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YMMV / Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

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    A-G 
  • Adorkable:
    • Miles falls into Gibberish of Love as he realizes that Gwen is back in his universe, and in his messy room. He tries to clean up at a rapid pace and fumbles his words when she talks to him.
    • Gwen herself is hit with this even more than the first film. She likewise acts nervous when reuniting with Miles, bumps his arm to compliment his "growth spurt" and cringes at herself. Later she meets Miles' parents and does nothing but fumble, excitedly calling them by their first names, awkwardly salutes Jeff and excuses herself by saying she forgot to walk her steps in with a nervous laugh and dance.
    • The Spot is an interesting example in that when he's not interacting with his Arch-Enemy Miles Morales, he routinely displays a bumbling and goofy personality that makes him come off as all the more endearing for his ineptitude. Of course, this goes out the window as he gets more dangerous.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: Rio is a bit more divisive among Latin American audiences than in the rest of the world thanks to the rather exaggerated Puerto Rican accent the actress gave her in the dub which a lot of fans felt it took them out of the movie in her scenes.
  • Anvilicious: Miguel dismissing Miles as not being worthy to carry the mantle of Spider-Man, with Miles then affirming that no one gets to decide that but him, is obviously aimed at the Vocal Minority who think Miles shouldn't have the title of Spider-Man.
  • Award Snub:
    • Many fans were upset that the movie's score by Daniel Pemberton was not nominated for Best Original Score. The soundtrack for both Across and its predecessor were very well received, in part because of how unorthodox they were compared to most movie soundtracks, with a heavy use of electronic music instead of the more traditional orchestra.
    • Just like its original predecessor, it was also not nominated for Best Picture. Many fans feel they deserved at least a nomination, as in addition to just being really good movies they were both groundbreaking for the animation industry. It doesn't help that the divide between Best Animated Feature and Best Picture has been contentious for years.
    • The film also managed to make it to the shortlist in the categories for Best Visual Effects and Best Original Song ("Am I Dreaming?"), but neither managed to get nominated.
    • Best Animated Feature was largely seen as Across the Spider-verse's to win, given its widespread acclaim, the first film having previously won the award in 2019, and most of the competition ranging from obscure (Robot Dreams), to divisive (Elemental), to never having a real chance due to being Screwed by the Network (NIMONA). Suffice it to say, many were shocked when Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron swiped the award. While some (such as co-producer Christopher Miller) gracefully accepted the loss and were happy to see the film win due to it being Hayao Miyazaki's first Oscar win since Spirited Away in 2003, it being only the second 2D animated film to win, and it being the first PG-13-rated animated film to win, others (including Miles' voice actor Shameik Moore) felt Across was robbed, arguing that Miyazaki didn't deserve the award this time and that he only got it because of his history of being snubbed in the past. As a result, this quickly caused a Fandom Rivalry to form between Spider-Verse fans and Ghibli fans over who deserved the award more.
  • Broken Base:
    • One of the biggest arguments that permeates the fanbase is whether or not Miles or Miguel is in the right. It usually goes one of three ways:
      • Those who side with Miles say that everything that caused him to be Spider-Man was completely out of his control, and that he shouldn't have to hold responsibility for circumstances that he never directly caused. They believe that Gwen's dad quitting the police at the end disproves Miguel's canon events theory, and that any evidence for it was shaky at best to begin with, meaning that Jefferson doesn't need, let alone deserve, to die. They also think that Miguel's extremist behavior goes against the Spider-Man moral code of refusing to let innocents die out of neglect or necessity.
      • Those who side with Miguel argue that his backstory of taking his alternate self's life before that alternate self's universe collapsed is definitive proof of canon events, and that he's the only one who understands the need to abide by The Needs of the Many. These fans often say that Miles is acting irresponsibly by choosing his father's life over the entire multiverse, and want Miguel's stance to be validated by the events of Beyond to show Miles the ramifications of his actions.
      • A third group says that Miles and Miguel are both right in different aspects. These fans believe that Miles has every right to be defensive over his dad due to how the character of Spider-Man has been characterized in almost every installment made about him, while also acknowledging that Miguel has a leg to stand on with the canon events theory due to what happened to his alternate self's universe, and overall believe the situation to not nearly be as black-and-white as the rest of the fanbase seems to view it as.
    • While the new portrayal of Peni Parker has become extremely popular upon her appearance, there are still some fans of her who preferred her portrayal from the first movie.
  • Can't Un-Hear It:
    • Oscar Isaac's intense performance has resulted in many fans considering him to be the voice of Miguel O'Hara.
    • Thanks to his equal parts hilarious and genuinely menacing performance, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't read the Spot's lines in Jason Schwartzman's voice when going back to the comics.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Many fans consider a "canon event" to be a specific tragic incident in a Spider-Person's life, usually the preventable death of a loved one, to the extent that "what was their canon event?" became a popular meme shortly after the movie was released. It's more accurate to say that a canon event is something that happens to many Spider-People across universes and ties them together. It can be bad or good; getting bitten, hanging up the mask (as in "The End of Spider-Man!"), and marrying a "Mary Jane" are also examples of canon events. It's also explicit that a Spider-Person can have more than one canon event, and the specific events can be different for each one. The constant emphasis on the bad ones, particularly the Death by Origin Story and I Let Gwen Stacy Die canon events, overshadowed the barely-mentioned good ones and resulted in this perception. In fact, this is even mentioned by Peter B. himself when he tries to convince Miles to accept what's going to happen despite how horrible it is because there's an equal amount of good in "following the canon", which allowed the existence of Mayday to come and be in Peter B.'s life.
    • Due to how popular the "Bagel Effect" meme has already become shortly after the film came out, a portion of the fanbase assumes that, in a very extreme Butterfly of Doom, Miles throwing a bagel at the Spot kickstarted a butterfly effect leading to the latter mutating into a supervillain and later becoming a multiversal threat, when in reality, the Spot got his powers from Miles destroying Kingpin's collider, an event completely unrelated to the Bagel incident, and became a villain due to society rejecting him for his new appearance and Miles dismissing him as a joke. The bagel incident is simply an unrelated event Spot brings up so Miles understands who he is and when they've "met" before, not his actual catalyst into supervillainy.
