The Spider-Heroes of Across the Spider-Verse, Ranked

Do you know how much this pains me, as a lifelong Ben Reilly fan? A man whose first Spider-Man comic was Sensational Spider-Man #2 and thus an utterly insane way to be introduced to the fact that Ben Reilly was Spider-Man, not some weird guy who’d gone off with his wife named Pete?

Anyway yeah, Ben sucks in this movie. He’s a one-note emo grimdark joke; worse, he’s one of Miguel’s most trusted henchmen so he’s pretty all in on the Spider-Cop vibe of it all. Even worse, although perhaps a relief for all seven of us Ben Reilly fans in 2023, the guy gets taken out by Gwen at the climax of the film in the chumpiest of manners—not just beaten but robbed of his mutiversal travel watch in a single sweeping move, so odds are he won’t be back for Beyond in a particularly big way.

Across the Spider-Verse goes a long way to repeatedly tell us that Issa Rae’s take on the original Spider-Woman is an absolute badass. And we meet her, she is, and we’re fully on board when Gwen is so smitten by this bike-riding force of nature she immediately asks to be adopted. But Jess is ultimately Miguel’s second-in-command in the Spider-Society, and she is seemingly well aware and on board with just how far gone Miguel has gone to maintain the Canon—and what sketchy decisions he’s made to do so.

Even if there is a teeny flicker of doubt in her eyes when Miles escapes the Spider-Society’s clutches in the film’s climax, and she also is seemingly doubting enough that she lets Gwen run off from the Morales’ house on Earth-1610 to start her Rebel Spider-team, we’re gonna have to wait to see if Beyond sets Jess on a path away from Miguel’s wayward side.

Yes, he’s hot. He’s voiced by Oscar Isaac. He’s hot. He’s got cool electro techno web shooters. He’s hot. He occasionally just wants to bite a bad guy with his cool vampire fangs. Did we mention he’s hot?

But Miguel’s role in Across the Spider-Verse is not to be the villain—that’s unequivocally the Spot—but to be the asshole, and wow does he play that role with verve! Even if you put aside his “order at any cost” approach to forging the Spider-Society less into a multiversal super team and more like the worst kind of timeline police, Miguel’s rampant hostility to the existence of Miles as a Spider-Man goes so far it’s bordering on feeling pretty inspired by the same kinds of bigoted fandom discussions that surrounded Miles when he first inherited the Spider-mantle in 2011. And no amount of being hot and voiced by Oscar Isaac is gonna change the fact that that’s pretty yikes, fella. Hopefully he learns to stop being such a shocking jerk in the next movie after, presumably, Miles and his friends punch some sense into him.

In what is perhaps the first controversial ranking of this whole endeavor, unfortunately Peter B.’s schlubby charm offensive from Into the Spider-Verse as the Team Dad pretty much boils down to him just being the Actual Team Dad in Across, as the presence of Mayday has turned him into a picture-taking new dad obsessive. That’s the cute bit.

The less cute bit is the way Peter—who was well aware of why Miles was being shut out of the Spider-Society and Miguel’s specific distaste for him as the Ur-Anomaly—tries to use Mayday and his appreciation for fatherhood to convince Miles he should accept Miguel’s view of the multiverse, and maintain a “Canon” that has yet to happen but will destroy the family he’s fought so hard to keep connected to. And that’s pretty shitty of him! At least he turns around on it by the end of the film.

Unfortunately almost every Spider in the Spider-Society is on our shitlist until Beyond comes out, because everybody sides with Miguel’s increasingly destructive attitude towards Miles. Spider-Man ‘67—who is perhaps one of the first people to have joined the Society, given Miguel’s encounter with him in Into’s post-credit scene—is no exception, but he’s ranked low here because even with that, he’s pretty terrible at attempting to stop Miles when he tries, being paused mid-animated swing. Sorry bud, you need to be running at a higher frame rate if you wanna keep up with the best.

Once again: an avowed member of Team Miguel means we’re damning a lot of Spider-People by association, and painting a broad brush. But Spider-Cat is, perhaps suitable for a cat, kind of a jerk, clawing poor Miles’ face and hocking a web-hairball for good measure. Rude!

Another one it pains me to rank so low, because Spectacular Spidey is a great character in his own universe. In this one though, he’s one of the few Spiders who stands up to Miles to try and pressure him into accepting that Miguel’s way, and the Canon, is the only way. And that just feels wrong for this version of Peter.

Most of the bad Spider-folks in this movie can be defined by two specific bad aspects: siding with Miguel even as he gets more and more increasingly unhinged, and being absolutely terrible at catching Miles as he flees through the hallways of the Spider-Society HQ. Max, the four-armed, time-spinning Spider-Man 2211, gets a particular shoutout for being terrible because he does not notice, for an incredible amount of time, that Miles is hiding by… sticking himself to Max’s back. C’mon, man.

Another in this Miles-chaser Spider-Society malaise is Patrick O’Hara and his horse Widow. A very cool cowboy aesthetic, complete with web-shotgun, can only count for so much when he commits so hard to the Western bit with Miles that he whines that the young Spider didn’t count to three before attacking him during the chase sequence. Widow gets bonus points for, inadvertently, helping Miles briefly as his method of escape.

