Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse - 28 Easter Eggs & References Explained
21. An Ultimate Death
Marvel Comics
Tragically, Peter Parker dies during Into the Spider-Verse's opening act. We later find out that he's 26 years old and is, for all intents and purposes, the perfect version of the character. He's married to MJ, he's been teaching, he's been dazzling the world as Spider-Man, and he sacrifices himself in order to let Miles escape. He was a true hero in every sense of the word.
Peter's death in the film is pretty traumatic, but it was written in the stars from the very get-go. It all has to do with the Ultimate line of comics again, where Miles was first introduced. There, Peter Parker is murdered at the tender age of 16 by Green Goblin, and it's what inspires Miles to put his gifts to use and become his own Spider-Man in Peter's memory.
The same arc is mirrored in Into the Spider-Verse, only with the addition of the multiverse and all those other Spider-Men. The main thing to take away, however, is that even though the death was certainly sad, it could've been a heck of a lot worse.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