    • Miguel calling Miles an anomaly has left some wondering how he feels about the Miles variants that appeared in other Spider-Man continuities which cameod in this film. As a brief instance in the Spot's exposition shows, the displaced spider actually was meant to bite a version of Miles Morales, just not this one.
  • Confirmation Bias: There's a lot left to be explained about the "Canon Theory" by the end of the film, but it's clear that its proponents do rely on this bias to some extent. For instance, not one member of the Spider-Society is shown to question the idea that Mumbattan began instantly falling into a void because Miles Morales saved a man who was fated to die. Even Gwen and Peter B. "defend" Miles by saying that he didn't know what he was doing... seemingly dismissing the dimension-traveling supervillain who had activated a supercollider to absorb dark matter shortly before said void appeared.
  • Continuity Lockout: The plot of the film is perfectly coherent as long as you've watched Into the Spider-Verse, but it also relies heavily on a familiarity with the Spider-Man mythos — alleviated somewhat by the franchise being such a famous cultural institution that most people are familiar with at least the basic plot beats. Beyond that, this film is absolutely loaded with references to previous Spider-Man movies, comics, video games and cartoons — which you won't be able to appreciate if you're not a voracious consumer of all things Spider-Man. Miguel's explanation of "canon events", in particular, will likely mean much more to you depending on how much Spider-Man material you're familiar with.
  • Crack Pairing:
    • Following the release of the film, some fanfics have been written pairing Miguel with LEGO Peter Parker, seemingly because he's one of the few characters in the film that Miguel appears to actually like. It even has a Portmanteau Couple Name, "lego99".
    • Fanfic has been written about Miguel in a polyamorous relationship with Peter B., Mary Jane, and Gwen of all characters.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Pavitr giving a tour of Mumbhattan, which just amounts to him showing off countless traffic jams... and also the museum filled with all the Indian treasures and artifacts that the British stole. And he's just so cheery the whole way through!
    Pavitr: This is where the traffic is, this is where the traffic is, this is also where the traffic is, there's traffic here too, and this is where the British stole all of our stuff!
  • Crossover Ship:
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • A combination of his good looks, genuinely tortured backstory, and understandable circumstances has led many fans to interpret Miguel as completely in the right and that his hardline stance on enforcing canon is the correct take, despite a plethora of evidence in the film as well as creator commentary suggesting that his worldview is, if not entirely incorrect, then at least an overly-narrow misunderstanding of things.
    • There are plenty of fans who portray the Spot as an endearingly goofy and mostly harmless Nice Guy who just desires friends to help cope with his condition. This is in spite of the fact that he later goes out of his way to prove that he is not an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and he plans to destroy everything Miles loves due to wrongfully blaming him for his accident.
  • Ending Fatigue: The action climax of the movie is Miles being chased by all of the various Spider-People through Miguel's world. He successfully shakes them off and teleports back to his world... and then the movie continues for about 15-20 minutes as Gwen's plotline with her father is resolved and Miles realizes he didn't return to his world but the world of the spider that bit him, which turns out to be a world where no Spider-Man ever came to be. Not only that, but his father died instead of his uncle, and he himself instead became that world's Prowler. And then finally, Gwen gathers up a team of sympathetic Spider-People to go rescue Miles and stop Spot. All to set up the sequel movie.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Hobie Brown, a.k.a. Spider-Punk, was a massive hit with fans thanks to his cool design, endearing attitude, and funny personality, along with the fact that, contrary to what's foreshadowed, he turns out to be a pretty nice guy who is Miles' only supporter when Miles decides to escape the Spider-Society.
    • Despite his brief screentime, Pavitr has also gained quite a few fans, thanks to his cheerful and friendly personality, some memorably funny moments, and his awesome redesign being a massive improvement over his comic counterpart.
    • The Prowler of Earth-42 quickly became a fan-favorite thanks to the massive role said character plays in one of the movie's biggest twists, a great design, serving as the return of a beloved element, and being an evil Miles Morales.
  • Epileptic Trees:
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • The Spot going from Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain to a nightmarish Humanoid Abomination across the film, combined with his unique powers and cool design, won him plenty of fans. There are even some people who believe the Spiderverse trilogy will do to the Spot what Batman: The Animated Series did to Mr. Freeze and will establish a new, much more badass idea of who the Spot is in overall pop culture.
    • While not evil per se, being a Hero Antagonist, Miguel O'Hara nonetheless plays the role of a major obstacle to Miles and has an "evil" aesthetic that Gwen even compares to a vampire. He's also an absolute Determinator who would chase Miles across literal universes to achieve his goals.
    • While the Prowler of Earth-42 is a small role who has very little screentime, the combination of awesome design and being an Evil Counterpart to Miles himself mentored by Aaron instantly made waves in the fandom.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • Across the Spider-Verse shared fairly one-sided rivalries and comparisons to both Elemental and The Flash (being an animated film and superhero film with an emphasis on the multiverse, respectively), with the majority of support being in Spider-Verse's favor due to the former being from rival studio Pixar and the latter suffering from middling reviews and controversies surrounding the film's lead. Things only got more vitriolic and swayed in Spider-Verse's favor when The Flash severely under-performed at the box office while Spider-Verse made nearly $700 million worldwide. It didn't help that Spider-Verse and The Flash turned out to have diametrically opposed themes of Screw Destiny vs. You Can't Fight Fate, the latter of which has been argued to be tone-deaf in the cultural zeitgeist The Flash was released in and handled far less competently than Spider-Verse's themes.
