Warning: Spoilers follow for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Miles Morales and the infinitely impressive Spider-Verse are back, thwipping past all weekend competition to take home $120.65 million domestic and $208.8 million globally with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s jaw-dropping debut. This is a huge leap up from the first movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which nabbed only $35.4 million domestically for its opening weekend.
Writer/producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller – working hand in hand with co-writer David Callaham, directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, along with a thousand talented animators – have proven that Miles’ adventures through the multiverse, which deliver both awesome thrills and aching emotion, are arguably the best Spider-Man story put to film. Across the Spider-Verse caused the Marvel Wiki to soar up to become the number one trending comics Wiki, and the largest to be impacted by the release (up 56%, to 2.8 million pageviews) – with every single character in the Top 25 most-searched pages being Spidey-related.
Interestingly, the jump at the Marvel wiki was actually 10% less than the climb we saw when Into the Spider-Verse opened back in 2018, but that’s likely because there’s a lot of different Wikis with content connected to the film people are going to, including a separate Spider-Verse Wiki to explore (up 245% this weekend) and the non-MCU Marvel Movies Wiki to peruse (up 47%)
Hey! Ho(bie)! Let’s Go!
Across the Spider-Verse is overflowing with spectacular nods and amazing Easter-eggs – in fact, check out the 9 biggest Across the Spider-Verse Easter eggs here — many of which appear as actual Spider-Man variants. The multiversal wall-crawler who took the leading spot on the Top 10 list though is one of the breakout new (to film) characters, Spider-Punk, AKA Hobart “Hobie” Brown, voiced by Get Out and Nope’s Daniel Kaluuya in the movie.
The Top 10 listed below, and indeed the larger Top 25, saw readers venturing onto the pages for more than one version of the same character, which is why we can see the same names appearing more than once (with their respective Earths denoting their origins/variations). This is a direct reflection of the multiversal nature of both the film and its comic book source material.
- Hobie Brown (Earth-138)
- Miguel O’Hara (Earth-928)
- Miles Morales (Earth-1610)
- Miles Morales (Earth-42)
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Peter Parker (Earth-616)
- Pavitr Prabhakar (Earth-50101)
- Miguel O’Hara (Earth-928B)
- Gwen Stacy (Earth-65)
- Earth-616
It should be noted, though, that not every version of Hobie Brown is Spider-Punk. Yes, one of the comic book Hobies is Spider-Punk but the original 616 universe Hobie is the original version of Spider-Man foe the Prowler, who eventually went on to become a hero. That particular 616 version landed at number 12. Confused yet? Look, comics can be wild!
Readers winding up on Hobie’s hub page are perhaps learning for the first time just how amusingly complicated his multiverse background is, as is the Prowler identity in general, given the movie doesn’t really delve into that, with Aaron Davis as the Prowler that Miles knows. Regardless, Hobie is a very fun presence in Across the Spider-Verse, serving as the third in the film’s playful love triangle while also serving as the rebellious, anti-establishment Spidey (who sees much punk-y potential in baby Mayday Parker).
Wall-CLAWer
Futuristic, vampiric Spidey Miguel O’Hara not only serves as the organizer and leader of the Spider-Verse’s policing unit “Spider-Society” but also ultimately as one of the film’s main antagonists, refusing to allow Miles to prevent a life-altering “canon” event.
Like Hobie, Miguel comes with deep comic book origins that the movie just doesn’t have the (hammer)space for. Miguel, voiced by Oscar Isaac, is still a solid character without diving into his specifics, but readers making him number two on the list definitely shows us there’s more to probe and ponder about this strict, non-comedic Spider-Man. For one thing, Miguel’s powers are unlike most other Spideys, to the point where Miles even questions if he got bit by a spider at all.
Miguel’s Marvel page leads the pack, with his Across the Spider-Verse specific page also housed in the Top 10, at number 8.
Spot On
Arriving just outside the Top 10, which is forgivable since Across the Spider-Verse is a crowded movie to say the least, The Spot, the bigger universe-threatening villain of the story. Jonathan Ohnn, voiced by Jason Schwartzman in the movie, is a transformed scientist who blames Miles for his ruined life (and appearance).
Ohnn’s comic book page came in at eleven, giving fans a larger look at Spot’s lore, since the movie purposefully takes one of Peter Parker’s mid-card (or even low-card) baddies and beefs him up into a Galactus-level danger. Which is the point, overall. Flipping convention by taking a punchline villain and morphing him into a world-ender.
It’s also through Ohnn’s multiverse-traversing powers that we see the LEGO world and also Mrs. Chen from Sony’s Venom movies. Want to know more about The Spot? Click on the link below to see what Across the Spider-Verse‘s filmmakers told us about the choice to level up this traditionally goofy member of Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery.
