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Credit: Inside the MagicSony Animation’s Across the Spider-Verse hit theaters this week and viewers have once again been thrown into the Marvel Multiverse with Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker and a bevy of other variants of our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but the adventure might be bigger than the trailers care to admit.
A big part of the Spider-Verse’s narrative concerns the Multiverse, made famous by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There have been several heated debates about where the other films outside of the Marvel/Disney canon fit into the grand scheme of things, but Across the Spider-Verse confirmed a connection no MCU purist can ignore.
Marvel and the Multiverse of Madness
Prior to the Spider-Verse, we’ve been introduced to Marvel’s multiverse through the MCU primarily the mystical adventures across reality with Doctor Strange. Strange acted as the catalyst to the rest of the multiversal elements seen up until the end of Avengers: Endgame, but it apparently didn’t stop there.
While the Spider-Verse’s gateway to Marvel’s Multiverse was created by Kingpin’s super collider, Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 makes a very important observation during the first major battle at the beginning of the film. While filling Gwen in on some expositional details, he drops a line about “Doctor Strange and that nerdy kid from Earth-199999.”
Although Earth-199999 is definitely a few digits off from the recognized Earth-616, Miguel was pretty specific when he referenced the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that wasn’t without reason or consequence. By acknowledging Doctor Strange alone, it confirms that the events seen in the MCU happened in Spider-Verse’s timeline.
Related: ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ Commits Marvel Cinematic Sin
Without going into spoiler territory, the connection of the multiverses validates what many Marvel fans have been saying for years. Now that the two universes are canonically entwined, how long will it be before the MCU gets its own Miles Morales? If Maguire’s, Garfield’s, and Holland’s are all part of the canon, it’s only a matter of time.
Does this make Across the Spider-Verse an MCU movie? Tell Inside the Magic what you think in the comments below!