Likewise, Spider-Verse soundtrack producer Metro Boomin’s Spider-sona falls into this “bad at being a cop, is kind of a cop” category, and is only slightly less pathetic than Max and Patrick in trying to stop Miles because he does the only thing a Spider-person can do when proven wrong: crack a joke about it. That’s worth something.

At last, we reach a turning point in the cop-not-a-cop divide! Alas, Charlotte Webber is still trying to stop Miles, but at least she does so in a suitably Spidey manner by making a gag about Spiders using humor as a deflecting tactic. It doesn’t work, but points for trying.

Mayday gets away with a lot by being a baby. She’s cute, she gurgles, she is largely not responsible for being aligned with Team Miguel for most of the movie because, well, she’s literally a baby dragged along for the ride by a dad that should know better. But when that kiddo sees it’s time to join Team Gwen at the end of the movie? The way she pulls down that Spidey beanie and is ready to go? Now that’s a Parker kiddo.

The PlayStation Spider-Man just wants to vibe in the collection of anomalous villains, man. He’s hanging out with the other video game oddities, he’s probably doing some science because he loves science, and hell, we don’t actually see him in the big chase after, so I’m just going to assume he heard Miguel’s alert and went “nah actually I’m just gonna hang, thanks.”

Malala is only in Across for a brief moment, but a couple things make her stand out: first, her costume is just goddamn cool, an awesome fusion of Billy Braddock, Spider-UK, and Faiza Hussain, the former Captain Britain in the comics now known as Excalibur. But a cool costume in an entire multiversal nexus of cool costumes doesn’t count for all that much. What counts is that Malala is such a Spidey that it’s she who kicks off a chain reaction of Spot-puns in the Spider-Society lobby with her own terrible gag. If you’re such a funny Spider-person that in a whole society of them you’re the one who can kick off the joke chain? That’s power. And great responsibility, I guess.

He’s made of Lego, and that’s cool. He turns his little multiverse watch communicator on and off by saying “boop!” to himself. Above all: he’s likewise just vibing, hanging out in his own universe and not dealing with Miguel’s cop bullshit, just checking in with anomaly reports when he needs to.

Margo approaches the Spider-Society with a healthy work-home balance, remotely commuting with her digital avatar to act as tech support. And even then, when it’s quiet she’s just hanging around dressing herself up—she’s got that good non-commital energy that makes it obvious that, when shit’s hitting the fan and she has the choice to either let Miles run from Miguel or stop his escape, she decides to help him. Because Miles was cool with her, and Miguel was just a growly jerk. It pays to be a Spider-People-Person!

Pav’s introduced as something of a mild antagonist to Miles—he’s super cool and confident, he’s so good at Spider-ing that he got into the Society just six months after becoming a superhero, he schools him on saying “Chai Tea.” But Pavtir is anything but; he’s just that kind of breezy guy that anyone would be a little jealous of when you first meet him. But the second he sees the kind of guy Miles is, he is immediately ride or die for him, and if you’re gonna have such a cool-looking superhero on your side, Pavitr is the one to have.

After a major supporting role in Into, Across is arguably just straight up as much Gwen’s movie as it is Miles’. And in being so, we get to see an excellent arc for her as she comes to terms with her own desires for longing and family in an environment where her father is, for the opening duration of the movie, staging a manhunt for her. Gwen’s need for family driving her into the arms of Jess and Miguel makes sense, but even in that moment of pain—and the hurt she in turn causes Miles by keeping him unaware of the secrets surrounding him—she’s quick to realize just how south things are going, and that she’s better of sticking to her gut than standing with the dodgy people who offered her a potential safety net.

Hobart Brown, the man that you are. Like Pavitr he’s more explicitly introduced as a potential antagonistic rival to Miles—especially so given his close relationship to Gwen—but even as Miles is uncertain of him immediately, the audience is left with no doubts that Hobie just fuckin’ rules.

From the get-go he’s supportive of Miles, and he’s the first Spider to explicitly call out that Miguel’s methods are cruel and wrong. Hobie’s relationship to the Spider-Society is friends first rather than a commitment to Miguel’s ideals, and the second Miguel goes on the offensive against Miles he makes his move to rebel and peace out. Without Hobie, Gwen wouldn’t have the chance to form her own cell at the end of the movie—he’s vital to the story’s teenage rebellions.

Also, he’s just like, so cool. You saw the way everything about him moves right? Incredible. What a picture.

Look, could anyone else be number one here? Even in a crowded field and even with some of his friends getting some meaty narrative arcs in this film, this is still unequivocally Miles’ story, and the kid is a goddamn champ from the get go. No other Spider champions the Spider-Man underdog hero that keeps standing in spite of everything thrown at them the way Miles does in this movie—in a world where his private and heroic lives are constantly clashing, he’s in those awkward teen years where he wants to stop being told what’s best for him, Miles rises above and becomes the master of his own story with aplomb in Across, every little triumph in the face of adversity a cathartic release. He’s no longer trying to be Spider-Man in this movie: he simply is Spider-Man.

And the best of them all.