Gwen Stacy's New [SPOILER] In Across The Spider-Verse Explained

The following contains SPOILERS for "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse."

At the cliffhanger ending of "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is in a tough spot: having failed to return to his native dimension of Earth-1610, he's stuck on Earth-42, a world without a Spider-Man, where he gets kidnapped by a still-living Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) and an evil alternate version of himself. All the while, the Spider-Society is still trying to track down and punish him for breaking the "canon" supposedly holding the multiverse together. To make matters even worse, Miles' home universe is being attacked by The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a super-villain whose abilities to travel between dimensions threaten to bring to life the worst fears of both Miles (his dad dying) and the Spider-Society (the multiverse crumbling).

Fortunately, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) has assembled a new team of Spider-people, including both other defectors from the Spider-Society and a few old friends, who have joined forces to locate and help out Miles in the upcoming sequel "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse" (currently scheduled for release March 29, 2024). This team is brand new and doesn't have a name yet, but here's what we can know about it based on who has been invited to join, their personal motivations for joining, and what they might be up to in the grand finale of the "Spider-Verse" trilogy.

Gwen Stacy has formed this new team not only because she wants to save her friend, but because she seeks to atone for her part in getting him into this mess in the first place. As a fresh member of the Spider-Society, she followed along with the group's mission of seeking to protect the "canon." She knew that by these rules, Miles' police captain father was destined to die — as well as her own dad (Shea Whigham), for that matter — but she kept her knowledge secret from Miles. Her visiting Miles' universe led him into the Spider-Society's world, where Miles would learn these secrets for himself.

For her part, Gwen did question Spider-Society leader Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac) over whether what they were doing was right. For this, she was kicked out of the Spider-Society and banished back to her own world. After finally coming out as Spider-Woman to her father, however, he's inspired to quit the force — effectively breaking from preordained "canon" events and encouraging Gwen to believe that Miles' family and the multiverse could be saved. Using a bootleg device made by Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), Gwen is able to leave Earth-65 to warn Miles' father (Brian Tyree Henry) and mother (Luna Lauren Vélez) about what's been going on with their suspiciously absent son, before going on to assemble her new team.

Other than Gwen, Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) is the team member with the closest personal connection to Miles Morales. Whereas Gwen's relationship is as a friend and potential love interest, Peter B. is focused on whether he was a good enough mentor to Miles and whether that will translate into him being a good parent. Indeed, as he makes very clear to Miles, mentoring the young Spider-Man inspired him to have a child of his own: Mayday, who's only a few months old but already tagging along with her dad on dangerous adventures against mommy MJ's advice.

Though his role in the story is smaller this time around than in the first film, Peter B. goes through a very similar character arc in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" as Gwen does: wanting to reconnect with Miles while keeping upsetting knowledge secret from him, working for the Spider-Society but having the moral sense to stand up to Miguel when he's being cruel. Peter B. already thinks Miguel is ridiculous, regularly mocking the futuristic vampire Spider-Man for being overly self-serious and lacking in humor, so he's already well-prepared to switch sides after Gwen gives him the opportunity. Of course, he brings baby Mayday with him on another perilous adventure, so his decision-making still remains in question.

Hobie Brown, aka Spider-Punk, is a man of many contradictions; a superhero who doesn't believe in heroes, an anarchist who nonetheless fulfills the "friends with a cop" Spider-Man canon checklist, a guy who doesn't consider himself a team player yet is both in a band and the Spider-Society. You can call him a hypocrite (such things have been said of every successful punk rocker), but he's a good guy, and that essential goodheartedness makes him inherently wary of the Spider-Society and a vital member of Gwen's team.

Despite being introduced as Miles' rival for Gwen's affections, Hobie is firmly in Miles' corner when it comes to what matters. He helps Miles to break out of Miguel's prison. When Miguel is about to order the Spider-Society to fight Miles, Hobie quits the team and nopes out of the whole situation. While you might initially wish he stuck around to help Miles escape the ensuing mob of Spider-people, it turns out he's doing something even bigger to help out: he delivers a bootleg universe-jumping watch to Captain Stacy, which is what allows Gwen to be able to form her new team in the first place. While "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is filled with great characters, Spider-Punk is maybe the one who comes closest to completely stealing the show, so it's exciting that he promises to play a major part in "Beyond the Spider-Verse."

Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), the anime-style pilot of the SP//dr robot from the year 3145, was one of six Spider-people to form the main group of heroes in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." The sequel's marketing offered no indication she would return, but Peni makes a surprise cameo in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" as a member of the Spider-Society. With the old kawaii SP//dr having been destroyed in the first movie, her mech has now been fully rebuilt in a design closer to the original comic version.

Though she only has one line of dialogue in the new movie, it's clear from that line and her pained expression in delivering it that opposing her old friend Miles on behalf of the Spider-Society is difficult for her. Her history with Miles and Gwen is enough to make it clear why she'd eventually choose to defect from Miguel's group and decide to join Gwen's new group in the end. Between the SP//dr redesign and all that she's been through, perhaps her depiction in the next film will bring in more of her comic incarnation's influences from darker anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion."

