Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of the most successful and popular outings for one of the most famous comic book characters in history. It was always going to be quite a task to try and outdo the first movie with sequels, and while many comic book movies use villains as a way up the ante, by bringing in popular antagonists, Across the Spider-Verse is actually going in the opposite direction, by using a lesser known villain, but one that makes sense for Miles Morales to battle.
The big bad of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be The Spot, a character who is capable of creating portals between realities. While it’s completely understandable how a villain like that makes sense for a movie series that sees multiple versions of Spider-Man come together across the infinite multiverse, he’s not exactly a well known enemy of Spider-Man, who has several more popular villains. But producer Philip Lord tells EW that the character makes sense because he’s a reflection of Miles Morales…
I like the villains best when they reflect the journeys of the hero — sort of a dark mirror of the protagonist. And I think Spot's no different. He wants to be seen as legitimate. He's a character that has a silly costume and is not always seen as the top tier of Spider-Man foes, but like all of us, he wants to be taken seriously.
It seems that in some way Spot’s position as a C-tier Spider-Man baddie may actually play into the plot of the Across the Spider-Verse. Spot knows that nobody wants to take him seriously, which is apparently the reason he’s causing such problems. Perhaps across multiple realities he discovers that he’s not a supervillain at the level of Doc Ock or Venom and he’s just had enough.
If The Spot will be a “dark mirror” to Miles Morales, then we can expect that our Spider-Man will have his own struggles to be seen as legitimate. He’s the “new Spider-Man” in his universe, taking over from Peter Parker who has died in his world. It’s an understandable direction to go for this character that perhaps not everybody is going to see this Spider-Man as the “real” Spider-Man.
We don’t actually see The Spot in the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse trailer. Instead, the focus at the end of that is on Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099, who Lord and Miller say will not be a villain, but will be an antagonist, as he and Miles Morales will have different views on how to approach their collective problem.
We know that Across the Spider-Verse is really only half of a story that will be completed in 2024’s Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. The story begins with the first half hitting theaters in June.
