Fridge Brilliance / Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

"Fridge" reactions are defined as happening post-viewing, as such Spoilers Off applies to this page.

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• Gwen's theme. It has a distinctive riff that repeats, a sort of roller coaster on a flute.
  • That motif was also famously used in two other songs: ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" and Madonna's "Hung Up", which samples the former. ABBA's version is about a lonely woman desperate for a companion to "help me chase the shadows away", the same way that Gwen feels without Miles. And "Hung Up" is about a woman who's obsessed with a man she never gets to see anymore, "I'm tired of waiting on you". Perfectly describing how desperate Gwen is to see Miles again.
  • The riff also stands in contrast, almost literally, to The Prowler's theme from the previous movie. While Miles' beloved Uncle had a theme with a deep, bass distorted elephant roar riff in it, Gwen's is instead high pitched and heroic. Gwen is just as important to Miles as Aaron Davis was to him, but unlike Aaron she's a hero, not a villain.
• Miguel testing the watch back in The Stinger for the previous movie is most likely him looking for Miles.
  • Furthermore, in said stinger, it’s shown that Miguel’s watch causes an Art Shift seemingly as a way to prevent the glitching effect from happening. Yet in this movie, each individual character keeps their art style even when wearing one of those watches, meaning Miguel must have developed a way of preventing the Art Shift so each individual Spider can keep their appearance, yet also don’t have to worry about glitching out.
  • Why would he decide to not implement the initial Art Shift feature? Because it’s shown several times that each universe has their own laws of physics. Back in the first movie, Spider-Ham made quick use of Toon Physics to drop the hammer on Scorpion and Spider-Man Noir has no concept of non-monochromatic colour. With the Spider-Society being a multiversal organisation, it’s likely that Miguel also knows each Spider-Hero is most effective when under their own native laws of physics rather than having to adapt to another universe’s which could put them at a disadvantage.
    • He apparently didn't consider the first Spider he encountered: Earth-67 Spider-Man, who has Limited Animation. Having the watches not automatically give a Spider an Art Shift is one thing (and reasonable), completely removing the Art Shift feature is another. Removing that feature (functionally) weakens 67!Spidey, as demonstrated when he can't catch Miles. Also, if anyone with an art style different than Nueva York's wants to spend some downtime there but not in the HQ, they can't.
• Miles being portrayed as Sun Wukong in the international Chinese poster is not simply for stylistic choice. The Spider-Force represents the armies of heaven, and Miles, like Sun Wukong, is the fugitive they aim to subdue. Though since Miles isn't so ridiculously overpowered and at-least-quintuply immortal like Wukong, he's more about running away from his pursuers than handily mopping the floor with them.
  • The original release poster is no slouch in this department as well. Miles is shown upside-down while the others are standing upright, signifying that he is doing things his way. And in fact, if you look closely, you'll see that Miguel, Jess, and Ben (Spiders that oppose Miles by the end of the movie) are on Miles' left. His left shoulder is the one torn in his fight with Miguel. The Spider Band, conversely, is on Miles' right.
• Donald Glover's appearance as a live-action Prowler could be Foreshadowing to the identity of the second Prowler at the end of the film. While he played Aaron Davis in Homecoming and this film, this casting was in turn a Mythology Gag to the fact that he was the direct inspiration for Miles in the comics.
• Peter B. Parker being the one who takes care of his and M.J.'s superpowered infant daughter makes sense upon closer inspection - Secret Identity is a big part of a Spider-Hero. Given the possibility of M.J. having a job, the couple couldn't leave their daughter with a stranger no matter how much a responsible babysitter they are - Mayday's burgeoning powers and lack of awareness would make it easy for a stranger to reveal it (whether on accident or not).
• The live-action variants in the Spider-Verse, even if fun little cameos, sort of stick out amongst hundreds of animated ones. Why not have them recreated in animation, then? Being live-action is akin to the other Spideys' "animation style", which is why they remain like that. More to the point, then, why are there only a few who are live-action while all the rest are animated? Because Spider-Man is a comic book character, who's had dozens of animated adaptations, as well as video games and other such versions which were all animated in some fashion, with only a relatively minuscule amount of live-action versions. It's not that this movie is animated and that's why most everyone is; Drawings and animation ARE the character's natural state, and thus most variants will look like that.
• Even in this movie, another walking and talking proof against Miguel's ideology is Spider-Gwen herself; in the opening battle with the Vulture, had Miguel and Jessica not arrived to help Gwen save the civilians from a falling helicopter in the Guggenheim Museum, Gwen's father Captain George Stacy would have been killed there trying to save a kid, as has happened with all the other "Captains" in other universes. Miguel and Jessica's intervention by helping Gwen results in George Stacy not only surviving, but also finding out his daughter's secret identity - something that normally doesn't happen with other characters who have found out a Spider-Person's secret identity, unless that character is about to die. By the time Gwen is sent home later on, her universe is not only still intact, but George commits to resign from his captain position thanks to Gwen's impassioned speech about heroism, effectively ensuring that his death is not a canon event anymore. By helping Spider-Gwen, Miguel and Jessica have ironically disproven their own hypothesis on Canon Events without them even knowing it.
• If Miguel is aware of MCU Doctor Strange, then he's probably also aware of what another version of the same character did to his own universe. Considering that's exactly the sort of thing he wants to prevent, it's no wonder Strange is such a Berserk Button for him.
  • There's also how two other versions of Strange managed to create incursions that destroyed two realities because of their use of the Darkhold. Miguel definitely had the best reasons to distrust him.
• The reason as to why Canon Events being disrupted are such a threat in the first place might be telegraphed fairly obviously within context of the story; from a metacontextual sense however, disrupting significant dramatic moments in a story tend to kill their progression in their tracks and lead to a story either losing interest or abruptly stopping that arc altogether... which is exactly what happened to Miguel when he tried to live in the life of an alternate version of himself who died but still had his family. This killed any dramatic tension for his character and left no possible direction for either his story or the story of that universe to develop, leading to its abrupt and horrific conclusion. This is also what compounds George Stacy's retirement as still a canon development that can happen without disturbing the universe since how he retired ended up still having dramatic weight to Gwen Stacy and her own future development in comparison to Miguel selfishly locking himself in a story that couldn't continue any further past his own attempt at happiness. However, Miguel has never read enough fiction to realise that and came to the wrong conclusion.
  • Not to mention, if Miguel’s beliefs really were right, that sort of story would even turn off the most hardcore of Spider-Man fans due to it becoming too cynical and hopeless for things to even get better, leading to Too Bleak, Stopped Caring.
• One question is why so many Spider-people are accepting of the concept of allowing canon events to occur when they've dedicated their lives to helping others and have usually been completely rebellious against the concept of the necessary sacrifice:
  • They joined the Spider Society AFTER their events happened. For them, their loved ones' and the police captains' deaths are past events that yes they would change but they've had time to see it as part of their own journeys. They have an acceptance born from their not being able to change the past. Miles on the other hand is experiencing all of this for the first time and is the only one we know for sure has foreknowledge of what's coming.
  • During the collapse of the universe in which Miguel replaced a dead version of himself, several Spider-People, including Peter B, can be seen trying to save the citizens there, meaning the entire Spider Society was formed before this destruction and they all have seen direct proof of what happens when one messes with a canon event.
  • Also, Pavitr provides a potential glimpse at how Miguel works. Pavitr has only been a Spider for a very short time and given his response to his Canon events - that is, he acted as if he wasn't aware it was something special, even calling out for Singh to move - it's possible that Miguel intentionally tries to contact Spiders only AFTER the formative events take place, and/or keeps newer recruits in the dark (see also the Spider in therapy). Pavitr perhaps was only even contacted because his universe's Alchemax was so close to completion that he would have discovered the multiverse sooner rather than later. Gwen is only in the loop reluctantly and likely as a way to minimize the possibility of her jumping around on her own which is why she's one of the few for whom these canon events haven't happened.
