Spider-Verse 2, or to give it its proper title, Across the Spider-Verse, will star plenty of Spider-Men and Spider-Women… and Spider-Cars… and Spider-Monkeys. You know what? We’ll stop there. You get the point. But the fact is that Spider-Verse 2 will have more versions of Spider-Man than Toys R Us.
Judging by our last count, we’ve got Scarlet Spider, Spider-Punk, Jessica Drew, Miguel O’Hara, Peter Parkedcar, Pavitr Prabhakar, Superior Spider-Man, Spider-Cop, and many more. Honestly, the list is endless, and that’s without mentioning our more traditional ‘flavors’ of Spider-Man, like Peter, Gwen, and Miles.
Still, with the Spider-Verse 2 release date nearly upon us, we need to draw your attention to something odd. You see, despite pulling from the entire history of Spider-Man movies, animated series, and comics, there’s one version of the Wallcrawler who’s conspicuously absent. We’re talking, of course, about black-suit Spider-Man, aka: Peter bonded with the Venom symbiote.
Now you may not know what the big deal is, but let me tell you, as a card-carrying member of the Spider-Man fan club, the symbiote suit is a huge deal among Spidey’s fans. The monochromatic pajamas are pretty much universally agreed to be the sexiest of Peter’s alternate costumes, and they’ve been included in almost every Spider-Man adaptation since the suit debuted in the ‘80s.
It’s strange then, that in all the marketing we’ve had, we’ve not got a single glimpse of Spidey’s sentient onesie. So what gives? Well, we think we know why the Spider-Verse creators have avoided using Spidey’s most sinister suit, and we believe it’s all to do with the sequel.
Writers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham have been pretty open about the fact that Spider-Verse 2 will end on a dramatic cliffhanger, à la the best Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. We’ve already written about what we expect that cliffhanger to be (check out why we don’t think Spider-Verse 2 will have a happy ending here), but we’re confident the film will end with Miles lost in the multiverse looking for help.
We may be going full Charlie Kelly ‘Pepe Silvia mode’ here, but we’re certain that this will ultimately lead Miles to go ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ (see what we did there?), where he’ll meet none other than Peter #1, Peter #2, and Peter #3, aka the three live-action Spider-Man actors Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield, who’ll agree to help him deal with whichever Spider-Man villains are causing a multi-dimensional ruckus.
It may sound crazy, but Holland’s already admitted he’d like to appear in Spider-Verse, and there have been plenty of rumors (although there’s nothing to substantiate them at this time) that he will make an appearance, so what’s to stop Maguire and Garfield appearing as well? But what’s all this got to do with the black suit?
Well, there’s one more live-action character who could swing onto the Spider-Verse. We’re talking, of course, about Tom Hardy’s Venom. That’s right. We think the reason we haven’t seen a black-suited Spider-Man in any of the film’s marketing is that we’re going to get a full Venom appearance in Beyond the Spider-Verse, and the writers don’t want to confuse matters by having two symbiotes in the same movie.
Crazy? Maybe. Precisely the sort of thing Sony would do if they wanted to make the best superhero movie ever? Absolutely.
If you love Spider-Man as much as we do, then check out the five things we want to see in the new Spider-Man movie. We’ve also got guides to all the upcoming Spider-Man projects, so if you want to know about the Spider-Man 4 release date or the Spider-Man Freshman Year release date, then you’re in the right place.
Finally, as we mentioned him a fair few times, we should probably plug our Venom 3 release date article as well. It’s only fair.