Gwen and Miles’ Relationship Seems To Still Be a Highlight in ‘Across the Spider-Verse’

A new trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse dropped and with it came a look into Miles’ (Shameik Moore) relationship with a whole new team of Spider people. And while it might not be the easiest working relationship with Oscar Isaac’s Miguel O’Hara, there is one thing that we’re gifted yet again with: Gwen and Miles.

In the first movie, the two were in school together mainly because it is what Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) decided to do in order to figure out why she was brought to this universe in the first place. But it set up an easy connection for them and throughout the movie, we got to see the two interact with each other on a different level than Gwen with Peter or Miles with Peter. Their friendship was something that was born out of necessity but strong nonetheless.

And the new trailer gives us just the briefest of moments between them, but it is enough to have me absolutely screaming at what Across the Spider-Verse could bring to them. Are they going to remain best friends? Are they going to be something more? Or is this a friendship based purely on shared trauma and understanding? These are all question I now have and need answered.

A leap of faith

It is a connection from the comics if you want to get technical. So Miles and Gwen falling in love in the Spider-Verse movies would not be outrageous. In fact, they were from different universes in the comics, too. His other love interest is an alternate version of Kate Bishop, which is doubly funny given that Hailee Steinfeld plays both the animated Gwen and the live-action Kate in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So maybe Miles Morales is just destined to fall in love with Hailee Steinfeld in some way, shape, or form.

The thing is: This can be the start of their relationship. In the first movie, Gwen’s reasoning for them just being friends is because she’s a little older than him—not by much, less than a year, but that’s her excuse in the movie. The reality is they were leaving Miles’ universe to go back to their own, and it felt like a final goodbye for all our favorite Spidey friends. She leapt back into her home universe never to see that version of Miles Morales again.

Or so we thought. The end of the movie had Gwen coming to see Miles yet again (and the trailer has her in a new sweater insteadm so can’t wait to see what that’s about).

But the trailer gave us what I think is one of the prettiest shots of Gwen and Miles. It’s the two of them hanging upside down, looking at the city and it is a perfect look into why they work as two characters together. Just two Spider-people, relating to the struggling that the other has faced and understanding this experience in a way that no one else can.

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I’m sad I still have a little over six months left to wait until I get to be reunited with Miles and Gwen in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

(featured image: Sony)