• It's plainly obvious that Miguel is wrong about Canon Events, not just from the multiple worlds we see where broken canon events haven't destroyed reality but from the simple fact that the multiverse simply doesn't work that way. This film establishes that the Spider-Verse films take place within the MCU's multiverse which from the events of Loki (2021) has clearly established rules (glitching discrepancy aside) indicating that it's an infinitely branching multiverse where everything that could possibly happen will happen in some alternate universe. The only reason universes got destroyed when someone breaks from "Canon Events" isn't because doing so breaks a fundamental rule of reality, it's because the TVA is/was/will be intentionally destroying individual timelines that stray too far from the "Sacred Timeline" that is the main MCU and a small collection of other distinct realities.
  • Another hint that Canon Events can play out differently comes in how during Miguel's explanation of how Canon Events occur, we see the scene from The Amazing Spider-Man where Captain Stacy dies, accompanied by his claim that one such event is that a police captain close to Spider-Man is fated to die while saving a child—except in that movie, Stacy dies fighting the Lizard, not while (directly) saving someone. It's an early hint that even within the evidence Miguel provides, there's a good amount of variation in how Canon Events might play out.
    • Arguably it could be said that the child TASM George was saving was Peter himself.
  • It's also important to note that Miguel's situation was different from the changed canon events of Pavitr and Miles. Miguel went to a universe where his family was alive and stayed there. Eerily similar to what Kingpin wanted in the first movie.
  • Another hint is that when Miles disrupts Pavitr's Canon Event when he saved Inspector Singh, the damage that does occur looks absolutely nothing like what happened in Miguel's universe; in Pavitr's universe, the damage is a big black hole, while Miguel's universe had people disintegrating. It appears that this damage was due to the collider explosion and Spot rather than Singh's survival, Miles even points this out as this being the Spot's doing rather than him disrupting the Canon Event.
    • Additionally, the only reason this Canon Event even happened was because of the Spot, who is also an anomaly who wasn't supposed to be there. It makes no sense for a being from a different universe to be the cause of another's Canon Event.
  • There is another huge mark against Miguel's Canon Events theory. It is the very fact that Miles became Spider-Man and the universe didn't collapse after a whole year. It didn't occur to him that the very idea of Peter's death in Earth-1610 along with all the other factors involved could be a Canon Event in the grand scheme of things.
    • Earth-42, while a hellhole is still intact despite the absence of a Spider-Man. The fact that Earth-42 did not collapse despite there being no Spider-Man when there was supposed to be one is yet another hole in Miguel's theory.
  • The Canon Events consists mainly of Spider-Men losing their loved ones and very few other kinds of event that isn't a personal tragedy. If they are positive, then they are often short-lived. Any other superhero origin story can tell you that it takes more than just losing your loved ones to make a hero.
  • It is also worth noting that several Canon Events don't apply to Miguel himself. Assuming he has the same backstory as his comic book counterpart, Miguel never lost his uncle, was never bitten by a spider, and never befriended or lost a police captain, which according to him are events that every Spider-Person is supposed to go through.
  • Another flaw is a purely human one of Miguel's. He's only interested in universes with Spider-People and of those, only in ones that happen to catch his attention due to anomalies and what have you. Given that there is literally an infinite number of universes and possibilities, he's only choosing to see the evidence he wants to. When he sees a universe where 'Canon' events happen, it confirms it. Those where they don't, he can convince himself that any specific event just hasn't happened yet or that any particular event wasn't the right one. Even his 'prediction' of such events is flawed in this way as much if his predictions can be more a matter of probability rather than fate; Captains who are close to Spiders are more likely to be in danger situations and given the high flying nature of Spiders and the destructive abilities of many of their villains, falling debris is exceedingly common. So it's unlikely that Miguel looked for other universes where, say, an alt-Miguel still became Spider-Man but just didn't have the same tragedies.
  • Look at 42 Jefferson's mural. It says Captain Jefferson Morales, meaning that the police captain that universe's Spider-Man would have been close to still died despite there now being no Spider-Man for this to happen to. Even if one was willing to entertain the theory that Canon Events are real phenomena, this shows that the act of losing a major event is not enough to disrupt subsequent ostensibly related events from occurring. This suggests that what constitutes each universe's "canon" is much more stable than Miguel thinks; even if the "plot" is derailed, if things really are "meant" to happen, then they'll happen on their own somehow.
  • Miguel's entire "Canon Events" theory and the danger of disrupting them is based on the destruction of his family's universe. Except we only have his word for it that it was his presence specifically that caused it. For all we know, it was a completely unrelated event (such as, for example, that universe's version of Alchemax activating their own supercollider), and Miguel merely assumes it was his fault out of survivor's guilt. After all, Miguel claims that simply staying in that universe is what caused its destruction. And yet, we see hundreds of Spider-People from all over the multiverse staying in Nueva York, and that world is perfectly fine.
  • Miguel's claims regarding Miles completely contradict themselves. He insists that Canon Events apply to every Spider-Person in the multiverse, but he also claims that Miles was never supposed to be Spider-Man in the first place. By that logic, Canon Events shouldn't apply to Miles at all. If anything, they should apply to Peter Parker, the "proper" Spider-Man of Earth-1610. Even if Miguel's theory was correct, Miles being an anomaly should've given him a clean slate.
  • Gwen's entire existence proves the theory wrong because it's a complete inverse of how the usual story goes. Peter Parker is supposed to become Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy is supposed to die. And yet, the Gwen we know is Spider-Woman who is alive and well, while her Peter became the Lizard and died.
    • Then again, in her universe, she and Peter have swapped roles in said Canon Event.
  • The biggest strike against Miguel, of course, is that disruptions to "canon events" are canon themselves, written to be so by the writers of the film. Everything that happens in the work is thus canon.
• Aaron becomes aware that our Miles is a dimensional imposter the moment he notices he 'took his braids out'- possibly because having his hair out like our Miles does would add complications to donning his Prowler mask, interfering with their crime plans.
• Why would Gwen enlist Ham to help her find Miles aside from being a member of the original Spider-Gang? In the original Spider-Gwen comic, Spider-Ham often appeared as an ally or a mentor to Gwen. This is because he reminded her of an imaginary friend she used to have. With Miles completely against her, Gwen could use some comfort and be among friends aside from Peter B.
  • Not only that, but the last time Gwen saw Miles, they left on bad terms, with Miles feeling enraged and distrustful towards Gwen, Peter B., and (possibly) Peni. By including Ham, Noir, India, and Punk in their group, it could help foster trust in Miles and make him believe that they are truly on his side this time around.
  • Additionally, for Noir, he's a character who, by nature of his 'genre', is a character that fights against the inevitable and fights for justice at all levels, even if it's a hopeless fight. He is the light in the dark foil to Miguel's grimdark view point. We don't see him until the end because it's unlikely he would have accepted Miguel's stance and thus position in the Society.
• Some might consider Peter B.‘s alliance with Miguel as out of character, especially being willing to let Uncle Ben or someone similarly close die across multiple realities. However, if we take into consideration that Peter is now a father to Mayday, who may not have been born had this Peter not endured hardships and met Miles, who inspired him to embrace fatherhood, then we can understand Peter’s perspective. Mayday’s existence brings him immense happiness, and in his mind, Uncle Ben’s tragic death, while heartbreaking, ultimately led him to a happier life. Like any father, Peter would be unwilling to risk his daughter’s existence.
  • Peter B. is 38-40 years old, and (his) uncle Ben died when he was in his mid-teens. Even if traumatic, he had his entire life to get over it, and he also had his share of traumatic events. To him, losing Ben was one of his MANY sad moments in his life.
