The latest Spider-Man movie Across the Spider-Verse opens in theatres today and has some amazing guest appearances for Marvel fans. One of them is the return of a long-lost villain.
Today, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to the hit Spider-Man: A New Universe, opens in German cinemas. While the animated multiverse excursion impresses with the same visual playfulness as its predecessor, Marvel fans in particular will also celebrate the many unexpected guest appearances, such as that of a villain who has been missing for 6 years. We’ll tell you where you know him from and who else will appear. But of course that means from here on: Watch out, massive spoilers follow!
Spider-Man reunion: Who is the captured Prowler in Across the Spider-Verse?
In the first Spider-Verse movie five years ago, Miles Morales’ uncle Aaron turned out to be supervillain Prowler and died in his nephew’s arms. But in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, as the title suggests, Miles travels through the multiverse. And that means not only do alternate realities exist with other spider-heroines, but also other prowlers and one of them is Aaron Davis (Donald Glover) – with a live-action cameo in the animated adventure.
Sitting in a cage at the spider headquarters of the Parallel Dimension Guardians, Donald Glover’s villain doesn’t have much to do except make an amazing cameo appearance. Even though MCU fans only get to see him twice for a few seconds, they are likely to recognise him from his appearance in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).
There, the petty criminal car thief was rescued by Tom Holland’s Spider-Man from other criminals from whom he was trying to buy guns. Later, Aaron Davis then revealed to him the whereabouts of Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton). Although the MCU staged him as a rising potential prowler at the time, we didn’t get to see him again after that – until now, though, when he’s already had his (never-seen) villain appearance and been locked up. (In the comics, by the way, Aaron Davis is Miles Morales’ uncle, which is why he mentions his nephew in Homecoming.)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse holds even more guest appearances
Donald Glover’s Aaron Davis aka Prowler isn’t the only familiar face in the latest Spider-Man film, though. Other references to non-animated Marvel films can be found in Across the Spider-Verse: Right at the beginning, for example, the name of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is mentioned, who caused multiverse chaos in another Spider-Man parallel world – we are talking, of course, about the events from Spider-Man: No Way Home.
It also gets concrete with live-action flashbacks to Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire over the dying bodies of Captain Stacey (Denis Leary) and Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) from The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man illustrating the suffering of other spider-fighters.
