The 5 best Easter eggs from Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Donald Glover’s official relationship with Spider-Man, the brand, has been a long and complicated one. Way back when, the Atlanta star became the subject of a social media campaign asserting (not inaccurately) that he would have made a great Spider-Man himself—something Glover clearly doesn’t mind, given all the spider-adjacent cameos he’s taken over the years. (Including voicing a version of Miles for DisneyXD’s Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.) His role in Across The Spider-Verse references a cameo of an altogether more villainous nature, though: His appearance in the MCU’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, where he played a live action version of Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis. The version of Aaron who ran into Holland’s Peter Parker in the MCU was just a talented thief, but when Glover appears—in live-action—in Spider-Verse, he’s clearly upped his game: He’s now equipped with his own set of the Prowler armor that the animated version of Davis (Mahershala Ali) used in the first movie.

There are a lot of Spider-Men, Women, Hams, and other Peoples in Across The Spider-Verse, some of whom get called out with their own identifying captions, while others exist merely as visually gorgeous background filler. But fans of the 2018 Spider-Man video game will immediately latch on to a single-second appearance by “Insomniac” Spider-Man that happens about halfway through the movie. (The name is a reference to the studio that creates the games, natch.) Rendered in video-game-style CG (possibly repaying the availability of Spider-Verse-style costumes in the games), this Spidey sports the unmistakable voice of Yuri Lowenthal’s Peter for fans of the (excellent) games to enjoy. Blatant cross-promotion for the upcoming Spider-Man 2? Probably, but Lowenthal’s version of Pete is so fun that it’s hard not to be happy to see him get his due.

Given that it not only radically shifts the movie’s art style into live-action, but also lasts for at least a minute, the encounter between Jason Schwartzman’s villainous Spot and Peggy Lu’s convenience store owner Mrs. Chen, best known for her interactions with Tom Hardy’s lethal protector Venom, isn’t necessarily subtle. But Spot’s brief sojourn to the reality of Venom is still a fun reminder of how far afield Spider-Verse is willing to go, and how much Spidey-adjacent material Sony has these days when it wants to tap into its back catalogue.

Or, y’know, just use it for a quick, not entirely polite joke. Jared Leto’s Morbius does not appear in Across The Spider-Verse—not even in the montage of captured baddies that provides the aforementioned Donald Glover cameo, and a vocal line from Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus. The movie still gets a wink, though, when Miles is introduced to Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), the vampiric Spider-Man 2099. “A vampire good guy? I’d pay good money to see that,” Miles quips. It turns out you wouldn’t, buddy: Not even ironically.

(Not that the MCU doesn’t come in for a jab or two of its own; Miguel is also decidedly unimpressed with the multiverse endangering antics of Doctor Strange and “that little nerd back on Earth-199999.”)

Less an Easter egg than an overriding philosophy that allows Easter eggs to flourish, this is where we acknowledge one of the things that makes Across The Spider-Verse so overwhelming and special: It’s all canon. Every Spider-Man cartoon, every movie, every comic: It all exists within reach of the Spider-Verse. Want to have a major plot point be illustrated by a live-action hologram of Andrew Garfield cradling a dying Denis Leary? It’s in there. Tobey Maguire mourning Cliff Robertson? It’s in there. J.K. Simmons blowing hard as J. Jonah Jameson? In there. The pointing finger gag? In there. The version of Peter from the short-lived but beloved animated TV series Spectacular Spider-Man? He’s in there—complete with a new voice line from original star Josh Keaton.

As Hollywood has become more and more fixated on the concept of the multiverse in recent years, it’s done so in depressingly limited ways—with executives clearly viewing these infinite realities as little more than a catch-all way to juice life out of existing franchises, and maybe deal with the occasional contract dispute. But Across The Spider-Verse embraces its possibilities so fully that it begins to feel genuinely limitless: If there’s a version of Peter, or Miles, or Gwen out there that anyone might want to see it, the film will not only grab them from the ether, but celebrate them. For all that the movie concerns itself with the idea of a rigid Spider-Man canon that defines these character’s stories, it betrays its real heart with these choices: The unbounded willingness to express the idea of “Spider-Man” in any way, every way, that connects with the character’s fans.