‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’: Ending and Cameos Explained

Well, that was good, wasn’t it? Much like the critically-acclaimed film that came before it, the newly released Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has managed to take superhero stories into a whole new dimension. The growing sense of Marvel malaise is nowhere to be found in Miles Morales’ New York City, and we can all breath a sigh of relief.

Once again, it’s a trail-blazingly creative example of what can be achieved by modern animation studios – all staggering artwork and awesome cityscape scenes – with a fully immersive soundtrack to boot, all of which cleverly fuses the legacy of the Marvel comics with a hyper-modern exploration of the franchise, with winks, nods and easter eggs for the fans all the way through.

But! It’s not all good. The movie clocks in at a fidgety 2 hours and 16 minutes, and it has more time-space leaps than Inception, which can be a little hard to follow at times. Which is why we’ve pulled together this explainer to help you decode the ending.

Sony Pictures

What happens at the end of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse?

After being targeted by The Spot – a new villain voiced by Jason Schwarzmann, who we learn mutated from a scientist called Dr. Jonathan Ohnn – our spider-boy, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) engages in some light battle with him, but honestly, he’s more taken with the return of his spider-girl, Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld).

While the film opens with Gwen’s POV – she’s still bereft with the loss of Peter B. Parker, and her police captain father blames his death on Spider-Woman – she jumps into another dimension after being exposed to her dad as Spider-Woman, and is tasked with bringing The Spot into line, who’s multi-timeline jumping is causing chaos for everyone.

Spider Society HQ (and cameos)

Miles jumps into a vortex, following Gwen, and he ends up at the incredible Spider Society headquarters. This is a milestone moment for Miles, as he realises there is a whole universe (sorry, Spider-Verse) of different iterations of Spidey-people, living across different dimensions. This is also likely to be the fans’ favourite part of the film, as familiar old Spider faces of yore pop-up, so we have Tobey Maguire-as-Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield-as-Spiderman, hundreds of Spider-people from Marvel’s back catalogue, and even that pointing Spider-Men meme.

We’re also re-introduced to Peter B. Parker from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (who now has a baby girl called Mayday) and introduced to Hobi, the Spider-Punk, voiced by Daniel Kaluuya, who steals every scene he’s in. Oh, you should also keep an eye out for Spider-Man’s nemeses, who have been captured and held in force fields in the Spider Society HQ: the biggest cheer at our cinema arrived when a live-action Donald Glover as The Prowler pops up.

Unravelling dimensions and canon events

Miles is taken to meet the head-honcho of Spiders, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), who explains that the spider from Earth-42 was never meant to bite Miles, it was meant to bite Peter instead. In order to correct this – and to stick to the “canon events” on the wide-spreading timeline that links every Spider-Person and event – this is why Peter in Miles’ world had to die, and why Miles is a problem for the Spider gang. He’s also devastated to learn that both Gwen and Peter knew this, and hid it from him.

Not only this, but The Spot (who brought the Earth-42 spider to Earth-1610, and also exploded Wilson Fisk’s particle collider) is increasing his powers by jumping through the portals, which also endangers everyone of a spider form.

Miles also learns that every Spider-Person has to go through the same “canon events” to connect them together and for the worlds to balance out. These are: losing someone they love, which pushes them to become a hero; and when a chief of police sacrifices their life. And it just so happens that Miles’ dad, Jefferson Davis (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) is about to become head of the PDNY. Miles’ dimension is glitching and unravelling because he broke the canon events; he either needs to face his destiny and head back to a world in which his dad is going to die because of The Spot, or jump through space and time to stop this happening. So, which one does he go with?

Bending dimensions and destiny

He chooses chaos. After an insane chase through Spider Society, with pretty much every Spider Person ever committed to the Marvel canon hot on his heels, Miles manages to make it to the Go Home machine. As expected, this is a contraption that sends you home to your dimension by scanning DNA. But the machine reads his DNA wrong, as he was bitten by the spider from Earth-42, and sends Miles there instead of Earth-1610.

Earth-42 is a grim place, as there’s no Spider-Man on hand to clean up the supervillain messes. Also, Miles’ dad is dead, as revealed by a mural on a wall. But in this universe, Miles’ uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who died in the first film, is alive. However! Aaron soon kidnaps Miles and takes him to his apartment and places him face to face with The Prowler. So who is The Prowler in this dimension? Nope, it’s not Donald Glover: it’s an older version of Miles himself. What does he want with him? We don’t know yet. But It’s not even the worst of his problems, as Miles says to his older self: “If I don’t get home, my dad dies.”

Gwen to the rescue?

After being kicked out of the Spider Society for helping Miles, Gwen revisits her father, who forgives her and tells her he’s quitting the police force. This is what makes Gwen realise that O’Hara is wrong: it must be possible to change canon events without rupturing the Spider-Verse.

Good old Hobi slings her a multiverse teleport wristband, and by visiting Miles’ parents, she realises Miles has been transported to the wrong dimension and pulls together a crack team of her own to rival the Spider Society, now their nemesis. There’s Hobi, of course, Peter B. Parker (and his baby), the Indian Spider-Man (Pavitr Prabhakar) and even Spider-Man Noir (Nicholas Cage). So what happens next in the Spider vs. Spider war? Frustratingly, that’s where the film blacks out, with just those three little words on the screen: To Be Continued…

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is in cinemas now and the threequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part Two) is due out on March 29, 2024.