  • If the comic Earth-616 is considered a part of the animated film multiverse, then it is plausible that Peter B. might have knowledge of the events surrounding One More Day. In that particular event, Peter Parker made a controversial decision to sacrifice his marriage and the potential existence of his future daughter in order to save Aunt May, who was old and nearing death. Considering Peter B.'s experiences and personal growth as a father, after witnessing the consequences of his past selfish actions, he may indeed see the parallels and lessons in Peter Parker's choices. This could shape Peter B.'s belief that such actions driven by self-interest can lead to further misery and complications down the line.
• Earth-1048 Spider-Man being on Miguel's side makes sense considering that not only did Jefferson Davis also die in his universe, leading his Miles to becoming his protégé, but at the end of his game, he's forced to let his Aunt May die so that a cure can be made for the Devil's Breath virus. In addition, he loses a police captain close to him when Yuri becomes Wraith, effectively killing her former personality.
  • Also, as the sequel reveals, one of the Canon Events is Spider-Man getting a Symbiote Suit... which possessed Peter sometime before the movie and almost corrupted him into becoming evil, even leading to him attacking Miles with Venom manipulating him into thinking Miles wanted the suit. Of course this Peter will agree with Miguel's viewpoint, he has had his share of Canon Events whether he liked it or not.
• Of course Miles already has an escape plan from the Prowler. Remember who his mentor was?
  Peter B.: Don't watch the mouth - watch the hands.
• The whole time Miles is fleeing from the Spider Society, he doesn't once turn invisible even though it's a unique power perfect for escaping. It turns out he's not trying to get away; he's leading the Society away from HQ so he can get back there alone and use the Go-Home machine. As soon as he's drawn them away from his real goal, he vanishes.
• Peter B. Parker points out that Miguel is very stoic, and that the spiders are supposed to be funny. Turns out he’s wrong. Miguel is funny, but by being The Comically Serious.
  • It also (though perhaps unintentionally) challenges Miguel's assertion that all spider-things are character monoliths.
• There's a recurring theme of "having your cake and eating it too" through the film. First, Miles responds that you can do it if you get two cakes...and later, he buys two cakes for his dad's celebration. Now, he's determined to save his dad and keep his universe from collapsing. Screwing canon and destiny to have his cake and eat it, too.
• The real reason Miguel refused to have MCU Spider-Man join his Spider-Society? Because No Way Home had Peter fighting Doctor Strange over pretty much the exact same thing Miguel intends to do. MCU Peter refused to send the other live-action villains back to die without curing them first, or "changing their fate" as it were, while Strange was all for just letting them die because "it's their fate". With that in mind, there's no way in hell MCU Peter would have ever gone along with Miguel's Canon Event hypothesis, leaving him to be left out of the recruitment algorithm.
  • Raimi-verse Spider-Man and Webb-verse Spider-Man were also likely not recruited for similar reasons. After all, they were fully onboard with helping MCU Spider-Man cure the villains (not to mention Webb-verse Peter immediately took the opportunity to save Michelle Jones from a similar fate that his version of Gwen Stacy suffered), so they almost certainly would never follow along with Miguel's Canon Event ideas either.
  • In addition: Raimi-verse Peter has already subverted a Canon Event in his own universe: in Spider-Man 3, he manages to save his version of Gwen Stacy from certain death, and judging by his appearance in No Way Home, his universe didn't suffer for it.
• This line from Ham in the previous film retroactively describes Miles' character struggle in this film very accurately. It's a reason why it's playing in his head as he escapes from the Society:
  Spider-Ham: Miles, the hardest thing about this job is... you can't always save everybody.
  • The line also provides an additional reason to him joining Gwen's team: it's implied that going through an event as tragic as losing someone close to him didn't do too much to fully deter his heroic and cartoony spirit... putting him at odds with Miguel who becomes too obsessed with maintaining the canon even if it means forcing a Spider to let someone they love die.
  • Indeed look at his wording. He's not focused on seemingly inevitable events or choices; he doesn't say something like "There is always going to be hard choices. You're just going to have to deal with them." Instead, he's focused on the impact of the choices one makes and of life events.
• The Conservation of Ninjutsu during the chase through Nueva York makes a lot more sense when you remember that, as we've seen before, Spider-people are generally much more used to operating solo than they are to working as a team, so they could more than likely be getting in each other's way a lot. Indeed, the Western-themed Spider-man accidentally shoots one of Miles' pursuers and incapacitates them with a missed shot aimed at him, showing how the Spider-Society isn't effectively operating as a large-scale team, contrasting with how Miles, Gwen, Pravitr and Hobie operated efficiently as a smaller unit in Mumbattan.
• Of course Hobie would join Gwen's group to defy Miguel's dedication to uphold canon events. He's an anarchist at heart, and you can't get more anarchistic than fighting back against cosmic destiny and those who enforce it.
• Hobie seems to take an immediate liking to Miles despite only having met him and is quick to act as a Stealth Mentor toward him. He could just be acting like a Lovable Rogue, or it could also be because in the prime Marvel Universe, he would have become The Prowler. It seems like even when separated by several universes, the Prowler will always have an influence over Miles.
• Hobie's statement about "hating the PM" sounds odd at first - until you realise that he's probably talking about the Prime Minister (who in Hobie's home universe rules over a now-authoritarian Britain).
  • There are more layers to the whole remark. "AM" can refer to AM radio, presumably a mouthpiece for the government in Hobie's world. "Hating the AM and PM" can also mean he hates all hours of the day, as his punk lifestyle suggests.
• When Miguel is showing Miles the "not so good" recurring events that occurring in a spider's story, there's brief cluster of panels showcasing Venom, one of Spider-Man's most famous recurring enemies and Evil Counterpart, surpassed as his Arch-Enemy only by the Green Goblin. One of Venom's unique factors was his immunity/invisibility to the Spider-Sense due to the symbiote once being bonded to Peter, and in certain ways was an extremely personal foe for Spider-Man in a role separate from Green Goblin or the Sinister Six, serving as a dark mirror of what Peter could have become if he let his worst impulses rule him. In this film, whilst the Spot doggedly pursues the role of Miles' own nemesis, at the end of the film, Miles is confronted by his Evil Counterpart, a Miles Morales who took up the mantle of The Prowler in the Earth-42 his spider came from: effectively the Miles who was supposed to become the heroic Spider-Man instead of him. Combined with him taking up the villain role that has the most personal connection to Miles, and him being apparently likewise immune to Miles' spider sense because he is him, it's clear that Prowler Miles is basically his own recurrent version of Venom.
  • Speaking of the Spot, in his strongest form his color scheme is reversed, being primarily black with white accents, not unlike Venom's usual color scheme. Venom is Peter's arch-nemesis next only to the Green Goblin, while Spot wants to be Miles' arch-enemy.
• No wonder why Pavitr Prabhakar decides to join the Spider-Gang at the end. He was one of the newest members of the Spider Society who's presumably Locked Out of the Loop regarding canon events because he's a rookie who hasn't gone through his "I Let Gwen Stacy Die" moment yet. By learning this information, Pavitr most likely had the same epiphany Miles has; his boss and most of the Spider Society are very much willing to let someone close to him die (and in fact would already have if it wasn't for Miles's intervention) just so he could become a 'better' Spider-Man. It's not a surprise that he wouldn't want to be part of that society anymore and decides to join Gwen's gang instead.
  • When trying to save his girlfriend and her father, Patvir even has the same thought as Miles, exclaiming he can "do both". Miles having the motive of wanting to save both the universe and his father throughout the film would resonate with Pavitr.
  • Adding on to this, Pavitr was unable to save both on his own, but he was able to do it with help, likely adding on to his desire to help Miles, because on his own he can't do both, but with assistance he can.
