‘Into the Spider-Verse’ Confirms Japanese Spider-Man Easter Egg

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is hanging into 2019 with a stellar reputation keeping it afloat. The animated feature not only nabbed a Golden Globe this month, but the Marvel flick is being heralded as one of the best comic book movies to date. So, it’s not surprising to see fans digging the film dry for easter eggs, and a major one was confirmed not long ago.

Taking to Twitter, an animator at Sony Imageworks ‘fessed up to one rather clever Spider-Man easter egg. Nick Kondo posted a short video confirming Into the Spider-Verse references Toho’s Japanese Spider-Man… but the moment is easy to miss.

“Who is that on Miles’s drafting table behind his sketchbook,” Kondo captioned the video, prompting fans to check out his clip.

As you can see above, the clip confirms Miles Morales doodled up a piece of Spider-Man history before he got bit himself. The film begins with the boy in his family’s home while he draws. Despite some pitchy karaoke, Miles is able to finish some tag signs, but he is forced to put his work away when school calls. On his drafting table, fans are shown a quick image of Miles’ other drawings, and one of them is a cropped sketch of Leopardon.

For those of you unfamiliar, Leopardon is the massive mecha robot that Japanese Spider-Man used. The suit came in handy as this Spider-Man, who is also know as Supaidaman, tended to take on towering beasts who wanted to chow down on Tokyo. Shortly after Into the Spider-Verse went live, fans began to question whether this aside drawing was really meant to reference Leopardon, and Kondo took it upon himself to share the good news.

Of course, fans are crossing their fingers Leopardon will show up for real in any Into the Spider-Verse sequels. In fact, fans started rallying for Supaidaman to join any follow ups, and executive producer Phil Lord promised fans the hero would be added in should this first film break $200 million at the domestic box office. So far, the film has grossed just under $150 million in the U.S., so netizens better start trekking to theaters if they want Leopardon to pop into Spider-Man’s next animated outing.

So, did you catch this little aside? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!