Spider-Man's rogues' gallery is arguably right up there among the best of them. You don't need to think hard to come up with the names of Spider-Man's best enemies. Sony sees so much potential in Spider-Man's enemies that it's built a cinematic universe (or at least, attempting to) anchored by Venom, among others. So, it should come off as a surprise that the main baddie of the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the Spot. But, even though most are doubtful that the Spot will make a compelling villain, the film's producer, Phil Lord, thinks otherwise.
In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Lord revealed that Spot is a "dark mirror" of Spider-Man, describing him as a character with "a silly costume and is not always seen as the top tier of Spider-Man foes, but like all of us, he wants to be taken seriously."
Jason Schwartzman will voice the Spot, who underwent changes to become a bigger threat to the multiverse. Instead of just being able to transport himself across spacetime, Spot, for some reason, can travel across multiple dimensions. Thus, this explains why we saw a cluster of Spider-Man in the first official trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse albeit we're still curious to find out exactly what the Spot has to do with Miles Morales becoming public enemy no. 1, even among his fellow web-slingers.
In addition to the said interview, the social media accounts of the film have been very busy drumming up hype for the film by releasing a new poster. The latest one is a showcase of the diverse artistic styles of the upcoming sequel as it shows us Miles in a literal upside-down position as if reflecting the tumultuous turn of events of the sequel.
https://youtube.com/shorts/izsD2NWs3Lg { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "name": "Sony continues to hype Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse with new images", "description": "Miles Morales and a cluster of Spider-Man are going to be battling against The Spot, who will be voiced by Jason Schwartzman.", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/izsD2NWs3Lg/maxresdefault.jpg" ], "uploadDate": "2022-12-21", "duration": "PT35S", "contentUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/izsD2NWs3Lg", "embedUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/embed/izsD2NWs3Lg" }
Subliminal messaging aside, you can clearly make out a handful of notable web slingers in the background of the poster. Of course, there's Spider-Gwen and Jessica Drew, who are expected to play significant roles in Miles' journey of self-discovery. Other notable Spider-Man variants include Spider-Man India, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Cat, Spider-Punk, Scarlet Spider, Web-Slinger, Spider-Byte, Spider-Woman, Sun-Spider, Cyborg Spider-Woman, Doppelganger Spider-Man, Captain Spider, Emissary of Hell, and even Spectacular Spider-Man.
There's no doubt we'll find out more about Across the Spider-Verse in the next couple of months as Sony gears up for its theatrical premiere on June 2.