    • Thanks to the 2024 Awards season, a rivalry sprang up between Across the Spider-Verse and The Boy and The Heron. They were largely the frontrunners for many awards ceremonies, and while Across won the Annie award, Boy and the Heron won at the BAFT As, Golden Globes, and the Oscars. While many did have a Graceful Loser attitude, including Christopher Miller, seeing Boy and The Heron as a Worthy Opponent and equally deserving of the win in it's own right. There are also many who genuinely feel that Across the Spider-Verse was the superior film that deserved to win due to the high quality of its animation, art style, music score, and compelling personal but socially relevant story. While they do not believe that Boy and The Heron is lacking in these areas and generally recognize it as an excellent film, they also thought this was an attempt to award Hayao Miyazaki in recognition of his entire career and contribution to the animation industry. As a result of these intentions, Across the Spider-Verse was forced to compete against the legacy of Miyazaki as opposed to simply Boy and The Heron, resulting in a stacked deck that robbed it of a deserving victory. Although it should again be noted that this rivalry is a byproduct of the Awards Season, outside of this one arena, there are many who have no problem with loving both films.
  • Fanfic Fuel: Due to their similar ages and demonstrating great teamwork and chemistry together during the sequence in Mumbattan, lots of fanwork popped up depicting Miles, Gwen, Hobie and Pavitr being especially close knit with each other and doing all sorts of activities together, from playing in a band together, movie nights/sleepovers in each others' dimensions, all four of them babysitting Mayday together and so on.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • For a while, Pavitr Prabhakar had been christened "Spider-Man without depression" by fans who noticed that he seems to be a rare Spider-Man who hadn't suffered any tragedy or at least was handling it better than most. Of course, this ended up incidentally Hilarious in Hindsight when it turns out that Pavitr's lack of angst was a major plot point.
    • To distinguish between Miles and his Earth-42 variant, who is the Prowler of that world, some fans call the latter "Kilometers Immorales". Others call him "Miles G." (G standing for Gonzalo, Miles' middle name, in the same vein as "Peter B. Parker"); this turned out to be his official designation in the production art book.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Thanks to their status as fan favorites, Hobie/Pavitr is extremely popular pairing, despite them barely interacting. Even Pavitr's canon crush on Gayatri hasn't killed the popularity of this pairing.
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
    • While Mayday's heterochromia eyes from the concept art had been replaced by Innocent Blue Eyes (akin to her comic counterpart) by the second trailer, there are some fans who wished she kept them, since heterochromia isn't commonly represented in Western Animation and many felt it made her more unique.
    • As this video points out, there are many who prefer the theatrical version where Gwen panics out loud when Miles is trapped under rubble in Mumbattan, versus the digital version where her panicking has been muted instead.
  • Fanon:
    • While the film never calls the destruction of universes caused by breaking Canon Events "Incursions", that's what a lot of viewers have taken to calling it, especially since it falls pretty close to how Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness defined it, and more evidence for this is that the Multiverse image Miguel shows Miles later on is strikingly similar to what's established on Loki (2021).
    • It's pretty common to speculate that the reason why Noir, Ham, or other certain, popular Spider-People aren't seen as part of the Spider-Society is because they would vehemently oppose Miguel's maintenance of "Canon Events", so Miguel either failed to convince them or Miguel correctly predicted that they would not be on board and didn't bother. Some people think that if he met the likes of Tobey's Spider-Man, the '90s cartoon Spider-Man, or especially the one from Edge of Time (that version of Peter Parker directly chewed out his Miguel for this kind of thinking), he would not survive the philosophical debate. This is also commonly thought to be the reason why Takuya Yamashiro isn't present; he's such a non-traditional Spider-Man that his mere existence blows a hole in Miguel's theory about canon events.
    • Peni looks absolutely miserable in her short appearance among the Spider-Society. It's widely agreed that she had suffered her comic counterpart's traumatic event in Edge of Spider-Geddon where the Ven#m suit killed Addy Brock and her May.
    • It's assumed that Canon Events are the same as Absolute Points, or at least closely related.
    • Despite the dramatic cliffhanger of Miles being captured and threatened by his alternate self, acting as the Prowler in his universe, it didn't take long for theories and fanwork to depict the two Miles as getting along together, having "twin energy" between them, or even "stoic big brother and unruly younger brother energy". The artbook apparently reveals that Earth 42 Miles and Aaron are indeed acting as vigilantes and not villains, which further fuelled the belief that Miles and Miles G. will end up as friends.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans of The Spectacular Spider-Man would rather ignore that the crossover elements with this film lead to the death of the much-beloved version of Captain Stacy from that show just for the sake of setting up the Canon Events debate. Granted, showrunner Greg Weisman alluded that Captain Stacy may have not been spared if the show continued though the death is still upsetting regardless. Weisman himself considers it merely a "next door neighbor" universe's Spider-Man rather then his own.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • With Blue Beetle as both films sport Latino bug-themed superheroes starring in their own movies (along with Spider-Verse having Oscar Isaac as another Latino joining the cast). When Blue Beetle's trailer dropped the day before the second trailer, many Spider-Verse fans expressed their excitement over both films.
    • With Moon Knight naturally, as both are Marvel properties that feature Oscar Isaac in a leading role as an emotionally-tortured Anti-Hero figure who believes it's his responsibility to Shoot the Dog and who has an alternate self who lived a much happier and "normal" life that he felt he couldn't achieve.
    • Also with Everything Everywhere All at Once given how both films explore the multiverse concept and have their major inciting incidents linked to a bagel. The film even includes a direct Shout-Out to it above Spot's apartment: "All of It, Always, All Over the Place".
    • With the Godzilla fandom, shockingly. Namely because, like Spider-Man, Godzilla (and his top five co-stars, Kong, Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla) have had many different incarnations throughout the history of the character, with the only through-lines being basic design and a few general backstory/personality traits. Fans who saw this movie immediately jumped on the idea of multiversal shenanigans with the different version of the kaiju, inspired by both ITSP and ATSP.
    • With The Amazing World of Gumball, due to both the film and the show sharing very similar villains in the form of The Spot and Rob. Both are villains who are originally background characters and treated as jokes by the protagonists, get disfigured because of said protagonists, get powerful enough to actually be a threat, and threaten the loved ones of the protagonists.
