After the gargantuan casting announcement for Avengers: Doomsday, it’s clear that this Marvel Cinematic Universe feature and Avengers: Secret Wars are preparing to collide in a slew of different corners of the Marvel movie multiverse. It isn’t just the casts of Thunderbolts*, Black Panther, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (among other MCU properties) that are crossing over. Non-MCU features like the original X-Men movies are being imported into the Doomsday and Secret Wars storyline. That’s not surprising since the whole Secret Wars concept in the comics was bringing together countless superheroes from alternate universes.
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However, no matter how expansive the creative vision of these two Avengers movies gets, the Secret Wars movie will inevitably almost certainly have to leave out one especially beloved modern superhero. The irony here is that this particular crime-fighter is one with immense experience navigating the multiverse in theatrical cinema.
Will Miles Morales Show Up in Avengers: Secret Wars?
It would make total sense for the animated Miles Morales/Spider-Man (Shameik Moore_ from the Spider-Verse movies to show up in Avengers: Secret Wars. For starters, he’s arguably the poster child for superhero movies dealing with multiverses. While multiversal superhero titles like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Flash garnered divisive responses from audiences, general moviegoers absolutely adore the two Spider-Verse features. Morales isn’t just a revered staple of modern Spider-Man comics lore. He’s also the living embodiment of multiverse superhero movies done right.
That legacy alone would make it a no-brainer to put this version of Morales into the live-action Secret Wars movie. Plus, having an iteration of Morales factor into a Secret Wars storyline has significant precedence in the comics. The second iteration of Secret Wars in the comics (which ran from 2015 to 2016) heavily utilized Miles Morales from the Ultimate Marvel universe. Morales didn’t just briefly pop up in the background of a panel in these comics: he was a significant player alongside the likes of Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, and Molecule Man (among many others).
Much like how the first Avengers movie mirrored the first Avengers comic arc, having the titular superhero team contend with Loki’s evil machinations, bringing back Miles Morales from the Spider-Verse movies for a Secret Wars appearance would be a lovely nod to the comics’ source material. Above all else, this character is so much fun and endearing that it’s impossible to imagine that anyone would quarrel with seeing him again. Sadly, larger factors – bigger than even Galactus or The Watcher – will likely prevent this cameo from happening.
Why This Spider-Verse Cameo Likely Won’t Happen in Secret Wars
Unfortunately, the problem here is that the Spider-Verse version of Miles Morales is one owned entirely by Sony. The Tom Holland incarnation of Peter Parker/Spider-Man is one that Marvel Studios worked on (and Disney even began partially funding with Spider-Man: No Way Home), which made it easier to work out crossovers between Disney and Sony Marvel movies. In contrast, the Spider-Verse features are exclusively the purview of Sony Pictures Animation. Other Marvel adaptations referenced across these titles are Sony-owned motion pictures like No Way Home and Venom, not Disney-controlled features.
It’s not impossible to imagine Sony making some deal that allows the animated Miles to show up in Secret Wars. However, the very distinct gap between Sony and Disney’s Marvel properties when it comes to the Spider-Verse franchise doesn’t bode well for Morales appearing in Secret Wars. It doesn’t help that this MCU title’s current release date further accentuates the unlikeliness of this appearance. Secret Wars is due to come out in December 2027, six months after Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
It’s doubtful Sony would want to dilute the specialness of its animated tentpole by having Morales show up in multiple 2027 big-screen movies – even one that’s coming out after the third Spider-Verse feature. Add to that the MCU’s hesitation to feature live-action characters interacting with figures that originated from fully animated properties, and it looks increasingly unlikely that the beloved star of the Spider-Verse movies will be showing up in Avengers: Secret Wars. While Miles Morales will almost certainly sit this superhero feature out, that doesn’t mean every iota of hope is lost regarding this crossover. After all, everything is possible in the multiverse, as Miles Morales knows too well. Secret Wars could arguably introduce a whole new live-action version of Miles, preserving the animated Spider-Verse in its own bubble.
Avengers: Secret Wars hits theaters on December 17, 2027.
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