Spider-Verse 2 Just Retconned a Key Peter B. Parker Detail
Written by Luck Wilson on July 14, 2023
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse retconned one major Peter B. Parker detail from Into the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Verse 2, which is now rounding out its extremely successful run in theaters, brought fans back into the Multiversal world of Marvel’s wall-crawler, introducing a whole swath of new Spider-People alongside returning favorites headlined by Shamiek Moore’s Miles Morales.
One of those webheads was Jake Johnson’s Peter B. Parker, the Spider-Man who mentored young Miles during the events of the first film.
Peter appeared largely unchanged from the last film, with the biggest (at least eternal) difference being that he is now a father to the adorable Mayday Parker.
One Big Peter B. Parker Change
Eagle-eyed fans spotted a fairly big retcon in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse having to do with Peter B. Parker.
Twitter user @brandonjc_art called out the Spider-Verse sequel for changing the Earth designation for Peter B. Parker’s universe. He remarked that the film renamed the Spidey’s Earth from E-616 to E-616B.
Fans can see the change toward the end of Spider-Verse 2 “when Gwen uses the watch [Daniel Kaluuya’s] Hobie made for her as she’s dialing in Peter’s universe:”
“Near the end of the movie, when Gwen uses the watch Hobie made for her as she’s dialing in Peter’s universe, it reads E-616B”
Peter B. Parker’s Earth designation was originally listed as 616 in Into the Spider-Verse when Kingpin’s collider goes off for the first time with a graphic on a screen reading “E-616.”
One explanation for the change could be simply that Miles’ Earth (where the 616 designation is first shown) refers to Peter B. Parker’s world as such, whereas Hobie and the Spider-Society may call it E-616B instead.
More Plot Holes in Spider-Verse 2?
This is not the first plot hole/retcon to pop up as fans start to comb through Spider-Verse 2. The film made significant changes to the death of Peter Parker in Hailee Steinfeld’s Spider-Gwen universe, which turned some heads upon release.
Also, as soon as Multiversal storytelling gets introduced in anything, these continuity errors are bound to pop up. Marvel itself has had a bit of a rocky road keeping these sorts of Earth designations straight.
For a long time, the MCU was considered Earth-199999 and was even referred to as such in Across the Spider-Verse. That has changed over the years, popping up as Earth-616 (also the primary comics universe designation) in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness amongst others.
As the MCU heads further down the rabbit hole of the Marvel Multiverse, things like these will have to be figured out, or else it will get very messy fast.
Stars like Iman Vellani have even gotten in on the debate, saying she has “this argument with Kevin [Feige] every single time [she sees] him in person” about the Earth designation of the MCU.
So whether Peter B. Parker exists in E-616 or E-616B remains to be seen, but surely, Marvel will have to get its ducks in a row, especially with titles like Avengers: Secret Wars on the horizon.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is playing in theaters worldwide now.
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