    • With Arcane, as both similarly blended 2D and 3D-based animation techniques to create a finished product with a painterly look, and Arcane character designer Evan Monteiro did work on Spider-Verse including Spider-Punk's design. Likewise, Miguel's design has been jokingly likened to as if Jayce and Viktor had a baby together. Hailee Steinfeld herself is in Arcane, voicing none other than Vi, the main character.
  • Genius Bonus: The version of the Vulture from an universe based on the Italian Renaissance fought in the prologue is actually very fitting: not only was the very first version of the Vulture in Human Torch, Isidoro Scarlotti, an Italian inventor, Leonardo da Vinci also famously studied flight through many years and based several of his invention ideas on that, sketching ornithopters and wingsuits. Furthermore, the Vulture's gadgets are references to Leonardo's own sketches and books: he is often surrounded by notes written in reverse, just like what Leonardo did to his annotations, and his bombs are directly based on Leonardo's aerial screw sketch.

    H-R 
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The release of the film, in which the death of Capt. Stacy is explicitly identified as a major event that has a parallel in every stable timeline, was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of The Night Gwen Stacy Died, but as it happens, the release also came in the wake of the death of Kamala Khan, comics' most prominent Pakistani-American heroine, in The Amazing Spider-Man (2022), an event that was explicitly intended as a homage to the 1973 story, and which is widely believed to have been done because Marvel felt that Peter "needed" another tragic death on his hands (The other common theory is that it was a brute-force method to soft reboot her origin to be more in line with the MCUnote , which... isn't better).
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The trip into Spider-Man India's world leads up to a brief joke about a museum where "the British stole all of our stuff". In the months after the release of this movie, the actual British Museum has been suffering blow after blow, from thefts alleged to be an inside job to the resignation of the director.
  • Ho Yay: The end scene of Miles being stared down intensely by his Evil Counterpart from Earth-42 looks suggestive and enough like a case of Screw Yourself out-of-context that it's become a minor meme to edit the scene to increase the implications, like here.
  • Hype Backlash: Across the Spider-Verse has been a massive hit with both critics and audiences alike, many lauding it an Even Better Sequel to the already critically acclaimed predecessor, and some critics have even named it "The best Spider-Man movie ever made". Par the course, this has led to this reaction in some corners of the internet, which some claiming its runtime is too long and needed trimming, or that the massive cliffhanger hurts the film rather than elevating it (although the alternative would apparently have been a four-five hour movie instead), with some even claiming that Across "can't really be labelled a good movie or not" until Beyond the Spider-Verse comes out.
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
    • The pairing of Miguel O'Hara and Peter B. Parker is called Spiderdads.
    • Miles Morales/Hobie Brown is known as punkflower.
    • Miles Morales/Gwen Stacy is ghostflower.
    • Hobie Brown/Gwen Stacy is ghostpunk.
    • Hobie Brown/Pavitr Prabhakar is chaipunk.
  • I Knew It!:
    • Most have theorized that Miguel O'Hara would play a larger role in the sequel thanks to The Stinger at the end of the first film, which the preview confirms.
    • A number of fans have theorized that The Spot would appear as a villain in the film, due to how potentially cool his ability to summon portals out of his body would be in the film. Sure enough, the film's Twitter account would confirm that this would be the case.
    • A fanfic for Into the Spider-Verse on Archive of Our Own featured Peter B. Parker as the father of Spider-Girl Mayday Parker. Despite the story being otherwise incompatible with the movie's canon, Across has identified Peter B's daughter as Mayday rather than Anna-May.
    • When the film was announced, Spider-Man Noir, Peni and Spider-Ham were all conspicuously absent from any cast lists, which led to some hoping and predicting that Across would nevertheless setup the characters for a return in Beyond. Peni has a brief cameo partway through, with both her clothing and mech now being comic-accurate, and all three are part of Gwen's Spider-Society alongside the Indian Spider-Man, Peter B. Parker, Mayday, Spider-Byte, and Spider-Punk at the end of the film.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Miguel O'Hara turns out to be both a massive Hero Antagonist and a remarkably tragic character. Despite constantly simmering with anger, Miguel reveals to Miles that he went into another universe where he was a family man, only for a dimension-wiping catastrophe that he blames on himself being an anomaly to wipe out the whole universe, including Miguel having to watch his daughter die in his arms, alongside him feeling the responsibility to run the entire Spider-Society. While his actions are beyond extreme, it's hard not to feel bad for him. This is even called out on by himself during his Establishing Character Moment at the Spider-Society headquarters, where he understands he's not a nice guy and he teeters the line of being a good guy, he firmly lives in the belief that he's the only one there willing to make the hardest choices that none of the other Spiders want to attempt to protect the multiverse.
    • The Spot. While he did work for Kingpin in the first film, there isn't really much to suggest that he was more than just a Punch-Clock Villain, which can make the accident that turned him into a Humanoid Abomination and caused him to be outcasted by society feel undeserved. Even though he wrongfully blames Miles for this and desires to get revenge on him, he's mocked and dismissed as little more than a Villain of the Week who can't even use his own powers properly, something that deeply upsets him. It's significantly lessened in that he becomes a genuine threat by the end of the film and threatens to destroy entire dimensions just to take away everything Miles loves.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Thanks to the film's more apparent implied romance, Miles has been shipped with pretty much almost everyone in the main cast (which also popularized the "Miles got the rizz" meme), from Gwen, Margo, Peni, Hobie, Pavitr, Peter, Miguel, the Spot, and even his alternate self.
  • LGBT Fanbase:
    • Gwen scores a pretty substantial one with the presence of the transgender flag, with the words "protect trans kids" on it, in her room and her conversation with her father being read as a coming out allegory.