• Miles getting lower grades in Spanish and generally speaking the language worse than he did in the previous film is not just a gag, it's also a logical conclusion of his living arrangement. For the past 16 months, Miles has been living at the Visions Academy as a live-in student and probably only visiting home on the weekends (he has a dorm-room). This means he has spent less time practicing Spanish by talking to his mother, and his language skills have deteriorated as a result.
  • Alternatively, Miles' grade in Spanish can be explained in pragmatic terms - He's been speaking Spanish since he was a young child and it's been known that if a child starts something young and continues it into their older years, it sticks and it's hard to deteriorate. So, being the fluent Spanish speaker that he is but also having major Spider-Man responsibilities, it's logical that Miles would skip out on the most likely easiest class for him. And because of that, he probably missed out on enough assignments and/or tests to get a "B" instead of an "A" or as hinted during the conversation, part of the grading was tied to attendance.
• Miguel admonishing Miles for not being a "real" Spider-Man is interesting considering how unlike Spider-Man he is himself. And that isn't just referring to his attitude or beliefs:
  • When he meets Gwen, he never introduces himself as Spider-Man. When she asks who he is, he just says, "It's classified." He only introduces himself as Miguel O'Hara and coming from another dimension.
  • He is the only Spider-Person to not explain his origin story. He only talks about his role as the leader of the Spider-Society (which Gwen interrupts) and what drove him to adopt his Canon Event theory. The latter event itself—replacing an alternate universe counterpart—is unlike any known Canon Event, and he never mentions losing an Uncle Ben or Captain.
  • On the subject of his backstory, the one detail we do know of Miguel is that he injected himself with something that gave him spider powers. Miguel makes a big deal about the radioactive spider biting Spider-Man, so it is noteworthy that he apparently gave himself spider powers instead of being "chosen."
  • His powers are also atypical of Spider-Man, lacking a Spider-Sense, bearing fangs, and claws. He has a distinct red webbing instead of white. Miles even questions if he's really Spider-Man because of this.
  • He is the only Miguel O'Hara in the Spider-Society. While he is not the only Miguel O'Hara in the multiverse, Miles not meeting another Miles there helps point to his presence as an "anomaly" and his isolation. But there being only one Miguel is interesting considering that he is the leader of the Spider-Society. Additionally, the only other Miguel is not only dead, but apparently was never Spider-Man at all.
  • He seems well aware of this too. His intro monologue says, "I'm not like the others."
• Hobie claims he doesn't want to be called a hero because heroes are 'self-mythologizing narcissistic autocrats'. This description actually completely fits Miguel and his Spider-Society. Self-mythologising is sort of obvious - the whole narrative of 'canon events' creates a mythos around the events of their lives, and even the use of the word 'canon' derives from Catholic doctrine. 'Narcissistic' - well, it is pretty narcissistic to assume that one's own suffering is the foundation of the safety of the multiverse with very limited proof, and doing so reduces everyone else - all the heroic police captains, dead love interests and tragically murdered uncles - into just sources of angst for Spider-People, which is a deeply narcissistic mindset. As for autocrats...well, Miguel seems pretty autocratic in how he runs the Society, with his unilateral refusal to allow Miles' participation and his absolute insistence that things be done according to his own theory of what caused the destruction of his universe. Not to mention locking up a boy so he's helpless to save his father from dying.
• Hobie's rendered art style varies a little as the movie progresses. Makes sense for a proud non-conformist like him.
• This film finally gave us an answer for just how the hell MCU Vulture ended up in the SSU; until now, it didn't seem to gel with what happened in No Way Home. That's because it was caused by a different multiversal disturbance altogether: the anomalies we see in this movie. The MCU and SSU are explicitly a part of this multiverse, and we even see MCU Prowler (or a similar variant) was affected. Just like how the Renaissance-art-verse Vulture was pulled into Gwen's universe, the MCU Vulture was pulled into the SSU by the anomalies caused by the collider and the Spot.
• Consider the events of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and suddenly the explanation for the multiverse being threatened makes much more sense: Look at what caused Miguel to come to the conclusion of Canon events, it was when he took the place of a dead alternate universe self, exactly like Wanda Maximoff intended to do, and without regard for the potential consequences. Or in short, the destruction of Miguel's alternate universe and family wasn't caused by him breaking a Canon Event, it was caused by him creating an Incursion. The delves into Fridge Horror as while the end of Multiverse of Madness indicates Incursions can potentially be mitigated, the Spider-Society could very well be unknowingly causing more chaos across the multiverse by traveling to different universes and not considering what the consequences of breaking the dimensional walls could be, all while misinterpreting the problem as Canon events.
• The Earth-42 Miles is the Prowler. Miles Prowler? Miles Per Hour? It might not be as blatant a pun as Miles Prower, but it may still be a Stealth Pun regardless.
• Another piece of evidence against Miguel's ideology on Canon Events is the very crux of this plot, The Spot. He's also an anomaly, created by messing around with the multiverse and jumping through different multiverses to gain power. His actions in Mumbattan, and his future actions after his transformation in Miles' universe, wouldn't happen if he wasn't jumping through the multiverse, so people would have died in events that could not have been Canon.
• On a metatextual level, it makes perfect sense to have the leader of the Spider Society be a version of Miguel O'Hara rather than a version of Peter Parker: a Peter Parker would never be willing to do the things a Miguel would.
  • Peter Parker ultimately lives by the advice of Uncle Ben: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. To be a "Spider-Man", if one has the power to help someone, they must use it to do so, even at their own expense, and they impart this belief onto those that work alongside them. Even in critically lambasted stories like One More Day, the events stem from Peter trying everything in his power to protect the people he loves, only for disastrous consequences to follow, namely Mephisto preying on Peter's vulnerability to convince him to make a deal with him. "If you have the power to do something, do it." The very notion of "Canon Events" would be antithetical to the very ethos of Spider-Man, so a Peter Parker being the one to lead the Spider Society would require that Peter be everything he's not, especially when, historically, Peters going against their ethos just causes suffering, such as the aforementioned deal with Mephisto erasing Peter's marriage to Mary Jane and retgoning their daughter.
  • By contrast, Miguel stems from the year 2099, a dystopian society ruled over by MegaCorps like Alchemax where the name of the game is survival. The age of heroes had long ended, and the ones who took up the mantles in this time were firmly anti heroes thanks to the original series coming out in The Dark Age of Comic Books, and O'Hara was no exception. Miguel idolized the legends of Spider-Man, to the point the reason behind his even getting powers was an attempt at trying to recreate Spider-Man's powers. However, he was much more sardonic than the original Spider-Man ever was, and his version of the Spider-Man ethos tends to be less about "responsibility" and more about "guilt", as numerous times he questions why he's still acting as Spider-Man despite the pain it causes him, but keeps going out of a sense of guilt over his past behavior. Miguel was someone who did all he could to avert disaster, not only at his own expense, but also the expense of others, such as trying to stop Alchemax from ever coming to power in the past, even though that would likely erase everything related to 2099, including his family. Even when some versions were proven to be worthy of lifting Mjolnir, they did not use it for the power of Thor, rather they used it as a symbol of their authority, the burden they had to carry with them, in the name of creating a brighter future.
  • With that in mind, it's makes perfect sense why the Spider Society would be lead by a Miguel rather than a Peter: not only does Miguel not ascribe to the same ethos as Peter, meaning he'd be willing to allow "Canon Events" to occur, he is someone already predisposed to bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. He will make the "hard choices" he knows others wouldn't be able to make, he won't like doing it, but will still do it in the name of protecting the most amount of lives, even if he finds others disliking him for it. And because he already idolized Spider-Man, he believes he knows that these "Canon Events" are responsible for making them who they are as Heroes. Whereas a Peter-lead Spider Society would likely continue searching for ways to avert "Canon Events" as per their ethos, a Miguel led Spider Society would let them occur. It's for that reason why so many of the Spider-Men in the society are people who have already experienced these Canon Events, their ethos as Spider-Men has already taken a hit, and when offered Miguel's point of view, they're more willing to relent and join him. Whereas the ones opposing Miguel are the ones who haven't suffered those loses yet like Miles, Gwen, Pavitr, and Hobie: they haven't compromised on their ethos, on what it means to be a Spider-Man.
