Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Roasted Morbius

Potential spoilers follow! Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse may very well have the most Easter eggs of any comic book movie in recent memory. In addition to countless versions of the Marvel superhero, and even some very obscure super villains, there’s plenty of references to other characters to. One of these comes in the form of a deliberate gag about Morbius the Living Vampire, the Spider-Man-adjacent character that made his way to the big screen last year. When the other Spider-characters are addressing the Spider-Man 2099 character, with Gwen calling him a “Vampire.” Mile responds: “A vampire good guy? I’d pay good money to see that.” 

What Miles may now know is that some people did pay good money to see that, and were treated to one of the worst Marvel movies…maybe ever. As fans may recall, Morbius was released in April and brought in just over $70 million at the domestic box office despite a 16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film eventually became a meme because of its transparent hope to win goodwill with its Marvel association, which saw Sony re-release it in over 1,000 theaters, where it did not make that much more money at all.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse also has another big moment that seems to address the events of Morbius in a way. If you didn’t see the Jared Leto-starring movie, the film concludes with Michael Keaton’s Vulture being transported to the universe that includes Morbius and Venom (which is a separate Earth from the Marvel Cinematic Universe). Why this happens is not fully explained or even comprehensible, but Across the Spider-Verse goes out of its way to kind of make it make sense. 

In the film’s opening sequence, a version of the Vulture from a different universe attacks. Spider-Verse uses this moment to teach the audience and Gwen Stacy about the Spider-Verse at large and Spider-Man 2099’s elite team of multiverse hopping Spider-people. The big implication of this moment is that this version of the Vulture was pulled from his universe and dropped in another thanks to either the Kingpin’s collider in Into the Spider-Verse or Doctor Strange’s spell in the MCU’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. Either way, the make the web look a little cleaner in one corner. 

Miles Morales returns to the big screen in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Miles (Shamiek Moore) reunites with fellow heroes Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) for another web-swinging adventure through the multiverse, finding himself at odds with the Spider-Society led by Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). Other new heroes include Spider-Woman Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), and Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), while new villain the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) also enters the fray. The sequel to Sony Pictures’ hit 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, and written by the team of Chris Miller, Phil Lord, and Dave Callaham.