    • Miguel O'Hara is extremely popular with gay and bisexual men due to his Bara Genre-friendly design, courtesy of the openly-bisexual Kris Anka. Helpfully, while another version of him was shown to have a happy family and a child, no mention is made of his spouse's gender or if he even had one, making it easy for queer men to relate to him and interpret him as potentially one of them.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • The Spot was bound to get his treatment, as he started off as a geeky scientist who was defeated by a bagel, became a joke villain who couldn't even rob a bodega, but then, through practice, scientific know-how and sheer spite turned into a threat to the Multiverse at large in a matter of In-Universe hours. Some have even jokingly defined his arc as "inspiring".
    • Of all characters, if you can even call them one, the baby Jessica is expecting gets this. Due to her baby apparently being completely fine inside the womb despite all the extreme stunts she pulls, many have commented that Jessica's baby must be "built different" and will probably be even stronger than Mayday Parker when they're finally born.
    • LEGO Spider-Man has seen this treatment due to Miguel referring to him as one of the Spider Society's best, despite his small size. Of course, that also led to the two being shipped.
    • Although Miles is also listed as a Memetic Loser as detailed below, the one thing that most fans agree is his ability to "rizz someone up" effortlessly, with jokes about how Miles is so charming that he's able to "rizz up" anyone he meets, with Gwen and Margo (Spider-Byte) being two in-story examples, and more and more fan art portrays him and Peni Parker as a couple (much to Gwen's chagrin). Some even go as far as saying that Miles's game is so powerful, he can rizz up himself, as explained in Memetic Mutation below.
    • Although he only appears briefly and was slated to die due to it being a Canon Event, Inspector Singh has become one largely due to his introductory scene having him give Pavitr and his daughter Gayatri an intimidating glare and triggering Pavitr's Spider-Sense, causing fans to joke that Inspector Singh could easily mop the floor with Spider-Man if he really wanted to.
    • As Miguel became more and more hostile towards Miles, it's become common to half-joke that Miguel would absolutely be destroyed if Rio Morales ever learned what he'd been doing to her beloved son.
  • Memetic Loser: You think Miles' "Spider-Luck" is bad in the film? In the memes, he can't catch a single break: over and over again, he gets beaten to a pulp by Miguel for being Black, is told by the latter that he's an anomaly that shouldn't exist and should kill himself, has to face invincible Spider-People such as LEGO Spider-Man and gets his Jordans ruined by the Spot.
  • Memetic Psychopath:
    • Miguel O'Hara is a Hero Antagonist who believes that all Spider-People need to suffer a "canon event" by losing a loved one. However, memes extrapolate this motivation to him stopping time-travelers from preventing world-changing, historical tragedies, ultimately condemning countless people to suffer under the pretense of it being a "canon event", such as the Trans-Atlantic slave trade or the Holocaust. This can also extend to him stopping people from preventing the deaths of fan favorite characters. Some jokes take it even further to have Miguel state that the victims deserved to be killed and/or oppressed.
    • To a lesser extent, Peni Parker, of all people, is often portrayed in fan art as a stereotypical Yandere who takes advantage of Miles' misunderstanding that Gwen is dating Hobie to keep Miles to herself and does everything in her power to make Gwen jealous and regret not confessing to Miles earlier. This is despite Miles and Peni not even being shown to have any romantic interest in each other across two films.
    • Jefferson Morales is surprisingly a complete psychopath in Spider-Man memes, encouraging Miles to slaughter the Spot's family in one meme and telling him to rape, beat up and then twist his (nonexistent) dick in another, freaking out both Miles and the Spot with how brutal and uncalled for it is.
  • Memetic Troll:
    • Because of how much of a Servile Snarker she is, fanart has gone forward with portraying Lyla as an insufferable thorn in Miguel's side, constantly undermining him and belittling him for his dramatics.
    • Playing off his in-universe desire to become Miles' "true" archenemy, the Spot is commonly portrayed in memes as pulling diabolical pranks on Miles, such as creasing his J's.
  • Misaimed Fandom: As noted under Common Knowledge, people have started referring to any tragic moment for superheroes in media as a “Canon Event”, even though it’s noted in the movie by the one proposing the theory that canon events aren’t necessarily tragic. The movie itself also points out that the whole theory is fundamentally flawed, as Earth-42 has experienced no canon events and remains intact, while Gwen and Pavitr are able to avert the “death of the Police Captain” with no issues to their world. Not to mention the theory being posited by an individual who is trying to rationalize a personal tragedy rather than an impartial consensus.
  • Moe: Peter B.'s toddler daughter Mayday is downright adorable, gleefully climbing around Spider-Man HQ and taking all of her dad's crazy antics in stride whenever he brings her along. It's very easy to see why Peter B. dotes on her so much.
  • Older Than They Think: The idea of an alternate evil Miles Morales who is not Spider-Man is not an entirely new concept, as Spider-Men II did a similar concept with Miles' Earth 616 counterpart, who in contrast to his Earth-1610 counterpart, is a villain who is Fisk's best friend, a member of a crime family, and the supervillain Ultimatum.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • The Italian-Renaissance era Vulture. He's not in the movie for long, but he definitely makes the most of it with his unique sketchbook style design, his creative Clock Punk arsenal, and the funny confused banter he has fighting Gwen, Jessica, and Miguel.
    • The Spectacular Spider-Man's single speaking line, complete with the return of Josh Keaton's voice. Hearing such a beloved adaptation of Spider-Man once again was a huge highlight for several fans.
    • The new version of Peni Parker, despite only appearing in two brief shots, has become extremely popular, with many eagerly awaiting her involvement in the sequel.
  • Paranoia Fuel: The Spot has an obsession with Miles due to the two of them crossing paths, but Miles doesn't even remember him. Feeling invalidated, the Spot is consumed with rage and decides to give Miles a whole world of grief for this. The similarities to any number of stalkers is pretty clear, but the fact that such an inconsequential background character could end up ruining someone's life can leave you wondering what kinds of enemies you've made without even realizing it.
