Into the Spider-Verse’s post-credits scene sure plays differently now

You can look back to 2018 and remember when Spider-Man: Into the Spider-VerseIt changed American animation and we all got a little teaser of the future that was built around an inside joke. An alternate Spider-identity not previously seen in the movie — Miguel O’Hara, aka “vampire ninja” Spider-Man 2099 — briefly takes the stage in this post-credits sequence, introducing the idea of voluntary leaps between universes.

With Kingpin defeated and Miles Morales’ initial conflicts resolved, the idea behind that post-credits sequence was to set up the coming conflict within a larger multiverse story. After watching the film, that scene which was a riff of a Spider-meme played out in radically different ways. Into the Spider-Verse’s sequel, Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.]

This scene, for one thing gives us an antihero (or a villain simplified)? It remains to be seen) origin point — the exact moment where Spider-Man 2099 first tested the idea of the wristbands that would allow him to build an elite cadre of Spider-People to protect reality. For another, it’s a little more of an introduction to Lyla, Spider-Man 2099’s AI personal assistant, than Across the Spider-Verse offers. They seem to be more of a team and companion than a man and Siri.

But the most important way this scene looks different now than it did in 2018 is that it’s pretty hilarious, largely because Miguel O’Hara is acting hapless and goofy in the face of his first alt-reality doppelgänger. The grim, driven-to-extremity leader who’s described in Across the Spider-VerseAs the You can only get it by clicking here Spider-Man who isn’t funny clearly was a lot lighter in demeanor and behavior before he started hopping between universes.

Across the Spider-Verse lets him explain how that change happened — what he tried to do with the multiverse, and what the results were. This experience left him a lot more bitter and hardened than he had been a few short years earlier. It’s the kind of radical change that often comes from different people writing the same character, or from the same character being written differently after a five-year gap. The shift has a practical reason. There are also story reasons in this instance, as we can see from the few things that were known about him before he had his multiversal experience. He’s driven, dangerous, and completely hostile to other people’s perspectives in Across the Spider-Verse. Here, he’s just a joke — one that becomes a lot darker and sadder after seeing what he became after this.

Unfortunately, Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t have its own post-credits scene, so there are no big reveals there for us to discuss in 2024 when Beyond the Spider-VerseComing out.