• Hobie's Defector from Decadence and stealth mentor role is a massive Genius Bonus given the fact in 616, he commonly would wear the suit for Peter when his identity was threatened/he was out of town, basically being a fake Spidey to help out our main Spidey. What is he's doing in this film? Playing the role of an average Spider-Society Spider-Man to discreetly help our main Spidey!
• It actually makes a lot of sense that an obscure D-lister villain like the Spot ultimately became Miles's Arch-Nemesis rather than one of the more recognizable Spider Man rogues that Miles inherited from his universe's previous Spider Man. This is because most great Spider Man villains have some kind of personal connection to the hero. However, none of the old Spider Man's villains had any sort of history with Miles. So in the absence of such a foe, the universe provided one.
  • Spot's ineffectiveness at initially determining himself as Miles' nemesis is also rooted in this. The Arch-Enemy of Spider-Man has usually been somebody who reflects upon some aspect of Peter's life, furthering his personal conflict with them both within and outwith the mask — Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin reflects upon his dual life as Peter and Spider-Man, Doc Ock reflects upon his scientific mentality and how his fighting style integrates technology (his mechanical web shooters) and Venom is basically a corrupt and super-powered version of the heroic spider-Man identity. In the Comics, Spot has only every really confronted Peter Parker as a low-tier D-lister villain because of his ineffectiveness with his immense power, so there is no historical comic-book animosity that can be drawn upon to support his claims of being Miles' destined foe. Furthermore, this version of Spot has no true connection to Miles at all, despite his claims otherwise. Their powers don't really contrast or reflect upon each other^*at a stretch, you could claim that their powers are each rooted in dimensional warping, but even then other variants of Miles have the same powers he does, Miles never really met Ohnn in his prior civilian identity, and Spot hasn't even done anything to make Miles treat him seriously at the film's beginning, which is part of why he terms him a Villain of the Week instead. Even Ohnn's claims of them "creating" each other has some extremely tenuous logic to it^*the spider ohnn claims was "his" was shown to be ready to bite Earth-42 Miles in a Freeze-Frame Bonus, meaning it was already destined to turn a Miles Morales into Spider-Man without his interference, and his flashback of his transformation in the Collider room shows that Ohnn himself was far more culpable for his mutation than Miles, which he conveniently glosses over, and it's clear that Spot's perception of events is coloured in part by his desire to be the arch-villain of a respected superhero that he had a hand in making and become respected that way. However, there is one aspect where Spot contrasts Miles that ties into the movie's theme: that being that Spot makes his own destiny of becoming Miles' Arch-Enemy, stubbornly forcing Miles into the role he wants to give Spot himself purpose in his altered condition, regardless of what Miles himself wants to do. Spot claims they're destined to be foes, and becomes powerful enough to force that reality into being, even if there's practically no thematic or historical reasoning for either or them to oppose each other, in much a parallel of how Miguel and the Spider Society are trying to enforce the idea of what kind of hero the figure of Spider-Man should be.
• A number of Spider-Society are left disillusioned with Miguel by the end because of two important reasons: He imprisoned/attacked a child who was trying to save his father and then cruelly disavowed another child simply for wanting to be with a loved one. They saw him abusing two of their own - like a villain would.
• The Spot's Insane Troll Logic of 'filling the hole inside of him with more holes' is actually a very apt metaphor for how Miguel and the rest of the Spider-Society deal with their personal trauma caused in the line of duty as Spider-Man by delving further into said identity and the isolation caused by it, in turn making Spot a very apt opposing villain for all of them as a massive multiversal threat, as well as his personal opposition to Miles, who rejects this line of thinking and who his 'nemesis' is, wanting to "do my own thing" as Spider-Man in defiance of what 'should' be.
  • Another similarity between the Spot and Spider Society (especially Miguel) is the belief in terrible events being necessary to affirm one's identity, and how this relates to their relationship to Miles. Spider Society upholds the idea that Canon Events "make" a Spiderman, and try to stop Miles from going against that by keeping him out of his universe. Meanwhile, the Spot has rejected the person he used to be in favor of defining himself by the worst experience in his life, and insists that he "made" Miles, trying to force a rivalry where there originally wasn't one. Heck, the Spot, in his quest to get revenge on Miles by killing his family, is inadvertently trying to cause Miles' canon events, directly tying the two parties together.
  • This also highlights how unintentionally villainous the Spider Society has turned out to be; this well-intentioned group and the Spot both end up having the same goal of Jefferson's death, and even if their reasons for why differ, it still results in an innocent death.
• Earth-42 Miles speaks with a mild Latin accent. With his father dead, he would have been raised primarily by his mother and her side of the family, coloring his speech.
• From a meta-perspective, some of the themes of the film include the idea of following the "wishes of others" (Miles' parents wanting him to stay in Brooklyn, Miguel wanting Miles to follow a "correct path", etc.) is similar to things queer youth go through, with a heteronormative parents and society-at-large. This can play into the appearance of a "Protect Trans Kids"-labeled pride flag, and being released during pride month.
  • It can also easily be taken as a crack against readers who want Miles to follow their version of The Stations of the Canon. Especially if he hasn't suffered enough.
• The very first line in the movie - spoken by Gwen - pretty much sums up the overall theme of the story nicely: "Let's do things differently this time. So differently." The core conflict of Across is how the Spider-Society under Miguel's leadership believes that they have to uphold the "canon events" across the multiverse, including the bad things, or else it could have severe consequences. Miles - and eventually Gwen, Peter B., and a few other Spideys as well, believe that they can alter such canon events and prevent the deaths of their loved ones even if it may risk the destruction of the multiverse.
  • This also contrasts the previous film's "Let's do this one more/last time", which also makes sense, most heroes share some form of origin but not all of the share the same exact path. Even the Spiders themselves differ in what sorts of "Canon Events" they end up going through.
• Given Word of God has confirmed Miguel's unrelenting devotion to "canon" and disdain of Miles as a "wrong" Spider-Man was an analogy for fans who don't like Miles as a successor, it makes sense he also talks ill of the Earth-199999 Peter given that Spidey has also had a Broken Base on whether he's a good adaption due to the many liberties taken in his films.
• There's two main problems with Gwen's assertion that every Gwen falls for Spider-Man in every other universe, and it "doesn't end well". One is that she herself is Gwen - and notably the only known Gwen in the Spider Society. Being a superhero would do quite a bit to lower the danger level to herself. Second, unless she had access to a Time Stone ^note Not impossible given that at least one other Spidey that exists in the MV has crossed paths with it - but not at all likely, either, there's only so many universes she would have been able to see out of the thousands at bare minimum, in a few months. But Gwen essentially replaces her universe's Peter, and there are two iconic deaths that are typical of Spider-Man's story. The one that usually occurs toward the beginning of the Spider-Man journey, usually of a literal or surrogate family member, and serves as a formative moment for the young hero - let's call that the "Ben Death", and the death of a love interest that occurs somewhat later that Spidey typically at least believes himself to have caused inadvertently - let's call that the "Gwen Death". It's muddled by things like knowing the typical Peter/Gwen dynamic and the fact that they were implied to have been each other's prom date, but Gwen doesn't seem to indicate any romantic feelings for her universe's Peter, despite (or perhaps because of) having known each other since early childhood. Also, their families shared meals together, and George reacts very emotionally to his death, almost as if he'd lost a son or at least an honorary nephew. All of this points to the relationship between Gwen and 'her' Peter as Like Brother and Sister. She also names him as the person she lost that had the most effect on her in ITSV, which along with everything else indicates that she views the loss of her universe's Peter as her "Ben death." It would follow, then, that she believes (perhaps with some prodding from the Spider-Society) that Miles is her version of Gwen. Miles understood her comment as her being concerned that he'd lose her. But Gwen likely meant it the other way around.
