Yahoo Sports Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's MCU connection, explained
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse visits multiple worlds across the Spider-Verse (after all, that's in the title), but for some Spider-Man fans, there is only one universe they really want to see: the MCU.
The first movie was meant to feature Tom Holland's Spidey before his scene was cut. Holland got his own Spider-Man crossover though in No Way Home, which teamed him up with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Peter Parkers.
Given that No Way Home bridged the Sony/MCU divide, there was hope that Across the Spider-Verse would do the same. It was heightened by the trailer featuring a gag at Holland's expense, but does the movie really cross over with the MCU?
Let's dig into it, but to do so, we need to go into some Across the Spider-Verse spoilers, so look away now if you haven't seen the movie yet.
So the answer to whether Across the Spider-Verse connects with the wider MCU is... kind of.
Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire both make appearances in archival footage from their movies, but Tom Holland is absent.
The Spideys appear when Miguel O'Hara is talking about "canon events" across the Spider-Verse, and we see clips from Maguire and Garfield's Peters mourning the death of Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy, respectively.
Holland's Peter Parker isn't seen in this sequence, but given how rich the world of Across the Spider-Verse is, we wouldn't be surprised to discover that he's actually in the background somewhere or that there's a voice cameo we missed.
Of course, Maguire and Garfield were both in their own Spider-Man universes and not the MCU, so they're not crossovers as such. However, there is a notable MCU crossover earlier on when Miles first visits the Spider Society on Earth-928.
He's walking down a corridor filled with anomalies, villains who accidentally crossed into another universe that the Spider Society are sending back to their own universes. And one of those anomalies is Donald Glover's Aaron Davis, aka Prowler.
Spider-Man fans probably don't need reminding, but Glover played the character in Spider-Man: Homecoming, although he was just plain old Aaron Davis in that movie. Across the Spider-Verse suggests he eventually became the villain we know from the comics.
Homecoming is an MCU movie, so this is the biggest crossover with that Marvel universe, although it has a different assignation in Across the Spider-Verse.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness revealed that the main MCU universe was considered Earth-616, but Marvel fans (including Kamala Khan herself, Iman Vellani) disagreed.
From the comic books, the MCU was always Earth-199999 and it appears the MCU is Earth-199999 as far as the Spider Society is concerned. This comes during an earlier line from Miguel where he makes reference to the multiverse shenanigans of No Way Home.
"Don't even get me started on Doctor Strange and the little nerd back on Earth-199999," he rants, a direct nod to Holland's Peter Parker and his actions in the MCU epic.
Now that we know the MCU is a confirmed world in the Spider-Verse, let's hope that Beyond the Spider-Verse delivers the full MCU crossover that all Spidey fans have been waiting for.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is out now in cinemas.
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