Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Face-Off: The Best Spidey Revealed

Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse!

Last week, in celebration of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s long-awaited arrival in theaters, we asked you to help us decide who the best Spidey from the film was. As many of you know, Across the Spider-Verse is a multiversal tale filled with so many different Spider-People/Animals from the legendary heroes’ long history, and we thought it would be fun to see which one resonated the most with you. 

This Face-Off was a bit different from our previous ones, however, as we ran two Face-Offs; one that was focused on the Spideys we saw from trailers and posters before the film was released and one filled with all the spoiler cameos and characters featured in the movie. Now, after thousands and thousands of 1v1 battles with match-ups like Miles Morales vs. Gwen Stacy and Spider-Cat vs. Spider-Man Noir, two winners have been chosen to have all the power and responsibility and stuff they always talk about.

So which spideys swung above the rest to claim the top spot for the best Spider-Person/Animal from Across the Spider-Verse? Drumroll please…

I guess it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise because he is awesome and the main star of the Spider-Verse films, but yes, Miles Morales has been crowned our spoilers champion after winning 83.7% of his battles. With that being said, Miles didn’t have a clean sweep as Peter B. Parker edged him out in the pre-spoilers Face-Off with a win percentage of 82.2% to Miles’ 78.6%.

Gwen Stacy won third place in both Face-Offs, and she was the last time any Spidey tied in the two battles which, let’s be honest, are basically in-line with the film because they are from alternate dimensions – one from the past with no film knowledge besides promotional materials and one from the future with full spoilers revealed. Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, the rankings!

The pre-spoiler crowd crowned MCU’s Spider-Man as the fourth-best Spidey and Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 was right behind him to round out the top five. Ben Reilly, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Superior Spider-Man, Iron Spider-Man, and Spider-Punk made up the next five, meaning two of the bigger players in the film – Ben Reilly and Spider-Punk – captured the audiences’ attention before they even sat in the theater.

On the spoiler side, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man took spot #4 despite him only being in it for a quick flashback. Clearly, he will always hold a special place in the hearts of fans around the world. MCU’s Spider-Man came in fifth place and was followed by Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Punk, Spider-Man Noir, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, and Ben Reilly.

Ben Reilly fell a little bit from sixth to tenth post-spoilers, Spider-Man 2099 dropped one spot, and Spider-Punk swung forward three spots. The ever-popular Spider-Man Noir rose up the ranks after a brief cameo, and Insomniac’s Spider-Man stayed in the mix, which shows the power of PlayStation, the work Insomniac has done, and the exciting upcoming release of Spider-Man 2 on PS5 later this year.

On the other side of the web, the bottom 10 for both spoilers and non-spoilers were very similar. On the spoiler front, Spider-Captain took the unfortunate last spot, and was followed by Earth-X Spider-Man, Spider-Cop, Spider-Monkey, Shocker Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2211, Cyborg Spider-Woman, Spider-Armor Mark II, Lady Spider, and Doppelganger.

The pre-spoilers gang was exactly the same except Doppelganger was replaced with Spider-Byte. These characters were just one of the many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos and, while there is surely love for these characters from some, they weren’t central to the story on display.

Are you wondering where your favorite character landed, like maybe Pavitr Prabhakar’s Spider-Man India? (He placed #19 pre-spoilers and #13 with spoilers!) For all the rankings, you can check the full pre-spoilers list and spoilers list of where all the Spideys that competed in these Face-Offs ended up. 

For more, check out our Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse review, where we ranked Across the Spider-Verse on our list of the best Spider-Man movies, and our breakdown of Across the Spider-Verse’s ending and the biggest questions we have as we wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.