Highlights
- Spider-Boy, a Spider-Man variant, was drawn by the film's lead character designer but didn't make it into Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse due to legal reasons.
- The character Spider-Boy is owned by Marvel's rival company, DC, which prevented his inclusion in the film.
- Similar legalities were faced in the previous film, where Spider-Ham copied Porky Pig's iconic line, but Spider-Boy's ties to DC made his inclusion impossible.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was a visual spectacle partly because of how many different iterations of Spider-Man were used in the film. However, one of the Spider-Man variants - Spider-Boy - didn't make the cut despite the film’s lead character designer, Kris Anka, drawing him into the film during production.
Anka admitted they had planned to include Spider-Boy among the many Spider-Man variants that made a cameo in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. However, Spider-Boy had to be cut from the film for legal reasons.
A Twitter user named "charlz" brought up an image of Spider-Boy, asking if the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse image was real. "This might be a dumb question but a friend sent this photo of a ...legally distinct spider variant...from some sort of expo but i was told it was fake? i cant seem to find this design anywhere else and i was wondering if you drew this?" Anka confirmed that the image was authentic but was not used in the film for legal reasons. "It is real, ive never posted the actual drawing. obviously we ended up not being able to do use it cause legal law reasons."
For context, because both Marvel and DC were struggling financially in the '90s, the two comic book powerhouses crossed over their universes in 1996's Marvel Versus DC, in which the variant Spider-Boy was formed. In that story, Spider-Boy was a clone of the deceased Peter Parker named Peter Ross (after his adopted father Thunderbolt Ross) and was part-Spider-Man and part-SuperBoy. Because of the character's ties to DC, they weren't allowed to use his likeness for the film.
There is some irony here because Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's predecessor, Into the Spider-Verse, walked a similar tightrope regarding legalities. Spider-Ham has a similar character makeup to Porky Pig and acts like a Looney Tune, a Warner Bros. Property. His last line in the film copies Porky Pig's most iconic line, "That's all folks!" Peter B. Parker was also quick to ask if he was allowed to say that legally. In that instance, yes, but regarding Spider-Boy, apparently no.
Instances like these demonstrate how far and wide Spider-Man's influence is since he even has copies of himself with Marvel's rival. He's such an influential character that there are rumors that he may cross over with Amazon Prime's Invincible next season. You could almost say Spider-Man's popularity goes *beyond* the Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is now playing in theaters and will be released on Blu-Ray on September 5, 2023.
Source: kris anka/Twitter, charlz/Twitter