  • Rainbow Lens: Gwen's sideplot, in which her father disowns her for coming out as Spider-Woman, followed by him reconciling with her when he realizes to accept his daughter for who she is, resonates with many trans viewers who can relate to particularly rocky coming-outs. Her bedroom has a sign reading "protect trans kids" and the scene in which George Stacy accepts his daughter is lit with the colors of the trans flag. Part of her arc also revolves around rejecting the binary options of Miguel's rhetoric. To an extent, Miles feeling conflicted over whether or not he should tell his parents that he's the new Spider-Man also has shades of "coming out".
  • Realism-Induced Horror: As more people are pointing out how Spider-Society operates like a cult, it can be pretty horrifying to see a beloved character like Spider-Man, especially versions people got to know and love, like Spectacular, Unlimited, or Insomniac, faring no better than an average person against being recruited and then falling into cult mentality. Especially if you are already afraid of it happening to you or your loved ones.
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • There are those who claim Gwen is an awful person for unwillingly betraying Miles in the film, accusing her of not really caring about him or that she should have "known better" than to believe in Miguel and "Canon Events", ignoring how the movie depicts her as a 16-year-old Troubled Teen who fell under Miguel's indoctrination and was given no proof of him being wrong beforehand (including the implication that she's been shown the "Canon Event" of other Gwen Stacys dying tragic deaths over and over again, which would only strengthen her belief in them). She would thus have been led to believe that her choices were to either side with Miles, or risk the multiverse with billions of lives collapsing, including Miles' life (meanwhile, Miles has no way of knowing himself that Miguel is wrong and rejects the canon events presumably on the hunch he has that it's wrong so he can save his dad). Even as the movie quite literally ends with Gwen breaking down in front of her father on how she deeply hurt Miles and then later realizing that Miguel's belief is flawed after all, having promised his parents back in his home dimension that she will bring him back home safe and sound, and gathered her own Spider-Team to rescue Miles, there is still a minority of voices claiming that she messed up too bad and that Miles should never forgive her.
    • Although Miguel is a major antagonist, he's not evil or willfully cruel so much as a misguided Well-Intentioned Extremist who is genuinely trying to what he thinks is the best for everyone. Interpretations of him as a straightforwardly evil Big Bad became widespread enough that the creators had to step in to clarify their intent for him to be seen as a morally-gray figure.
    • Likewise, some fans claim Miguel is racist because of his hatred of Miles, which is meant to be analogized to the behavior displayed by a certain type of Vocal Minority on the Internet in real life, some of whom have engaged in racist behavior... except the movie makes it abundantly clear that in-universe he hates Miles because the spider that gave Miles his powers was intended for another universe (meaning that universe has no Spider-Man) and, from Miguel's perspective, Miles is going to risk the lives of everyone in his universe to save one guy. Also, Miguel has no problem with the various non-white Spider-People in the Spider Society, with a Black woman even being his implied Number Two.

    S-W 
  • Salvaged Story: While Peni's portrayal in the first film was fairly popular, it's also gained quite a few detractors over the intervening years due to it being a complete tonal flip from her comic book self — a somber, contemplative and introverted young girl (very clearly inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion), considered a refreshingly non-stereotypical take on a Japanese character as written by a Western author — to a very stereotypical Genki Girl who's mainly there for comic relief. SP//dr's design was also changed to look less like an Eva and more cutesy, playing into this shift. Here, though she gets very little screentime, she's very clearly grown out of that phase through the Trauma Conga Line of being a Spider-Woman, and she's upgraded SP//dr into its original Eva-esque design, both of which make her much more accurate to the comics.
  • Self-Fanservice: While Miguel is already a well-built hunk in a skin-tight Hard Light suit, several pieces of fanart tend to further exaggerate his figure to Mr. Fanservice levels, most notably in the rear-end.
  • Shallow Parody: Ben Reilly is mostly used to mock the '90s comic book edginess by making him an Emo Teen full of Wangst. When he debuted in the Clone Saga, Ben was much less prone to angsting and was more light-hearted than Peter.
  • Ship Mates: It's common for Miles/Gwen shippers to also ship Hobie/Pavitr, usually building off of their devil-may-care attitudes and their mutual disdain for the British Empire.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Signature Scene:
    • The scene with Miles and Gwen sitting next to each other watching the New York City skyline while upside-down under a clocktower made for one of the most iconic images in the movie.
    • The entire big chase in the third act where all of Spider-Society tries to capture Miles Morales as he desperately tries to go back home. The whole sequence reportedly took four years to develop, and the result is more than worth it.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
    • A metafictional story about a society of pre-existing superheroes from different genres, medias and demographics that come together to fight a supervillain who acquires a cosmic power that could doom entire worlds? While made by Marvel, this might also double as an adaptation of The Multiversity.
    • Speaking of Grant Morrison, the Spot brings to mind the demon Orlando: Both are white Humanoid Abomination with an obsession to beat one of the main characters and whose natural appearance has visible sketch lines. Their personalities, however, couldn't be more different.
  • Spiritual Successor: Miguel's "Fixed Canon" Theory and the literal universe-shattering ramifications of averting the life-defining tragedy in a hero's backstory sounds an awful lot like the plot of the What If...? episode "What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?", where a variant of Earth-199999 Doctor Strange tried to avert the tragic death of his love-interest, only for this to result in a Reality-Breaking Paradox that destroys the universe. Considering the nature of the Spider-Verse, this may have actually happened within the Across the Spider-Verse's established multiverse, Strange Supreme's destroyed universe being used as an example of what could happen if the Spider-Society doesn't uphold canon.
  • Tainted by the Preview:
    • While many are excited about the Spider-Verse being featured in its full glory after only a tiny glimpse was shown in the first film, there were some concerns from the trailers that the film could potentially be too cluttered, leading to it being unbalanced and dragged down by too much fanservice at the expense of further developing Miles and his story, which wasn't as much of a concern in the first film due to its smaller, tightly knit cast.
