Movies

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse post-credits scene explained

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Published on December 14, 2018 02:00PM EST

Spoiler warning for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Somehow an animated Spider-Man film managed to take something as complex as the multiverse and make it palatable for mainstream audiences. Just look at those box-office projections. But we're sure questions still linger in the air for those who don't spend their days organizing movie sequel predictions in online listical form or purport to know much about Spider-Ham. The Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse post-credits scene brought some of those questions, as well as some last-minute laughs. So let's dig in.

The film, a brainchild of Jump Street crew Phil Lord and Chris Miller, gave an origin story to Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), Marvel Comics' Afro-Latino web-slinger. After an accident involving an off-the-books Super Collider, Miles watches as Kingpin kills Peter Parker (Chris Pine). But it's okay, because the botched experiment caused parallel universes to come crashing towards their world, bringing five Spider-People from different dimensions: Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney).

Plus, Miles, too, was bitten by a glitchy, radioactive spider, so there's no shortage of wall-crawlers.

This concept alone offers exciting possibilities for the potential franchise-starter, and the post-credits scene plays on that. In the words of Mr. Parker, let's start at the beginning one last time…

Long story short, Miles, finally able to access his Spidey abilities on command, including some sick camouflage and electric powers, saves the day by stopping the Super Collider from tearing apart his universe, getting his Spider-Pals back to their respective dimensions, and jailing Kingpin. That doesn't mean the other web-slingers are gone for good, as teased when a portal opens up above Miles bed at the end and he hears Gwen's voice come through.

But that's not the big end-credits tag. That reveals a surprise role for Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Annihilation, Ex Machina).

When the credits finish rolling, we're sent to "Nueva York" where we see a dark-suited Spider-Man and a female hologram in a lab coat. She's telling the Spider-Man that the multiverse didn't collapse like we thought and that he could now be the first person to make an autonomous multiverse jump, thanks to the Gizmo (a.k.a. a Goober, a.k.a. their funny word for the USB stick). She mentions this Spider-Man's name, Miguel, and it's his mission to go throughout the multiverse and gather up as many Spider-People as he can.

Isaac voices Miguel O'Hara, who, in Marvel comics, is known more commonly as Spider-Man 2099 — as in, a Spider-Man from the year 2099. It's a fitting image for when we're discussing the future of the Spider-Verse franchise.

In his time, Miguel was a scientist for Alchemax, a name that pops up in Spider-Verse as the scientific front for Kingpin and Doc Ock's dealings. The company was experimenting with imprinting genetic codes into human DNA and when Miguel tried to walk away, his colleagues turned on him. To save his own life, he used the experiments on himself. That too was sabotaged, but the results gave him Spider-Man-like abilities. Lyla (stands for LY-rate L-ifeform A-pproximation), voiced here in the post-credits scene by Greta Lee, is Miguel's personal assistant.

Miguel appeared in a series of Spider-Man 2099 comics in the '90s from writer Peter David and artist Rick Leonardi. At the risk of confusing matters, there's also another Miguel O'Hara who shares many of the same origins and qualities to the original Miguel, but that Miguel hails from an alternate earth called Earth-TRN588.

Before we completely drift aimlessly through the void of the Spider-Verse, the post-credits scene sees Miguel intentionally using his tech to travel the multiverse, as opposed to everyone else who was pulled into it by force. He goes to where it all began, Earth-67, which leads to one of the film's biggest gags.

Miguel, now sporting a more cartoon animation, drops into the world of the original Spider-Man animated series from the 1960s. Remember that internet meme of two Spider-Men pointing at each other? Well, this scene spoofs that. <iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/l36kU80xPf0ojG0Erg" width="480" height="268" frameborder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" resize="0" replace_attributes="1" name=""></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-l36kU80xPf0ojG0Erg">via GIPHY</a></p>

Miguel and Earth-67's Spider-Man get locked in a pointing match with one shouting "You're accusing me of pointing at you" and the other "You're being very rude right now." It's very much in the spirit of Lord and Miller, whose self-referential end credits for 22 Jump Street spoofed the unnecessary sequel trend of Hollywood by filming a series of infinite, absurd Jump Street sequel concepts.

Does all this mean Miguel will pop up in a future Spider-Verse movie? It's unclear. We do know Sony Animation is looking to expand this franchise with a sequel to the Miles-centric film, and a female-led spin-off about three generations of Spider-Women is in development.

Miguel, with his Mexican and Irish background, would also continue the goodwill Into the Spider-Verse built by focusing on a non-white superhero for a change.

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman directed Into the Spider-Verse and Voltron's Joaquim Dos Santos is reportedly tapped to helm the sequel, while his co-showrunner Lauren Montgomery is in talks to direct the female spin-off.

When it comes to Miguel's future on the big screen, time will tell.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is now playing in theaters.

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