Who is Spider-Man 2099?
Shown off as a key member of Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse: Part One after the newly released first look, and one of the most iconic character designs in comic history, just who is Spider-Man 2099?
Making his feature film debut during a post-credits cameo at the conclusion of 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man 2099 has been one of Marvel’s most interesting takes on the classic web-slinging character.
Source: Sony Pictures
Conceived by Peter David and Rick Leonardi, Spider-Man 2099 is the superhero alias of one Miguel O’Hara. He was created by the duo in 1992 as the focus of his solo series with Marvel comics.
O’Hara was written as part Irish and Mexican descent and was an incredibly smart geneticist living and working in Nueva York, the renamed city that we would know as New York.
Source: Marvel
As his name suggests, O’Hara exists in the year 2099, during an era that observes Spider-Man as the hero of a near ancient age, a hero that O’Hara and the company he works for, Alchamex, desperately want to try and recreate.
This desire to create a machine that would imbue someone with the powers of Spider-Man leads to O’Hara’s own participation in the machine, something that ultimately gives the young hero his powers.
Source: Marvel
What makes O’Hara, and his version of Spider-Man so interesting is the ways in which he is so similar, and yet so different, from the other Spider-Man characters we know.
Miguel O’Hara being Hispanic and Irish was revolutionary at the time; remember, this was an era of comics long before the creation of Miles Morales, and two years before alternate Spider-Man such as Ben Reilly’s Scarlett Spider would be introduced.
Source: Marvel
Peter Parker was Spider-Man, and Miguel was one of the first characters to do a similar costume and power set but not be Peter Parker, compounding that by making Miguel a minority character was immensely important for representation in comics, and opened the door for Miles eventual creation.
O’Hara’s Spider-Man was much more animalistic, sporting claws and fangs, and didn’t have a rogues gallery of villains like Peter Parker did. Instead, he mostly faced off against the evils of the Alcahmex corporation.
Source: Marvel
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse Part One seems to be introducing Spider-Man 2099 as an interdimensional traveler of sorts, leading to his interactions with Miles and Gwen, and setting the three characters on whatever multiversal adventure awaits them.
Oscar Isaac is bringing the character to life in the upcoming film and voiced him during the post-credit cameo at the conclusion of the Into the Spider-Verse
Source: Sony Pictures
One of the best actors in the world, Isaac should bring the character to life in the upcoming project, with his Mexican heritage working to add authenticity to Miguel and infuse the character with a real sense of representation in film.
So, who is Spider-Man 2099? Well, he’s about to be everyone’s favorite Spider-Man.
