in every Spider-Man’s timeline, like loved ones dying) which Miles baptises as the spider verse, or as Miguel calls it the "Arachno-Humanoid PolyMultiverse", we see a scene of uncle Ben’s death from the “Amazing Spider-Man” aka Andrew Garfield Spider-Man’s movie. We see his true life form exactly as it played out in the original movie, tears and all in pure HD quality. We also get to see the first Spider-Man's (Tobey Maguire) web-slinger from Sony’s original trilogy and his uncle's death.


3. Mrs. Chen "spots" a hole


Within the scene where our main antagonist The Spot is exploring his portals (no, I will not quote this scene), we get a cut to a scene where he meets a sassy Chinese lady in a convenience store. He is shocked about the fact that she isn't startled by seeing a 2-D faceless being popping out of a black hole as she sees stuff like this every… because, well, she's familiar with the iconic and terrifying venom who pays her a visit in the store every so often along with Eddie! She's a recurring side character in “Venom” and its sequel, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and, although we don't get to see Tom Hardy and his full venomous buddy, for those who have watched the film, it is a very short, sweet and exciting sneak peak.


There are many more references to older movies like the brief mention of Tom Holland's Spider-man and Doctor Strange and other tinier things, but to keep the article a little less tiring, we'd better move on to the more discrete details.


4. He didn't forget to powder the suit.


In Miles' introduction of the film, there was a brief moment where he mentioned that he has endorsed baby powder and later got cancelled for it, but that wasn't just a random gig, you see. That was past advice from his terrible mentor Peter B. Parker, where his first advice to Miles was; "you're going to want to use baby powder in the suit". Who knew Miles would take that advice to heart so seriously…


5. Don't worry fam, it's just a cannon event


Ever wondered why the idea of cannon events and especially the name given to it sounded so silly yet dramatic? Well, that's because the fandom can be pretty silly and dramatic. You see when the first Spiderverse movie came out, people were complaining that Miles was a randomly made-up Spider-Man despite being in old comics and a full PS4 game, but I'm assuming people were just looking for excuses to be racist at this point. He was also getting a lot of hate for not having the classic cannon trauma that every Spider-Man usually goes through because he had only lost his uncle so, you know, not enough to be Spider-Man. He got a lot of backlash just for those things so Sony just decided "You know what? That's our new concept" and made the whole movie around this dumb little argument. This snippet of fact, however, I have seen in a video but lost it eventually since I saw it long ago and didn't think of it until this article's creation, so it's a matter of trusting me on this one… or more so the video I saw.


6. We've seen the spider from Earth 42 before!


I think everyone who watched the first movie must remember when our boy Miles got bitten by a spider, but little did we know that that would change his fate, or more so be a continuation of the fandom's criticism of Miles being a fake Spider-man. In the film, the spider that bit him was from another dimension, earth 42, we call it. It was supposed to bite Miles from that earth, not the dear Miles that we know and love. This means that cannon events say Miles was never supposed to be Spider-Man.


7. Peter wanted to grow up and be a lizard. AND SO HE DID.


Gwen's tragic loss before meeting Miles was her best friend, Peter Parker. This is seen in the first and second movies when he turns into the lizard, a classic villain of Spider-Man's, and eventually leads to his death. According to himself, he just wanted to be special like Gwen, but little did we know that this dated a very long while back. When Gwen is going through her memories in ATSV, we get less than a second of her, uncle Ben, aunt May, captain Stacy and Peter praying before dinner on Halloween where he wears a lizard costume. For context, this is before he got killed, before Gwen met Miles.


8. Bagels are a man's worst enemy.


The internet calls it the Bagel effect, when, in the last film, Miles hits a scientist with a bagel stolen from Alchemax while running from kingpin and this is referenced by The Spot after he tells his origin story, where we learn that he was the scientist who got hit by a bagel! But that's not all, the bagels are everywhere. Remember the mention of Gwen, Peter and co. Having dinner on halloween? They ate bagels. Miles first meets The Spot in a convenience store (post bagel incident), and what's on display? BAGELS. Miles, when fighting with The Spot, lands in a café called "foam party" (mentioned in the first movie!) and there's a hipster behind them eating… Do I even have to say it? I'll say it. BAGELS!!!


9. Ahh, the "prowler" of colours.


There are two scenes where we can see the use of the original comic prowler's colour scheme to predict future events, that being purple and green!

It is first evident in the first movie where Miles meets the Peter Parker from his own dimension, where his spidey senses shift from the colours of green and purple to red and blue, essentially insinuating that his fate in this universe has changed from having the cannon event of becoming the prowler to his unintended spider-man form and foreshadowing the idea of Miles not having an intertwined fate with becoming spider-man, and that he would have become the prowler instead, like Miles from earth-42 has done.

Kudos to me for noticing this next reference kind of randomly, but when Miles lands in the wrong dimension at the end of ATSV, we notice that his surroundings are predominantly, also, green and purple! No one really was expecting the plot-twist of the prowler from earth 42 being the Miles from that universe, but we could already tell that there was something definitely off about the universe that he landed in because of that colour scheme.


10. Ok I think Gwen was right…


I should have avoided mentioning this fact last, since it's the most heartbreaking easter egg in this article, so careful Spider-Man fans. The romantic but bittersweet moment that Gwen and Miles share in ATSV hanging under the Williams Worth bank building, Gwen says "In every other universe Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man. And in every other universe, it doesn't end well." Despite Miles lighting the mood by responding "well… There's a first time for everything, right?' It certainly did not end well in "Amazing Spider-Man" from the very first time, where Gwen… dies. It references Gwen's infamous death scene where she breaks her cranium and back… And to make matters worse, she did really fall in more than one way, so let's just pray that The Gwen that is still alive doesn't live through the same thing.


There are endless easter eggs from the movie . Man, there are way too many to fit into one sole document, which is why, if you are a spidey fan like me, you should check out the links below! I haven't used some of these, but I'll leave them below since they are truly worth a watch. And remember: you're gonna want to powder your suit.



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