• Did Spot teleport away the scientists at the Mumbatten Alchemax building out of Pragmatic Villainy, or to avoid the possibility of creating a version of himself in that dimension when he activated the collider?
• The mere implication that Hobie visited George Stacey beforehand to leave his “present,” despite the former’s distrust of authority and the latter being a cop still pondering over what to do with his daughter. It says much about how far Hobie is willing to go to help a friend that he sets aside his personal biases, and how much George still cares for Gwen that he doesn’t try to apprehend or shoot him on the spot, at most calling him a piece of work.
• Earth 42 Miles in his Prowler suit is awfully similar to that of the Tinkerer from Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which shows how more intertwined the universes are, after all the more things change (42!Miles being Prowler instead of a Spider) the more they also stay the same (Miles in general is influenced by his environment and the people he knows and loves, for better or worse). Or to put a little more simply, there are constants and variables to the story, which both supports and spits in the face of Miguel's "Canon Events".
• Miguel calling Lego Spider-Man one the Society's best might seem like a funny scene, but it holds weight. The movies shows that, no matter what universe you are from, you will retain your original look and size. Since it is assume that Lego Spider-Man is the same size as an actual Lego Model, he's rather small, likely the smallest Spider-Man recruited, which makes him excellent for stealth, not to mention he's very competent and dutiful. In a group full of potential smart asses and troublemakers, Miguel likely sees Lego Spider-Man as a nice change of pace.
  • Not only that, but this the same Spider-Man from the Lego video games. In those games you often need to build objects with what the environment gives you in order to progress, be it things like huge cannons or vehicles. Given how all Spideys keep the same traits of their universes when going to others, he might be under the same Lethal Joke Character logic as Spider-Ham, where the sheer absurdity of his world makes him deadlier in others.
  • Also, this isn't LEGO Spidey's first rodeo dealing with a multiversal threat. He even met LEGO versions of Miles, Miguel, Gwen, Noir, and Ham! Additionally, if this is the same Peter from the LEGO games, that Spider-Man has gone up against Galactus and won - Miguel calling him "one of our best" isn't just a joke, at that point it's a statement of fact!
  • The fact that LEGO Spidey met a LEGO version of Miguel probably also contributed to them joining the Spider Society.
• This Tumblr post pointed out that while Comic!Peni is an Evangelion-inspired Spider girl, Movie!Peni seems to be taking inspiration not just from Eva, but from other Mecha anime as well, such as Gurren Lagann.
• Jess' becoming more cold and strict after Gwen's intro makes sense for a number of reasons:
  • Most obvious - She's pregnant. Even if she's a Pregnant Badass, it still must be hard to do all the working and battling while carrying her first child.
  • It's implied she's Miguel's second-in-command to a multiverse of different Spider-Heroes. Like Miguel, the stress of having to be in charge of so many different heroes in so many different universes can be nerve-wrecking.
  • And unlike Peter B. Parker from the first movie (who is her foil in regards to mentoring a Spider youth), her life was never in shambles prior to the whole multiverse issue. She most likely had a successful career as a hero while married and expecting her firstborn. In a sense, while the multiverse actually saved Peter's life and marriage, Jess is under the constant belief that it'll ruin the life she's already known.
• Gwen's complicity in helping the Spider-Society and their draconian ideal to enforce "canon events" makes sense — unlike most of them, she had literally no where to go to: Her mother is presumed to have died, she has no friends in her home dimension ever since her best friend died, and her father, now knowing her secret, tried to arrest her despite her pleas. If it wasn't for Miguel and Jess, it would've ended badly. Not only did they save her from making a tough decision, but they also allowed her to meet more Spider Heroes (including Hobie and Pavitr). Plus, already being in a vulnerable state and learning of how "every Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man" (and dies), it (in a disturbing way) made it easier for her to believe in such ideals.
• Jessica being a Pregnant Badass:
  • Her being a Badass Biker who uses her motorcycle for fighting is brilliant in two ways: One, it can with sneak attacks on ground level. Two, since webslinging would be hard because of her pregnancy, she can use her motorcycle to ease her fatigue.
  • Even with the typical symptoms of pregnancy, Jess is still a Spider-Hero, meaning she has the same superhuman strength to withstand and deal out a lot of damage. And she has her spider-sense to detect when danger is coming to better avoid it.
• Miguel being able to convince almost all of the Spider-Society of his "canon theory" seems ridiculous until you realize what he uses for evidence: What happened in the first movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and the universe he replaced his dead alternate self with. What do they all seemingly have in common? A multiversal threat caused by seemingly disrupting canon - Miles becoming Spider-Man with a different universe's spider, Peter from No Way Home causing different supervillains to appear because he wanted to make everyone forget him (until he then wanted his loved ones to remember), and the universe that Miguel went into was destroyed. Even with the holes in his theory, when presented like this, it's not hard to understand how easy it was to convince them.
  • It's not made explicit, but Miguel could've kept information from recruits fresh into their career and only brought them in fully once they've experienced these events. Then they would've latched on the theory to alleviate the grief and justify to themselves that they truly couldn't have done anything about it; because the alternative — that a massive web of "good" superheroes let you flounder when they could've done something to help — would've been horrifying.
• Miguel has a certain disdain for Peter B. Parker, especially when he brings his daughter, Mayday, with him. The entire Spider Society's motif is that, in order to be a better Spider-Man, you have to have a tragic backstory. Peter B. went through very dark times in his life: tragic family loss, financial woes, broken marriage, and decline in health both physically and mentally, to the point where he was willing to sacrifice his life to save the multiverse. However, at the end of it all, he becomes a happier person. He is now financially stable, much more fit and healthier, and not only fixed his relationship with his MJ, but also started a family with her, and has become the proudest Daddy Spider-Man. Only problem? This was likely not his destiny. The only reason he even worked up the courage to reconcile and have children with MJ was because of his chance meeting with Miles, which was never meant to happen. Not only that, but because his universe has shown no sign of collapsing or any sort of anomaly, Miguel likely sees Peter B. Parker as proof that his theory isn't concrete, but is still too trapped in guilt and stubbornness to accept that as a possibility. This plays off with another entry above on how it's based on character arc, and Peter B. did that in spades.
• Vulture and Gwen's banter in the prologue, particularly with Vulture having a classical Renaissance art style, could be read as subtext about both the film's unconventional and experimental animation, as well as a rebuttal of the recent criticism of superhero movies not being considered "cinema."
• While it’s never explicitly stated, Miguel’s backstory prior to being Spider-Man includes a stint as one of Alchemax’s brightest employees before he quit. This could explain not only his familiarity with the multiverse and with Alchemax's activities in particular, but also why his Canon Events theory seemed convincing to many in the Society. They likely presumed that his credentials lent weight to it, on top of his personal experiences.
• In the What If…? (2021) episode "What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?", we found out that Strange Supreme couldn't save Christine no matter how many times he tried because her death was an Absolute Point that was necessary for him to become a hero. Even when he finally subverts her death, she dies anyway because he broke his universe. That sounds an awful lot like Canon Events. Additionally, we find out in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that Strange never gets together with Christine in any universe. Thus, never becoming something more with Christine in some shape or form can be considered Doctor Strange's Canon Event.