    • Many fans were disappointed at the lack of marketing presence for the alternate Spider-folks from the first film (Spider-Man Noir, Peter Porker/Spider-Ham, and Peni Parker/SP//dr), especially since they are major fan favorites, and one of the biggest complaints that the first film got was their lack of focus compared to Miles, Gwen, and Peter. This led some to conclude that they were seemingly not returning to this film at all. However, Peni Parker is revealed to be part of Miguel's alliance during the film (with a new and now comic-accurate SP//dr to boot), and at the end Gwen's ensemble also includes Peni, Spider-Ham, and Spider-Man Noir. So while barely present in this movie, they'll likely play a bigger role in the third part.
    • Before the film was released, the confirmation that there will be a romance between Gwen and Miles turned off some fans who would rather have the two stay strictly as friends as was mostly the case in the first film, outside of some brief Ship Tease. This was also a result of Gwen/Miles being a controversial pairing in the comics due to Gwen being Peter's dead girlfriend in the 616 continuity, as well as being older than Miles note . Some fans also mistakenly believed that there would be a Love Triangle subplot based on director's commentary that Miles would be jealous of Gwen's closeness with Hobie, and were concerned that it would bring down the rest of the film. In the film proper, however, there isn't really a love triangle to speak of. Gwen and Hobie are close but neither appears to be interested romantically in the other, there are only a few instances of mild jealousy which are Played for Laughs and quickly dropped, and Miles and Hobie end up being on very good terms. Gwen and Miles ironically became a very popular pairing following the release of the film where they're given believable chemistry and a well-written slow-burn romance (they're also given a good amount of angst and a cliffhanger separation, which became part of the appeal to many), and their dynamic have little in common with the comics.
    • The second trailer revealing Miguel would apparently be an antagonist in the film, seeking to hunt down Miles and attacking him, turned off a lot of fans of the character who weren't happy to see an established hero being turned into a violent Jerkass. This is Truer to the Text, however, as there have been many instances of Miguel being quite violent and abrasive in the comics and other continuities, often focusing on The Needs of the Many. In fact, one game where the story is considered quite good has Miguel willing to leave Mary Jane to die, and he only ends up saving her once Peter convinces him. That said, later trailers implied that while Miguel is a major Hero Antagonist, he is only a Disc-One Final Boss to a larger existential threat to the entire multiverse to be seen in Beyond the Spider-Verse. In the film itself, his antagonism is given much more nuance. It is made abundantly clear that the weight of the "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" creed all the Spider-People share ended up getting amplified for him due to him seeing firsthand just what could happen if the status quo of the multiverse was ever disrupted. Even though he has to let innocent people die just to maintain this stability, the anxiety of having to choose between innocent lives and the multiverse itself weighs on him greatly, making it more understandable why he'd fly off the handle at Miles's own insistence that he can Screw Destiny when Miguel has seen evidence of You Can't Fight Fate (even if it is far more complicated than even he understands). Aside from his own grievances of Miles's anomalous nature aside, Miguel genuinely pities the kid for the Sadistic Choice he's forced to live with and doesn't want him to live with regret like he does over causing so much death due to his own mistakes.
    • Latin American viewers expressed significant backlash over the dubbing cast chosen by Sony. The decision to cast social media influencers, TikTokers, and Twitch streamers for crucial roles, rather than well-known and respected voice actors from the region, was widely criticized. Numerous people stated that they would not watch the movie in theaters, while others planned to purchase tickets for the subbed version or even watch the Castillan Spanish dub to avoid supporting such an unpopular decision.
    • Taiwanese viewers expressed their criticism of Sony's choices of the dubbing cast, including casting a lot of YouTubers instead of professional voice actors, replacing Miles's and Gwen's voice actors from the first film with celebrities who have few voice acting experiences, and only listing the celebrities in dubbed promos, not the regular voice actors. Some people stated that due to this approach, they would watch the subbed version instead.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Ben Reilly makes an appearance with the rest of the Spider-Society, and later forms part of the team Miguel sends to track down Miles. However, some fans were not pleased by how the film depicts him, as pretty much all of his lines and scenes are devoted to lampooning the '90s Anti-Hero tropes that were prevalent at the time of his introduction to the comics, and little is explored with his canonical characterization or backstory. Making it even worse is that he barely displayed any of those traits in his run. In fact, he (and by extension the Clone Saga as a whole) were created because Peter was exhibiting them. The movie also identifies him as coming from Earth-94 in an apparent reference to the prominent role Ben Reilly of Earth-94 takes in the comic event. The comics version was notable for being particularly upbeat and averting major negative events that happened in most other universes. While keeping the latter part intact wouldn't mesh with the film's plot, the complete personality inversion still stands out.
  • Trans Audience Interpretation:
    • Gwen Stacy has been interpreted by a large section of the film's viewership as being trans-coded, if not being outright transgender. She has a trans pride flag hanging in her room, and later in the movie, when she finally has a conversation with her father and yells at him about having to hide part of herself in case he didn't accept her, she is bathed in bright blue, pink, and white light (the colors of the trans pride flag). While these are the usual colors of Gwen's costume, and the art style of her universe in general uses pastel colors, this specific moment solidified the implications to many that her arc is an analog to those in the transgender community coming out to their loved ones.
    • An alternative theory is that the Peter Parker from Gwen Stacy's dimension is the one who is trans, due to his somewhat scrawny and weak physical appearance; his desire to "get stronger" using the lizard serum can be seen as a parallel to gender dysphoria and the need to conform to society's expectations of masculinity. Likewise, Gwen's "protect trans kids" flag can be interpreted in this context as a declaration of solidarity with a transgender Peter.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • Among the enormous gathering of Spider-People, there are many recognizable variants from comics and other media. The Spider-Man from the PS4 game appears and is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. Spider-Man Unlimited, Mangaverse Spider-Man, and the Bombtastic Bag-man also appear.
    • Similarly, the other "video game guy" near Insomniac Spider-Man isn't just a random 8-bit sprite — he's the Green Goblin from the Atari 2600 Spider-Man game, which was the first-ever Spider-Man game.