In a January 2023 interview with Screen Rant, Nicolas Cage said he did not know what was going on in regards to the chances of him returning as the voice of hard-boiled 1930s antihero Spider-Man Noir in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." Now having seen the film, one hopes he would have had a very different answer had the interviewer mentioned "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," since the character now has to return for the next film.

While Spider-Man Noir only makes a brief wordless cameo appearing as part of Gwen's new team at the end of "Across the Spider-Verse," one would assume that his inclusion in said team means he'll have a more prominent role in the follow-up. Given that he didn't show up amidst the huge crowds of the Spider-Society, it's likely he was never part of the group in the first place; if Miguel only reluctantly included Gwen in the organization and refused to include Miles, then Spider-Man Noir might also have been deemed a bit too much of a wild card for him to deal with. A showdown between Noir and Miguel, both darker and edgier versions of Spider-Man but with radically different styles, could be downright epic.

Another notable absence from the "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" voice cast is John Mulaney, who played Peter Porker the Spider-Ham in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." Like Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Ham appears briefly at the end of the new film as part of Gwen's team, and presumably, he'll be back in a larger capacity in "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse." Spider-Ham's face also appears in the pattern on Mayday Parker's bedsheets — either he exists as a licensed cartoon character in Peter B.'s universe, or someone in the Parker family is a very skilled fabric designer.

Since Spider-Ham doesn't appear in the Spider-Society, it's also questionable whether he was ever a member of the group or not. In a way, Spider-Ham's very presence in "Into the Spider-Verse" answered the philosophical question at the center of "Across the Spider-Verse" about how much specific tragedies have to define what makes someone Spider-Man (they really don't have to, even if some are unavoidable even for funny talking pigs). Given the improvements in animation quality between films in this series, it should be exciting to see what cartoon wackiness Spider-Ham can bring to the action next time around.

The first alternate universe Miles travels to is Earth-50101, the home of Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), aka Spider-Man India. Living in the Mumbai-Manhattan hybrid of Mumbattan, Pavitr sticks out from other Spider-Men not only because he uses yoyos instead of webs but because he considers the job of being a superhero easy. He's popular and peppy, always happy to show off his impressive workout-free abs — he doesn't want to get "too big" — and his perfect product-free hair. Of course, he's only been Spider-Man for six months, so it's possible he'll start finding the job a lot more challenging as he faces more tragedies.

One of the tragedies Miguel deems an essential part of the Spider-Man canon, however, is averted in Pavitr's life due to Miles' interference. Inspector Singh, the father of Mumbattan's Gwen Stacy equivalent Gayatri Singh, was going to die as police captains close to Spider-Man are allegedly supposed to, but Miles saved the Inspector's life. The reveal that Gwen was actively trying to sabotage this rescue on behalf of the Spider-Society is the first major sense of how Gwen was betraying Miles. Given Miles directly helped him and his loved ones, it makes sense why Pavitr would choose to defect from the Spider-Society and join up with Gwen's new team.

A character with a relatively smaller but still significant role in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," Spider-Byte (Amandla Stenberg) is the virtual reality cyber-superhero avatar of Margo Kess, a girl from Earth-22191. Beaming into the Spider-Society headquarters via an advanced hologram, Spider-Byte operates the organization's control center and is responsible for sending dimensional anomalies back to their home worlds — a process she assures us is completely ethical and humane, despite the frightening appearance of the machine used for it. Miles attempts to use this technology to return home, hiding behind her back using his invisibility powers.

Eventually, Miles gets caught, and Margo is ordered to reboot the system while he's inside the dimensional transfer machine to stop him from escaping. However, after exchanging a look with him, Margo ultimately refuses to do the reboot, allowing Miles to get away from the Spider-Society — though not to his actual home world, due to the inter-dimensional nature of the spider that bit him. This small act of defiance almost certainly would have ended Margo's work for the Spider-Society, so it's only fitting that she was invited to join Gwen's new team. If any advanced technological services are needed in "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," expect Spider-Byte to be the Spider-person for the job.

As for the "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" cliffhanger ending, it's these eight Spider-people plus Miles against everyone else. But will they get more heroes on their side in the next movie? Presumably the endgame will be to change the Spider-Society's outlook on canon as a whole, but some members will likely be more receptive to this change than others.

Of all the characters introduced so far who aren't in Gwen's group yet, there's good reason to suspect Jessica Drew (Issa Rae) will be the most receptive to their cause. This version of Spider-Woman is still working directly with Miguel at the end of "Across the Spider-Verse," but she was a mentor to Gwen despite Miguel's opposition to the younger Spider-Woman joining his society. Jessica would have reason to want to redeem herself for her protege just as Gwen is now seeking redemption for her friend.

There are also a few notable Spider-Men who have yet to appear in even the enormous Spider-Society crowd scenes that could show up in "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse." It's already been suggested Takuya Yamashiro, the Japanese tokusatsu Spider-Man, would make an appearance in one of the Spider-Verse movies. Other notable Spideys yet to show up in any form include the musical Spider-Man from Broadway's "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," the man made of spiders Spiders-Man, and of course Tom Holland's version from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Could these possible new characters become friends of Gwen's team — or would they be foes?