History Headscratchers / SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse

* To anyone who believes in Canon event theories, this seems like an elephant in the room. Miguel said that canon event disruption leads to a universe's destruction. Miguel called out Miles, saying that there is a universe without a Spider-Man because its spider was taken away and bit him instead which turns out to be Earth-42. So Miguel was aware that universe existed and what has changed. So why did nobody ask the glaringly obvious question, how come that universe still exists then? You can't get any more canon-breaking than someone destined to be Spider-Man not getting bitten like they are supposed to. Did Miguel just stop watching after seeing Earth-42 Miles not getting bitten and just assume that Earth is doomed already. Nobody thought to check on that Universe to see that it is still relatively fine. (Overrun by crime with no Spider-Man to stop it certainly, but still have not collapsed into oblivion.) Won't Spider-People see this as a rather glaring hole in Miguel's theories? Or does Miguel just immediately kick out everybody who dares ask that question?
* I'm willing to bet it's the latter. I've seen some people point out that the way Miguel operates the Spider Society is a lot like a cult. Cults usually prey on people who are emotionally vulnerable (such as those who are heavily depressed, mentally or financially unstable, or just looking for a place to belong-- sound familiar?) and convince them of a certain belief or higher power that usually can't be proven or disproven, and the cult members will accept this as fact, ingratiating themselves into their new ideology so they have a comforting escape from their own problems. A whole society of people who have suffered from the trauma and stress of being a superhero would be the ideal group of people to form into a cult. Miguel might be purposefully ignoring all evidence that disproves his theory, and by extension so do the rest of the Spiders. Of course a lot of them would probably question the Canon Event theory after seeing Miles's universe and Earth-42 survive a break in canon, but they're probably either too afraid to question Miguel, or they're so convinced about Canon that they jump through a bunch of mental hoops just to explain away the inconsistencies. Those who do start to question his dogma are either punished or excommunicated. Admittedly this all requires some willing suspension of disbelief, but considering how much power Miguel has over his subordinates, it's incredibly likely that everyone is just willfully ignorant about the whole thing.

** I assumed this was a ForWantOfANail situation. Miles just ''being'' there distracts Peter for a few seconds, which accidentally sets off a chain of events that leads to Peter's death. If Peter hadn't talked to Miles for 10 seconds he would have ended up choosing a slightly different battle plan which would have led to him surviving the whole thing and destroying the accelerator. Don't forget that the Spider Society has some sort of algorithm that lets them predict events; presumably they scanned Miles' universe and used the algorithm and it told them that everything would have been fine if Miles hadn't been bit.

[[folder: How can anomalies cause canon events?]]
* The deaths of Captain Singh and Captain Morales are considered canon events by the Spider-society, but both would be caused by Spot, an anomaly who shouldn't be in Singh's universe or have a reason to kill Morales if it weren't for interdimensionnal happenings. Also, if Miles being Spider-man is itself an anomaly how can the deaths of his uncle and father be canon events? I know Miguel is likely meant to be wrong about YouCantFightFate, but even under his own logic that's a contradiction.

** The movie briefly shows that Gwen webbed her hands to the building before sitting down so they did think about this. Its not shown exactly what Miles does, he appears to simply sit down.

** Also, Miguel let people like Plushie Spider-Man and Sixties Cartoon Spider-Man into the Society, its pretty clear he's willing to recruit anyone [[JerkassToOne who isn't named Miles Morales]].

** Jefferson and Capt. Stacy are different people so its entirely plausible for them to have different reactions, but also consider that Jefferson was hardline on Spider-Man as well before seeing the city's trauma when their Peter Parker was murdered. For both of them, the situation changed when they saw a person under the mask. Jefferson turned on Miles' Spider-Man out of anger at the loss of his brother, but considering it was really obvious Aaron was a criminal himself (and died from a gunshot, which Spider-Man wouldn't do), that anger faded faster.

** As we see with Miles and Gwen, being the only spider-person around kinda sucks. They can't open up to anyone due to secret identity, and even if they do have a SecretKeeper no one can properly relate to what they're dealing with. So im sure many see "hanging out with a bunch of people just like me" as a huge boon.
** Its possible that the Spider Society is even larger than the movie implies, and the ones we see in the movie are just the ones who happened to be at the HQ when Miles was there.

The scene where the Go-Home Machine is introduced is framed as the first sign that there's something wrong with the Spider Society, (Miles looks horrified when he sees it working, Gwen says she voted against it, and Hobie's voice is dripping with sarcasm when he says its "super humane and not creepy".) but what is actually morally wrong about it? Sure, [[UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot it looks absurdly sinister]], but sending displaced supervillains back to their dimension of origin seems way more ethical than allowing them to die from glitching or imprisoning them indefinitely.

** Also, Miguel let people like Plushie Spider-Man and Sixties Cartoon Spider-Man into the Society, its pretty clear he lets anyone into the society [[JerkassToOne who isn't named Miles Morales]].

** I think it's probably a nod to the ''original'' [[Characters/UltimateSpiderManMilesMorales Miles Morales's comic book origin]], in which he only becomes Spider-Man ''after'' the Peter Parker of his universe is killed. Miguel probably got it in his head that in any universe where Miles becomes Spider-Man, it means the Peter Parker of that universe had to die like it's yet another canon event, so by this InsaneTrollLogic, he blames Miles of this movie for his Peter's death, since in his mind if Miles hadn't become Spider-Man, Peter would somehow be still alive and manage to defeat Kingpin and his cohorts from the start. Apparently, Miguel didn't even consider the fact that [[VideoGame/SpiderManPS4 there is at least one universe out there]] where both Peter Parker and Miles Morales can co-exist as Spider-Men without the former having to die first.

** This might be further explained in Beyond, but the implication seems to be that when someone becomes Spider-Man, canon events are "automatically" assigned to them. For all the problems Miguel has with Miles, him having his own canon events doesn't seem to be one of them. And it probably isn't impossible for a Spider-Man to accidentally break a canon event of his own. Consider that when Miguel shows a montage of these, one of Peter's canon events is presented as his marriage to MJ. Wouldn't Peter B. then divorcing her in the first movie have almost broken this canon event? But the point of it all is likely that we'll figure out the canon events aren't real or at least not the potential universe-breaking catastrophes Miguel makes them out to be. (And ironically, Miles would have been the cause of Peter B. ''preserving'' his canon event by re-marrying MJ, which might be something that comes up in Beyond if it becomes relevant.)

** This might be further explained in Beyond, but the implication seems to be that when someone becomes Spider-Man, canon events are "automatically" assigned to them. For all the problems Miguel has with Miles, him having his own canon events doesn't seem to be one of them. And it probably isn't impossible for a Spider-Man to accidentally break a canon event of his own. Consider that when Miguel shows a montage of these, one of Peter's canon events is presented as his marriage to MJ. Wouldn't Peter then divorcing her in the first movie have almost broken this canon event? But the point of it all is likely that we'll figure out the canon events aren't real or at least not the potential universe-breaking catastrophes Miguel makes them out to be. (And ironically, Miles would have been the cause of Peter B. ''preserving'' his canon event by re-marrying MJ, which might be something that comes up in Beyond if it becomes relevant.)

** This might be further explained in Beyond, but the implication seems to be that when someone becomes Spider-Man, canon events are "automatically" assigned to them. For all the problems Miguel has with Miles, him having his own canon events doesn't seem to be one of them. And it probably isn't impossible for a Spider-Man to accidentally break a canon event of his own. Consider that when Miguel shows a montage of these, one of Peter's canon events is presented as his marriage to MJ. Wouldn't Peter then divorcing her in the first movie have almost broken this canon event? But the point of it all is likely that we'll figure out the canon events aren't real or at least not the potential universe-breaking catastrophes Miguel makes them out to be.

* He overpowers Miguel, Ben Reiley, Jessica, the cowboy, and several other characters during his escape. If each of the Spiders are trained heroes in their own right, how was Miles able to defeat them so easily? Not to mention, assumingly, he even beat Spectacular Spider-man, Unlimited, and the Playstation one while they chased him.
** He does not need to be stronger to beat them, as their motive is to capture him. Spider-Men do not kill, some may be less willing to harm Miles than others (namely Gwen and Peter B.), and hundreds of Spider-People gunning for him at once will result in them being obstacles to each other than to Miles. Miles' plan was to lure them as far away as possible, so he had the advantage. Additionally, Miguel had him on the ropes until Miles absorbed his suit's energy, which Miguel lacked the Spider-Sense (and understanding of Miles's powers) to see coming.
** Almost all Spiderpeople have enhanced strength but the degree and what other powers they get are highly variable. Miles happens to be on the upper end for raw strength, or can augment it with his Venom ability charging his muscles with more power.

*** If so, will the events of this movie be referenced in the Spider-man 2 game? Could PS Spider-man use what he's learned from Spider-Verse Miles in tutoring his own Miles, or would that be breaking the Canon Event?

*** If Spider-People can disobey orders or ignore criminals (which Miles is in this context), then what's the point of the organization in the first place? Do the other members not know Miguel is the leader, or don't recognize him as the leader Spider-man of the society?

*** Being bad at working as a team is one thing, but why was PS Spider-man unable to use any of his gadgets? Webslinger seemed especially incompetent thinking Miles would play fair. As it stands, six Spiders are going to be able to take hundreds of them, so it does seem Miguel got the less competent Spiders. Everyone save for Jessica seems incompetent, with Miles easily able to escape them. Even Unlimited and Spectacular, Spider-men we've seen before, are portrayed as incompetent and weaker.
*** I don’t think it’s incompetence or weakness as much as a bunch of conflicting priorities clashing into each other: it’s a lack of preparation, Miguel being unspecific and SkewedPriorities. Miguel never tells any of the extended Spider People about WHY Miles needs to be stopped, or even that he should only be stopped and not beaten up or attacked. So you get a bunch of Spider folks who are all chasing one of their own who is not only a child but doesn’t seem to be trying to hurt anybody either, which would make plenty hesitate with going all out in a fight. With that in mind, it makes sense that most of them are just trying to block his path, physically grab him, intimidate him, or talk Miles down. They aren’t trying to fight him or hurt him, they just want to stop him from moving forward. The ones who try to fight him clearly are unsure of why they’re even doing so.

** Not every dimension is in the present day. Spider-Man Noir's dimension is supposed to be in an alternate universe version of the 1930s, and it's probable that the steampunk Vulture from the intro really is from an alternate universe at Da Vinci's time where they got a Jules Verne-ish level of tech. The dimension-hopping in this seems to be focused more on the existence of Spider-People rather than syncing up their calendars. It just so happens that a lot of universes we focus on are somewhere in the early 21st century.

* Let's address the elephant in the room. No one bats an eye that Peter B and Jessica Drew are endangering their kids? Jessica is riding a bike and fighting super villains while carrying a child inside her body. Peter B takes his baby to a place where things could go wrong. Jessica gets on Gwen's case for being irresponsible, but she is no better.
** Well, they are following a Spider-Man that's incredibly irrational and fatalistic. Not to mention, it never occurred to them, particularly Peter B, that since his daughter, Mayday is consequence of Miles' actions, Miguel would have her on his target list.

** This will likely be answered in Beyond, but yes, the implication is they'll know where to go thanks to Margo. Alternatively, if Margo somehow forgot or didn't notice which dimension it was, they could go to the Spot's apartment in Miles' world where the dead spider that bit Miles is (assuming Gwen noticed when she was there) and check its DNA.

** One obvious possibility is that Miguel only caused the anomaly because he outright replaced his other self in an alternate dimension, and the trauma of that error has driven him to overcompensate and fixate on the idea that dimensions that don't follow "canon" will inevitably collapse, rather than consider how outliers such as Gwen being the Spider-person of her Earth rather than TheLostLenore show that the multiverse is more complex than that.

* Miles planned to use the Go Home Machine in order to get back to his own universe so he can save his dad from his supposed Canon event. However, the machine sent him the wrong universe instead of his own universe. It actually sent him to the universe that the Spider that bit him came from, Earth-42. Earth-42 in which the Spider never bit Miles Morales and he became the prowler instead. But why does the machine focus on Spiders instead of the actual person? The Spider is a different entity from the Spider-Person so shouldn't the machine analyze the Spider-Person's dimensional frequency instead of the Spider that bit them? Did the machine always work like that or did Miguel make some alterations after hearing about Miles Morales in order to screw him over if he tries to escape them?

*** If Spider-people can disobey orders or ignore criminals (which Miles is in this context), then what's the point of the organization in the first place? Do the other members not know Miguel is the leader, or don't recognize him as the leader Spider-man of the society?

*** Captain America, Iron Man, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, SHIELD. Spider-people have worked on dozens of teams before in the comics alone. It's not like Spiders have never worked alongside others. Did Miguel just get the least organized Spiders to work for him, or did he intentionally get wildcard members? Heck, Peter B and Peni worked well with the other Spiders in the last movie, and they still can't keep up Miles.

** This is apparently explained in some of the comic books as "spider equilibrium" which means the Spider-people's sense of gravity will simply shift with any direction they're hanging from. Not only can they stick at any surface, they won't be bothered by issues such as blood rushing to their heads either. It gets especially clear when we enter the Spider-Society and the whole place is filled with walkways going in all directions and Spider-People just casually walking sideways and upside-down all over the place.

* We're shown a tremendous diversity of Spider-people who have lives that diverge tremendously from each other, only a few are living lives closely parallel to the mainline Spider-Man story. Spider-Punk "should" have become The Prowler instead. Spider-Gwen "should" have died and so should her father. Even Miguel himself is shown with two divergent lives, one where he lives and has no family and one where he has a family but dies. It makes sense that Miguel might believe this theory that things must be a certain way in order to cope with tragedy but what has convinced everyone else that events are written in stone when there is clearly some flexibility?

** They've got a sci-fi thing that detects when Cannon Events are disrupted, and whenever that happens a weird black hole appears and starts swallowing everything up. That by itself is pretty good proof of Miguel's theory. It's clear that this has happened before too, since they've already got a whole team of spider-scientists to hopefully stabilize the Mumbattan universe. Miguel also says "we haven't always been lucky", so apparently this isn't the first time they've seen this phenomenon.

*** Why would Spot make a mysterious black hole directly after a Cannon Event was disrupted when he himself has no knowledge of Cannon Events? Seems like a big coincidence. And why would the Spider-People have a dedicated team with special gear for sealing up this hole if it's just something Spot created? They only met Spot recently, and nobody was calling in for this gear during the actual Spot-fight. It's true that the collapse of Miguel's universe looked different but maybe it just looks different in different universes but it's the same underlying phenomenon. Also, they ''do'' have the smarts to investigate what exactly is causing these anomalies, and they've discovered that they're caused by disrupting Cannon Events.

*** Even if the black hole was already forming before the Canon Event was disrupted, it's weird that this particular unusually-large black hole shows up at that point in time, and it's weird that they already have gear on hand to go deal with it, an it's weird that nobody says "That doesn't look like a Cannon Event disruption! We've seen disruptions before, and this one is completely different from the others!" Even later, when Gwen openly rebels, she doesn't bring it up. She doesn't say "That wasn't a disruption event in Mumbatten, was it? That was just Spot messing things up again! You lied to us!" Is it weird that this looks different from the glitching effect and Miguel's flashback? Yes, it is weird. But the alternative is weird too. Overall I think it was meant to be an actual Canon Disruption event, and the fact that it looks like a Spot-hole was just a oversight by the filmmakers. But who knows? They could go either way in the sequel, regardless of what they originally intended.

* Did Miguel lose his alternate daughter before or after he founded the Spider society? At first the tragic flashback appeared to be from long ago, at least some years or so, and that it was this event that made Miguel realise he would create the Spider-society to help keep the universes safe from then on so something similar couldn't happen again. But on a rewatch I noticed that several of the other Spider-people, including even Peter B. are ''there'' when Miguel's alternate universe collapses as they all swing around to save people. Does this mean that Miguel found that universe coincidentally ''while'' recruiting Spider-people and thus made the decision on a whim to infiltrate it? If so, wouldn't the other Spider-people have called out the hypocrisy of this when the whole apparent purpose of the society is to keep the multiverse safe and free of disruptions? Or is the implication that the other Spider-people merely showed up (similarly to the Spider-people showing up in Miles' dimension in the first movie) due to the universe glitching out, and had nothing to do with Miguel bringing them there?
** It's possible that the Spider-Society was originally founded by Spider-people who had no knowledge of cannon events. Given that Miguel's universe is high-tech, there's a good chance that it all started when someone he knew invented universe-hopping technology. At that point Miguel probably founded the Spider-society just so spider-people could team up if a particularly nasty villain ever showed up. Maybe he started picking up on clues that cannon events were important but they hadn't really figured it out yet so he just ignored it. Then one day he decided to retire to the universe where he had a family and the other him had died, and the other spiders were fine with that because they didn't know that cannon events were a thing. Then that new universe collapsed, Miguel barely got home in one piece, and everyone freaked out and started doing research on why a universe would collapse like that, which is what led them to settle on the cannon events theory.