    • The reveal of Peter's daughter, Mayday Parker, and the cameo of Anna-May "Annie" Parker from Renew Your Vows, was a massive shock for fans, especially since Marvel has historically been reluctant to give Peter kids and acknowledge the likes of Mayday and Annie in the comics (outside of alternate continuities or Spider-Verse) and adaptations due to their desire to not have Peter Parker grow up.
    • The first poster reveals other Spiders showing up including Julia Carpenter's Spider-Woman, Doppelganger from The Infinity War, and even The Spectacular Spider-Man. The latter was especially seen as a surprise, given that the show hasn't been acknowledged by Marvel or Sony since its cancellation in 2009 (aside from home video and streaming re-releases). Not only that, but Josh Keaton returns to give him a couple of speaking lines!
    • Spider-Byte is an extremely obscure character, appearing in just two comic issues and only having lines in one of those. Not only does she get lines in the film, she becomes one of the principal supporting characters by helping Miles and joining Gwen's new team in the cliffhanger. Ditto for Sun-Spider, a Fan Creation who only appeared as non-speaking background cameo in her debut issue. She only received some spotlight in the End of the Spider-Verse mere months before this film's release.
    • The Spot travels to the Sony's Spider-Man Universe and ends up robbing Mrs. Chen, who is less than enthused.
    • The Peter Parker and Uncle Ben from The Amazing Spider-Man video games make a brief cameo as Miguel explains Canon Events to Miles.
    • The criminals captured in the wrong dimensions by the Spider-Society include Variants of the traditional Spider-Man villains such as Vulture, Rhino, Mysterio, Kraven, Doc Ock... and Typeface.
    • Also among the apprehended is Donald Glover's live-action incarnation of the Prowler, now a costumed supervillain. He even gets to chat with Miles, paying homage to how the character of Miles was partly inspired by Glover himself, as well as him being the first person to voice an animated version of Miles.
    • When the film became available on home video, frame-by-frame examination of captured anomalies revealed many more D-list Spidey villains, such as Big Wheel, Clam, Gog and even Swiss Miss from the infamous Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
    • Although it is only a Freeze-Frame Bonus in the background, two newspapers with headlines about Quake from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are seen on the wall of Miles' and Ganke's dorm room, making it the first nod to the show's existence in all of Marvel films.
  • The Un-Twist: Even if you miss that the Go Home Machine clearly says "Earth-42" before Miles takes off, it's clear to the audience that Miles hasn't been sent to his proper universe well before Miles himself realizes it. However, in a case of Tropes Are Tools, this only creates a sense of dread in the audience as they slowly realize just how screwed Miles is.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: In addition to more of the gorgeous animation from the first film, some scenes notably stick out:
    • Gwen's scenes in her own universe distinctly stand out animation-wise from the rest of the movie, as the backgrounds are more abstract pastel paintings, with the palette changing throughout each scene to match the characters' moods and dialogue.
    • The Spot in his normal form has subtle but visible pencil construction lines, as if he's an incomplete drawing. Which transitions beautifully into...
    • When the Spot reaches his full power, his color scheme inverts and he becomes a shadowy array of black ink-like lines that warps the area around him into psychedelic distortions. The design is so alien that it's even reminiscent of how the Anti-Spiral is animated, causing the Spot to have a big Nonstandard Character Design at this point, showing just how powerful he's become.
    • The film's take on the Vulture is also pretty incredible, appearing as a moving da Vinci-esque linework/schematic on yellowed paper that is seamlessly worked into Gwen's universe and interacts perfectly with the differently-styled other characters.
    • Spider-Punk's cutout zine aesthetic is another mind-blowing standout—not only for perfectly capturing the essence of punk in a character, but the way his color palette and the border around him constantly change from scene to scene—especially given that animating Hobie took two to three years. An artist went into more detail on Twitter, revealing that they had (ironically) very specific rules governing his chaotic animation and in fact created special tools just to streamline the process.
    • The LEGO Spider-Man world appears only briefly in the film but is rich in detail... and is all the more impressive considering it was directed by 14-year-old Preston Mutanga, who was hired less than five months before the film's theatrical release after the creators saw an adaptation he made of the film's trailer.
    • The Creative Closing Credits that show Miles' journey throughout the film are rendered in a beautifully painterly and surreal way, almost like a Spider-Verse version of a James Bond opening.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The movie's only rated PG, but definitely leans into a "hard" PG (in contrast to a lot of the Avoid the Dreaded G Rating animated fare), even moreso than its predecessor. In addition to having mild cuss words (with plenty of uses of "ass" and "hell"), there's all the eldritch horror surrounding the Spot's descent into villainy, the whole discussion of how every Spider-Person must face some kind of major personal tragedy that cannot be averted with Miles' very understandable shock and existential dread over the fact as his own father is up next, and the dark Alternate Universe where Miles himself has descended into villainy. There's also Miguel's whole backstory, in which we get to see his own alternate daughter (and the rest of that universe) get erased from existence on-screen!.
  • Woolseyism:
    • Miles' quip in the first fight with the Spot ("Why do people say 'ATM machine'? The 'M' stands for 'machine'.") is translated differently in other dubs. For instance, in the Latin American Spanish dub he asks why the machine is called an "automatic teller" when one still has to tell it what they want which isn't automatic. In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, Miles muses about the gender of the terms used, asking why it's called a "caixa eletrônico" instead of a "caixa eletrônica".
    • In the French dub, the Spot is translated as "la Tache". It is a directed translation, but the term is also schoolyard slang for a loser, which aptly describes the Spot as this point, making Miles' snicker upon hearing it very justified.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: Jessica Drew's design isn't considered bad by any stretch of the imagination (quite the opposite in fact, with many regarding it as an improvement on the costume it's inspired by), but quite a few fans have expressed disappointment that it's based off the redesigned outfit from the Dennis Hallum run instead of Jessica's iconic original costume. Her being pregnant like in said run has also baffled some fans.

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