never fully explained what all those 42s meant. The viewer could guess, but the filmmakers never made their intentions explicit — until the sequel.finally reveals the truth about the mystery of the 42s. It’s not just a random number, it’s not just an homage to baseball great Jackie Robinson, it’s not a reference to a specific issue of a comic meant as an Easter egg. It’s actually the number of one of the many Earths that make up the Spider-Verse.
That’s because Earth-42 is the alternate reality where the spider that bit him came from. The spider was plucked from its home dimension by the scientists at Alchemax, using the supercollider that was the focal point of In that movie, the Kingpin is using this experimental machine to try to find an alternate reality where his wife and daughter are still alive.