** So have you actually watched Across the Spider-verse? They have spelled out exactly why MCU Peter Parker would never be a member. The Spider Society prefers to focus on the Multiverse as a whole while ignoring anything going on in a singular universe. As bad as Thanos's actions would be, only the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be affected while leaving the rest of the Multiverse intact. Sacrificing one's identity does not make up for the fact that Peter Parker nearly destroyed the Multiverse because he wants to let a few people know he is Spider-Man. That is also why Miguel is on Miles' case because his universe was also the center of a Multiversal calamity. And another thing that Miguel would detest about MCU Peter Parker is that he also tampered with Canon events by choosing to save the Villains from other universes instead of letting them die like they originally did.

** The first movie made it clear that Gwen is very good at what she does. She's the leader because the other spider-people have seen her in action and they know that they can trust her judgment.

* Is Miguel even sure that his counterpart's death was a Canon Event? Maybe he took it the wrong way and that instead of replacing him that breaks the canon, it's the death itself that's responsible? Maybe that Miguel's death wasn't suppose to happen?

* It would have been better off for Miguel if he never have told Miles anything. If Miguel was really worried about Miles disrupting Canon events, he should have just had his Spider-people send Miles straight home after the India Spider-Man incident. Boom, Miles no longer is interfering in other universes because he doesn't have a watch of his own. Let Miles remain blissfully unaware his father is going to die so it would happen naturally when Spot kills him. Doesn't Miguel know about the Self-fulfilling prophecy? Telling Miles his father is going to die would just encourage him to do anything he can to prevent it even though it could destroy his universe. Why would Miguel risk telling Miles anything if he already considered him an anomaly?

** Was it actually stated that ITSV was the first time any spider-people had traveled between dimensions? I thought it was implied that Miguel's backstory, if not him creating the Spider-Society as well, took place a while before that.

Miguel's system told Gwen that Pavitr's world was going to have a "canon event" happen soon (in this case, the death of a Captain) as a warning for her not to interfere with what's about to happen. This would suggest that Miguel not only knows what canon events happen in every Spiderman's story, but ''when'' they happen in every version of the multiverse. How does that work? Does he have time-travel capabilities? Does his technology "predict" when and how the event will happen based on data from studying all the different incarnations of himself?
** I figured that a canon event is predicted to happen if the circumstances for said event are all set in place. In that scene where Pavitir's "Captain Stacy" was going to die as a part of his canon event, all the pieces for said canon event where just in the right position and time, even if the overall situation was entirely unpredictable. Therefore, all Miguel's system would need is a way to rapidly analyze the current situation, and see if it matches all the criteria for a canon event to happen. And since canon events are (atleast by the Spider Society) treated like absolutes, then said measure would be treated as a prediction.

* Why doesn't Jessica Drew wear a mask like every other Spider-person? Instead she just wears a pair of goggles that do not hide any part of her face. Does she just not have a secret identity?

** It's possible she's an "out" Spiderperson whose identity is public knowledge already. Given the image of her marriage comes up when discussing that a police captain close to Spiderman (or woman) dies as a canon event perhaps her relationship with local law was much less antagonistic than most leaving her no need to hide?

** 1. It makes some sense that a more complex/dangerous machine is harder to shut down- a spaceship, for example, takes roughly this much effort to safely return to earth. If it had already started opening dimensional boundaries or drawing on dimensional energy, it might well be far more difficult to safely cancel
** 2. Spider-Byte ultimately defects from the Spider Society, and even at this point ultimately ''doesn't'' switch off the machine when she has the chance. If she knows that Miles is the one turning it on- and "the invisible rogue spiderman trying to get home" isn't a hard leap to make- and she's already having doubts? She might well be consciously or subconsciously stretching out the process. If she tried her best but the guy still escaped, well, who can blame her?