Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Actually Makes The First Movie's Bagel Joke Even Better

Warning: This article contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," so proceed with caution.

In addition to being one of the most visually staggering and groundbreaking comic book movies ever made, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is also supremely funny. There's the ill-equipped mentor and apprentice dynamic between the disheveled Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), the old-timey gumshoe one-liners from Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir, and the cartoonish existence and antics of Spider-Ham, voiced wonderfully by John Mulaney. Plus, there are some hilarious signature background gags courtesy of Phil Lord, who not only co-wrote the script with co-director Rodney Rothman but produced the film with Chris Miller, who previously brought us "The LEGO Movie" and "21 Jump Street," just to name a couple of their finer achievements.

What might be the best joke in the entirety of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" is also its smallest. It's a minor moment that happens in a brief instant amidst the hustle and bustle of an action sequence. In fact, you might have completely missed it, even on repeat viewings. While Peter B. Parker and Miles Morales are attempting to pull off a heist at the Alchemax lab facility, they make a not-so-stealthy escape from a bunch of evil scientists in pursuit. During the pursuit, Morales throws a bagel at one of the scientists, and when it bounces off his head, there's a little text exclamation that says, "Bagel!!!"

Plenty of fans took notice, and it appears the filmmakers behind "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" were paying attention because the sequel makes a hilarious, direct reference to the bagel incident. You might even say that it's a pivotal moment in the origin story of the film's villain, The Spot. 

In "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," the writers pull a little bit of a retcon by making it that The Spot's origin is tied to the events of the first movie. The portal-creating villain was actually a scientist who worked at Alchemax alongside Doc Ock (Kathryn Hahn) on the collider project that was being overseen by Kingpin (Liev Schreiber). If you recall, that project from "Into the Spider-Verse" was intended to open up a door to other dimensions, because Kingpin wanted to find a universe where his family was still alive, rather than being killed in an accident after they witnessed the crime boss beating up Spider-Man. The experiments trying to perfect the machine and find the correct universe resulted in a variety of Spider-People who Miles Morales met in his big screen debut as the latest Spider-Man.

As the sequel reveals, The Spot was present at Alchemax the day that Peter B. Parker (Johnson) and Miles (Moore) attempted to sneak into the lab to steal a dongle that would allow them to shut down the collider and stop Kingpin from messing with the multiverse. In fact, The Spot also has ties to the spider that bit Miles Morales, and we learn that the radioactive spider in question isn't even from Miles' own dimension, resulting in the creation of a universe without a Spider-Man. But that's a whole other part of the movie. Let's get back to the bagel. 

While The Spot is monologuing and explaining why he's actually a worthy nemesis of Miles Morales, filling us in on the origin story explicitly tied to Miles' own early days as Spider-Man, he mentions that the teenage superhero even hit him in the head with a bagel. It's a perfect callback, and for all the fans who didn't notice that bagel bit the first time around, they'll be happy to find it when revisiting "Into the Spider-Verse." Or you can just watch it in the video above.

The bagel bit also feeds into the growing threat of The Spot, who Miles initially dismisses as a "villain of the week." Being off-handedly dealt with, having his life taken away from him due to the actions of Spider-Man, that's enough to drive someone crazy in the comic book world. So The Spot soon learns how to use his accidentally acquired universe-jumping abilities to his advantage, and as "Across the Spider-Verse" unfolds, he becomes more and more powerful. But the true power of this villain has yet to be seen, as he awaits Miles in the superhero's home universe, with a plan to kill his father, Captain Jefferson Davis. And it sounds like that final form could be rather deadly. 

In the comics, The Spot wasn't a substantial bad guy, but "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" turns him into a villain who not only has an origin story tied to Spidey, but slowly becomes one of the greatest threats that we've ever seen in a superhero movie. Voiced by Jason Schwartzman, the character has an unassuming, mild-mannered approach to the life of crime he's been forced into, but slowly he becomes a diabolical maniac, with Schwartzman becoming more and more unhinged as the film goes on. You can't really blame the guy when he no longer has a face, his skin has been turned chalk-white, and he's now speckled with portals. We can't wait to see The Spot unleashed with full power in "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse."