Following the release of the massively successful Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the rumor mill is churning with rumblings that Spider-Verse characters could appear in Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars. However, if Marvel boss Kevin Feige and the filmmakers pull faithfully from the source material, that doesn’t bode well for Miles Morales’ home universe.
Online chatter is in full swing among comic fans who’ve read 2015’s Secret Wars, a massive crossover event by writer Jonathan Hickman that paid off six years of storytelling. And already the in-jokes have started:
Okay, let us explain the hamburger, if you feel like (potentially) reading ahead:
Secret Wars tells the story of a group of heroes and villains who escape the destruction of their own universes and meet on a planet ruled by Dr. Doom called Battleworld. Miles Morales is among them, and he teams up with Peter Parker to discover the source of Doom’s power. Turns out, that source is a character called Molecule Man, who is channeling all the energy of a group of superbeings and feeding it into Doom.
The thing is: Molecule Man is really hungry after serving as, essentially, a giant battery for Doom. Miles happens to have a burger somehow stuffed in his suit, and he gives it to the very thankful human mutate, who devours it in seconds. Ultimately, some worlds are brought back to existence by the culmination of Secret Wars, but Miles’ universe isn’t one of them. Yet, because of his act of kindness (and his general slobbery of having a hamburger shoved in his tights), Molecule Man chooses to save Miles and incorporates him into the main Marvel universe. Some people connected to Miles are able to come along, but essentially, Miles’ own world is gone forever.
So if you’re watching Secret Wars in five or so years and you see an animated Miles holding a burger, it’s safe to say it’ll be awhile before there’s another Spider-Verse movie that goes anywhere near Miles’ version of Queens. If Miles is indeed in Secret Wars, the dilemma likely facing Feige these days is whether to use the original comic’s reason for Miles being saved or invent a new rationale. To burger or not to burger? That is the question.