Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) Story Recap

The Beginning

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse starts a year after the events of its predecessor. On Earth-65, Gwendolyn Stacy (Gwen) is trying to live her double life as a drummer and a friendly neighbourhood superhero. However, she is upset because she has no one who understands her. She is also tired of lying to her father who is sure he will find and punish the Spider Woman that caused the death of Peter Parker, her friend.

Afraid to tell him how she was Spider-Woman and did not cause Peter’s death, Gwen continues to pretend to live a normal life in front of her dad, Captain Stacy. One day when a foreign object infiltrates Gwen’s world and she gets on duty, trying to save her world. However, things get difficult and she is not able to contain The Medieval Vulture when Earth-928’s Miguel O’Hara, the leader of the Spider Society comes to help her.

He is joined by Jessica (Jess) Drew, a pregnant Spider-Woman from Earth 616. After somewhat containing the Medieval Vulture, the duo are about to leave Gwen’s Earth when her father finds her. Captain Stacy is willing to arrest Spider-Woman even after knowing that it was his daughter. Miguel and Jess stop time and take Gwen away to the Spider Society where she lives with them, training for the next few months.

Earth-1610

Meanwhile, Miles Morales goes through the motions of his day. He misses Gwen but spends most of his time catching the bad guys. Miles tries to contain The Spot, a guy who does not have a face but used to be a scientist named Dr Jonathan Ohn. In his universe, The Spot worked for a lab technician named Alchemax where he created that spider that somehow travelled into Earth-1610 and bit Miles.

When Dr Ohn tries to teleport to Miles’ dimension, he claims that Miles had pushed him into the black portal he had created. The result of the experiment sees Dr Ohn about to lose his face, his life and his job. Now as The Spot, Dr Ohn wants to destroy Miles for ruining his life. Miles pushes The Spot into a black portal in an abandoned building, hoping to have sent him back to his world.

Meanwhile, Miles’ parents are worried about the things he was up to when he was always running around. Miles’ father – Inspector Jefferson Morales is being promoted to Captain. The family celebrates but Miles feels misunderstood by his parents. Miles is grounded and wishes to be able to talk to Gwen somehow. Just then, Gwen opens a portal and jumps into his bedroom.

Together, the two friends catch up and Gwen discusses how she had joined the Spider Society and was given a watch to prevent her from glitching while she was in Miles’ universe. However, Gwen is actually on Earth-1610 to capture The Spot as a mission. Miles and Gwen discuss the Spider Society some more and she gets side-tracked.

He introduces Gwen to his parents but she bids them farewell when Jess calls her asking about the mission. Looking at how Miles longed to be with Gwen, Miles’ mother, Rio allows him to take one trip with her. Miles follows Gwen and uses his invisibility shield when she enters the building that The Spot was pushed into.

There Gwen learns that The Spot was headed to Mumbattan, Earth-50101 to use the collider at the Alechmax lab there. Gwen uses her watch and opens a portal to Mumbattan which Miles sneaks into.

Earth-50101

Gwen is shocked to see Miles but agrees to let him join her on the mission. Miles is introduced to Pavitr (Pav) Prabhakar who got his powers only six months ago. Miles is shocked that he hadn’t been invited to join the Spider Society, unlike Pav who was a new Spider-Man. The three superheroes follow The Spot into the collider room and try to stop the mad scientist from amplifying his powers.

Hobart (Hobie) Brown from Earth-138 also joins the trio but they fail as The Spot manages to get the collider running before they could stop him. The Spot challenges Miles and asks him to be prepared when he will return to kill someone Miles loves. Miles has no time to think because the collision causes a huge chunk of the laboratory building to collapse and fall over the crowded Mumbattan streets.

The four spider people get to work and start evacuating the area where the building was to fall at. Pav struggles to save his girlfriend, Gayatri and her father, Captain Singh. Miles comes in to save the day and manages to help Pav by moving Captain Singh out of the way.

Just then, Miguel O’Hara and Jess make it to Earth-50101 and the group soon learns there were an infinite number of black portals around different dimensions that enabled The Spot to travel across different dimensions pretty easily.

Spider Society

The four Spider-People are taken to the Spider Society Headquarters and Miles is happy to finally be included in a world where everyone is Spider-Man. However, he is bummed when he learns that he has only received a day-pass watch that would stop him from glitching in different universes. Still not being fully accepted into the Spider Society, Miles takes a tour around and meets the different Spider-People as well as the Spider Villains like The Prowler – Aaron Morales, from the human world.

Miles also meets Peter B. Parker who has a daughter – Mayday. Soon, Miles discusses the fact that he was excluded from the Spider Society despite being the Spider-Man of his world. Miguel tells him that the spider that bit him was supposed to bite someone else, claiming that a world exists with no Spider-Man to protect it. The two have an argument and Miguel tells Miles that he was nothing but an anomaly and calls him a mistake.

He tells Miles that being a Spider-Person came with consequences, like dealing with the loss of a loved one. Miles remembers his mother’s advice on making his voice heard and pushes the group to try and stop The Spot. Miguel tells Miles that every Spider-Man had a similar origin story and went about their life until a canon moment occurred in their life that is important to their respective dimensions.

After Miles saves Captain Singh, Pav’s canon moment is disrupted which means that a Captain in some other dimension needs to die. Knowing that The Spot is headed to his universe, Miles is worried about his father who is soon to be promoted to Captain. Miles asks to be sent back to his Earth but is held captive by Miguel. He feels betrayed by his friends, especially Peter B. Parker and Gwen, so he decides to flee.

Miles fights all the Spider People in an elaborate chase and diverts them away from The Spider Society Headquarters. He somehow makes it back and launches the “Go Home” device that takes creatures to their homes based on the cells in their body. Miguel and the other Spider-People try hard but are not able to stop Miles.

Earth-65

Gwen tries to defend Miles but is eventually sent back to her own home. There, she confronts her father and comes clean about the incident with Peter. Her father also tells her that he had quit his job and is no longer a Police Captain. She is relieved to know that her life is not in danger.

She finds a gadget that Hobie had left behind for her before leaving The Spider Society. Gwen uses the gadget to go to Miles’ dimension. Meanwhile, Miguel and Jess wait to stop Miles from interacting with his father and saving him.

Earth-42

After a quick interaction with his mother, Miles learns that he’s been sent to the wrong dimension because the spider that bit him belonged to Earth-42, a parallel universe to Miles’ universe. Here, his father has already died but Uncle Aaron is still alive.

With Gwen and the other Spider-People waiting for Miles on Earth-1610, Miles is captured by Uncle Aaron. There he meets the Miles of Earth-42 who was The Prowler in that world. The movie ends with Miles asking The Prowler Miles to let him go in order to save their father. Elsewhere, Gwen, Peter B. Parker, baby Mayday, Pav, and Hobie team up to find Miles and save him.