  • Ironically, this is also evidence against Miguel's whole Spider-Society being necessary. If a person is needed to die at a specific point for a universe to continue existing, then that person is going to die. The fact that Christine died no matter how many times Strange attempted to rewrite events with the Time Stone means that the universe itself made sure she didn't survive the night, and likely the same would happen with any other specific people in any other universes. Sure, Strange was able to find a way to break said Absolute Point, but that required spending relative centuries absorbing countless magical beings until he was essentially powerful enough to shatter the laws of time itself. It's not something most anyone can simply do, and that kind of thing is way beyond the ability of most Spider-People in the multiverse. Miguel created his Society to solve a problem that from all evidence, already solves itself.
• Lego Peter being the one to contact Miguel initially seems like it was done by the filmmakers for laughs (after all, they could have had any kind of Spider-Man be the one to notice the Spot's intrusion), but its own humor seems to mask its foreshadowing. If a viewer goes into the movie without having seen the trailer that shows the full extent of the Spider-Society, it's possible to take Gwen's initial statement of the Society being a small elite team at face value (especially with how reluctant they were to take her in). However, the fact that an inch-tall Lego minifigure version of Peter Parker is on the team serves as an early hint that the Society might be enlisting every heroic Spider, and that their refusal to contact Miles may be more exception than rule. This comes well before the more obvious indicator of Pavitr Prabhakar being a part of the society despite only having been Spider-Man for half the time as Miles.
• MCU Spider-Man was already firmly a hero by the time of Tony Stark's death in Endgame, so it was hardly enough to qualify as his Uncle Ben moment. Instead, as leader of the Avengers, Tony's death was his Captain Stacy moment! Just replace Captain of Police with 'Captain' of the legal Avengers.
• Remember in Into when Miles met his version of Peter? Their spider-senses both go off and their backgrounds take on two colors. Spider-Man's is his iconic colors, blue and red, while Miles' is green in purple, only to change to red and blue to match Peter. While at the time it makes for a neat effect to show that they're on the same wavelength, the ending of Across reframes this exponentially: Miles meets his Earth-42 self, which is that world's version of The Prowler. What's The Prowler's color scheme? Green and Purple. This implies that our Miles would have become The Prowler too, meaning that that little effect was foreshadowing that Miles' "canon" had been derailed by the spider an entire movie before Fixed Canon Theory was introduced.
• Though it doesn't excuse Miguel, it's little wonder why he eventually goes angry and near-feral at Miles as the film progresses, and it's not only due to seeing the latter as the "original" anomaly. While it's one thing to deal with a walking Berserk Button from his perspective, it's another to be within close proximity for a prolonged period, especially when said trigger refuses to cooperate. Even at his best behavior, it's bound to have pushed Miguel's already strained patience to its breaking point sooner or later.
• Gwen's panicked response to Miles being buried under rubble while in India. It was not only because of her worries of her friend seemingly dying in front of her, regardless of canon or not, but because it reminded her of how her friend Peter died too. She was reliving her Uncle Ben moment.
• When Scarlet Spider finds Gwen's portal in the alley, he checks the walls first. This is a joke about his 90s over-narration, but, y'know, he's a wall-crawler, and it looks like a Spider-Society portal. Reilly really should check the walls, so he doesn't tunnel-vision on a distraction or trap. Which it was.
• In both the first film and this one, the main plot kicks off because either Miles or Gwen neglect a task they were given to see someone they really wanted to see and spends a little too much time with that person, with huge consequences as a result. In Into the Spiderverse, Miles is given an assignment by his teacher, but abandons it to go and visit uncle Aaron instead. They hang out for hours, eventually visiting an underground tunnel to do some graffiti where Miles ends up bit by the spider that makes him Spider-Man and kicks off the rest of the movie. In Across, Gwen is tasked by Miguel to go to Miles' dimension to capture The Spot, but she neglects this to go and visit Miles instead, hanging out with him for hours which leads to The Spot reviving his powers and kicking off the Big Bad of the film. Gwen and Miles really do share their fair deal of parallels.
• Across The Spider-Verse and its upcoming sequel were originally announced as a two-part film, before the third instalment was eventually retitled Beyond The Spider-Verse. This was a fitting change, since at end of this movie, Miles is stuck in Earth-42, a universe where Spider-Man has never existed.
• Hobie and Pavitr's Odd Friendship has a deeper albeit saddening connection than just mutual hatred for the British government. Remember, Hobie is Afro-British; Assuming the rest of Earth-138B's history played out the same way as "our" Earth and Pavitr's Earth-50101B, it means the British Empire still colonized Africa. Thus Hobie himself is likely descended from black slaves brought to the UK; a direct result of British colonialism just like Pavitr, India and Mumbattan.
  • Slight correction here - due to the practice of slavery being outlawed within the British Isles themselves in the 1772 Mansfield Judgement (not the wider Empire, just within the isles themselves, and the slave trade remained legal until 1807, owning slaves in the colonies until 1833) - there's a bit more going on with how black people came to the UK as opposed to the US. While yes, the descendants of slaves in Britain from before the Mansfield Judgement make up a fair proportion of our black population, there was an African population in Britain dating back to the Roman Empire, with evidence for their continued presence in Britain up through the medieval era, including a black Briton depicted in the Domesday Book, an abbot at St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury in the seventh century and a trumpeter at the court of Henry VIII. Even assuming Hobie's family came over after the slave trade was established, there are also descendants of former African-American slave soldiers who fought on the Loyalist side of the American Revolution in exchange for their freedom, enough immigration from Africa in the 1830s for laws to be specifically passed against it in 1834, leading to a slight decline in Britain's black population, and the 'Windrush Generation' who arrived in the UK from the Caribbean post-WW2 to help with the post-war rebuilding, only to face massive discrimination upon their arrival (indeed, a massive problem in teaching the history of black people in Britain is the sheer number of Brits who will tell you with a straight face that there were no black people in Britain before Windrush, and the idea that black people have only come to Britain in the last few centuries is often used to silence any attempts to discuss black history in Britain). To be clear, this is absolutely still tied to colonialism, and the previous post's point still holds, even if they got some of the details of why slightly wrong, but the exact history is still useful context to have.
• When Hobie's pulling random pieces of machinery off of the computers in the Spider-society headquarters (just before Miles meets Miguel), he's not just causing trouble on purpose: he's also scavenging parts to create his own interdimensional watches, as we see when he gives one to Gwen.
  • By making his own dimension-hopping wristbands (enabling Gwen to gather like-minded allies to assist Miles at the end of the movie), one could say that like a true revolutionary, Hobie seized the means of production from a ruler.
  • When Hobie quits the Spider Society, he's shown discarding his watch after stepping through the portal. Since the watches are how Miguel keeps track of everyone, this gives him the ability to stay one step ahead of Miguel. On top of that, seeing as how he gave a bootleg watch to Gwen, Hobie's probably been discreetly building watches for years. He might even have one reserved for Miles in Beyond The Spider-Verse.
• Not only that but throughout the scene in HQ, Hobie keeps physically putting himself in Miles' way, hanging over him or sitting with legs extended before Miles pushes through. Hobie knows that Miguel's intentions for Miles are not in his favour, and is trying to warn him that the path ahead is one of resistance and he's better off doing his own thing.
  • These casual obstructions are an extension of what Hobie wants to teach Miles: how to break barriers, both literal and metaphorical. Not only does he teach Miles to pierce force fields with his Venom Blast, but he also ensures Miles is in the mindset necessary to defy the Spider-Society and to defy fate itself.
  • Then Hobie dips as soon as the chase for Miles begins, showing that he is totally confident Miles has what it takes to successfully defy the Spider-Society. Where does he go? Well, eventually Gwen's dimension to drop off a watch, showing that he's been plotting this for a long time and that Miles was exactly the weakness in the Spider-Society that he was waiting for.
