So I’ve actually just come home from rewatching Across the Spider-Verse – partly because damn, I really really like it, and actually also partly because I’ve had a follow-up blog post in mind for some time concerning Gwen and her character’s arc and development throughout the film…and I am impatient and didn’t want to wait for the film’s wide release.
That post will hopefully follow in the next few days, but there was one little detail that struck me on this viewing that’s also completely irrelevant, and that struck me as being interesting enough to warrant a short post (especially since I don’t think anyone’s really noticed it as of yet).
It’s been generally observed that the Miguel of this film is a darker, more self-serious and angrier character than the version of him seen in Into‘s memorable post credit scene. Where that Miguel has an easy rapport with Lyla, and manages to get himself into a pointing match with the cartoon Spider-Man, the sequel shows him as being brooding, short-tempered, unable to take anything lightly. While Miguel certainly possesses characteristics that can be tracked across both films (most notably, his complete inability to deal with buffoonery and silliness), and his shift can fairly be blamed on Into‘s Miguel being a joke character in a joke scene, whereas the Miguel of Across bears the load of being a significant antagonist, I also spotted something.
See, Lyla describes Miguel at the end of Into as being ‘the first person to make an autonomous multiverse jump’ – ergo, Miguel hasn’t crossed the multiverse prior to this point. Then, when she asks Miguel where he’s going to go, his answer is:
Miguel: Let’s start at the beginning, one last time. Earth-67.
Again, it’s a joke, referring to Spider-Man’s first TV show in 1967. But on my rewatch, I noticed something during Miguel’s flashback to his alternate dimension family.
The flashback is rendered in 2D, in a drawn cartoon style, with Miguel himself fitting seamlessly in – just like how he changed in Into‘s post credit scene to match the 1967 cartoon.
Now, this cartoon flashback might simply be using the medium as a visual choice; an artistic shift to demonstrate the change from present to past, evoking Miguel’s nostalgia in the telling of it. But it’s also very possible that Miguel went to Earth-67 because he died n that universe, that the flashbacks we see in Across are of Earth-67. After all, Miguel was already monitoring the multiverse when he made his first jump – it seems highly likely that looking for a version of his family might have been a primary motivation.
Admittedly, this could all just be chance – apart from anything else, while the cartoon aesthetic looks relatively similar to me, it does seem more detailed in Across. But the explanation makes a lot of sense to me – and further, it goes some way toward explaining Miguel’s shift in character. The Miguel at the end of Into is perhaps as hopeful and optimistic as he’s ever been – at this point in his story, he’s this close to achieving his goal. Across, then, sees him broken, disillusioned and obsessively determined, and doubling down on his arrogance and vulnerability.
Anyway, it’s a minor observation, and one that doesn’t fundamentally change much about either film or lead to any deeper analysis – but again, I haven’t seen any real commentary on it, and figured I might as well jot it down while it’s still fresh. And at least to my mind, it does reveal a little about Miguel’s character, if we understand his jump to Earth-67 at the end of Into as being the beginning of his very, very bleak downward spiral.
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