  • Also when Jess said Miguel wants them back at HQ, Hobie said, "I don't follow orders, neither does he." He was then disappointed when Miles excitedly agreed to go and then they both went back to HQ anyway. At first, it seems like Hobie just being inconsistent as usual, but he was just trying to get Miles not to go with Jess, because he knows the truth.
• The "snitch" civilian so readily helped Miguel find Miles during the Nueva York chase because he's her Spider-Man. She had no context for the chase, so as soon as she saw her friendly neighbourhood hero chasing someone she didn't recognize, she assumed Miles must be a villain and ratted him out.
• Why is it that an organization of entirely Spider-Man variants is charged with protecting the entire multiverse? Why does the multiverse's existence hinge on this singular character? Because it doesn't: the Spider-Society only deals with Spider-Man related events and people, essentially tasked with policing their own variants across all the different timelines with the "Arachno-Humanoid Polymultiverse" requiring some level of consistency across all the variants.
  • However, the Spider Society was never "tasked" with protecting the multiverse. Miguel is the one who started dabbling with dimensions for his daughter in the first place, and once he started contacting other Spider-people and discovering canon events, it all came together. Miguel built this charge around himself because of his past trauma, leaving us with the major issue that plagues Miles and Gwen too: being tainted by knowledge of the multiverse when true healing resides in one's own.
• Earth-65B using a different model for Peter Parker than the previous film has the in-universe justification of Gwen's recap being from Miles' point of view, since the only Peters he had seen by then were his own and Peter B.
• The Spot shouting overdramatically after getting hit in the head with a bagel may seem like a Minor Injury Overreaction, but when one accounts for Miles' Super-Strength it doesn't seem like it actually is. Miles may have thrown the bagel with enough force to actually hurt him.
  • Going further on that, due to the sheer amount of Power Incontinence Miles had in the last movie, you have to remember that the average agreed upon statistic for Spider-Man's normal output in strength is ten tons of force that they comfortably carry/exert. So, to put into perspective, had the bagel not been well... a bagel, Miles could have actually killed Spot with how much force he carelessly exerted throwing the bagel at him because the comparable force would have been the equivalent of a cinder block hitting his head at around 20mph otherwise. So yeah, of course the Spot would call attention to it, because it really goddamn hurt.
• The imprisoned villains cheering Miles and booing the Spider Society parallels Gwen's later armour-piercing line that 'We are supposed to be the good guys'. The Spider-Verse's moral world has really turned upside down when the villains are cheering for Miles (albeit out of spite rather than heroism) and booing the notionally heroic Spider Society, and we agree with them.
• Web-Slinger's horse having a mask may seem like a gag... but fly masks are a real thing in equestrianism, so it might be the real reason why.
• Miles deciding "I'll do my own thing" in front of Miguel is an extension of Peter B. Parker's advice to him in the first movie: "Stop listening to me... don't do it like me, do it like you!" The only reason Miles has even gotten this far is by doing his own thing and fighting for those he loves, and he's not gonna stop now.
• The scene where Miles, Gwen, Pavitr, and Hobie save Mumbattan from the falling Alchemax Building:
  • Observe their body language when they're sizing up the situation. Gwen, Hobie, and Pavitr seem like they've had the energy sucked out of them; Gwen is filled with dread, Hobie's posture is grim, and Pavitr is holding his head in panic. Miles however shakes the other three out of their stupor by laying out a game plan and leading them into action. Why is Miles' reaction different from the others? Here one needs to remember a few things.
    • The first is that how unusual Miles' journey to being Spider-Man is. Most Spider-people start out with street-level crime-fighting before occasionally getting tangled up in much bigger events. Pavitr in particular, being relatively new to Spider-Man, has probably never seen a disaster on this scale before, while Gwen and Hobie, being more experienced, are putting it up there with some of the worst they've seen. But Miles? His first mission was stopping Kingpin's collider, a multiverse-level threat. In doing so, he had to go from Zero to Hero, learning to take the "leap of faith" and go for it. Where the others are wondering how on Earth they'd deal with this, Miles pushes them to just go for it, once again taking the leap of faith and bringing the others along with him.
    • The second that sets them apart is the way they think about being a Spider-person. Gwen and Pavitr are clearly sizing up the situation as individuals, eyes focused squarely ahead at the disaster at hand. Hobie, after a moment of doing the same, looks towards Pavitr in concern as if wondering how his friend is holding up. But Miles? After taking a moment to realize how bad everything is, immediately looks towards the others and splits the work. Of the group, Miles is the one who reminds Pav that he's not alone, and that he can count on his fellows to share the burden. Miles' greatest adventure had him become one Spider-Man in a group, and he has been dreaming this whole time of seeing his friends again, so it's more natural for him to think of what a group of Spider-people can accomplish.
  • Miles and Pavitr saving people from the collapsing building is a masterclass in prioritization, delegation, and trust:
    • Miles runs straight through and snags people as he goes, hurling everyone out the windows as he looks for other people. Since he doesn't have the arm-span to physically carry five people out, doing it in this way gets them out of immediate danger into open air. Conveniently, since he's bringing up the rear and has his hands free, when he senses incoming debris he is free to just turn around and smash it.
    • After Miles ejects people from the building, Pavitr is the one to snag the civilians with his web-lines. Judging from the look the two exchanged before Miles dove into the building and Pavitr veered off in another direction, Pavitr was probably waiting on the other side of the building to see how many people Miles got out so he could perform the catch. In addition, between the two of them, Pavitr, who incorporates diabolo techniques and all four of his limbs into his web-work, can perform more intricate maneuvers with his lines in midair and at greater speed than Miles, which lets him lasso them all in one go and then reel them in. The others, with only their straight-shooting web-shooters, would probably need a few more moves to do something similar.
    • Instead of making another web-line to do a swing, Pavitr instead extends his arm for Miles, who is finished with the rubble at this point, to come in and swing them all to safety. Pavitr has been focused on securing the civilians at this point, and would have to take a moment to anchor a new web-line and then look for a safe spot to drop off the civilians. Miles on the other hand is already mid-swing, and has picked a safe place. Pavitr showing absolute faith in his fellow Spider-Man allows them to complete this evacuation in record time. Considering how they were barely in time to save the remaining people on the bridge, they needed every second they could get.
• Why did Miles publicly endorse a baby powder of all things? Because in the prior film, Peter B. Parker advised him to put baby powder in his suit to prevent chafing!
• Nobody actually refers to LEGO when talking about LEGO Spider Man. While this could just be writing around trademarks, it makes sense in-universe for the word to never show up. None of the LEGO adaptations ever really acknowledge the world being made up of bricks as an oddity, let alone acknowledge the brand. To them, everything being made out of bricks is how it's supposed to be. Assuming that none of the other universes have LEGO as a toy brand for a point of reference, nobody would realize that LEGO Spider Man's world is based off that brand.
• Pavitr's style to use his legs to coil his web and using diabolo are actually working in tandem, not just combining two separate things. Notice how Pavitr has a habit to make a pulley out of his web when managing heavy loads (like several falling people). Pulleys make lifting a load lighter, but they require multiple amounts of rope/web to pull. This is why Pavitr uses his legs to coil the web; he needs to manage longer webs quicker than a standard Spider-Person. However, the diabolo also comes in when managing a pulley, as it pulls the web from the other hand and hence makes it quicker to pull the web. Pulleys also come with U-loops, which are integral part of using diabolos. Pavitr also uses leg acrobatics elsewhere too, but that is probably more of a habit spurred by management of long webs.
• How does Hobie’s massive hair fit inside the mask? Because his hair breaks the rules of physics.
• Gwen's Armor-Piercing Response to Miguel about how the Society are supposed to be the good guys acts as an Ironic Echo to the policemen of Earth-65B saying the same thing to Miguel. The lack of confidence he has when claiming the other Spiders that they are in contrast to how he confidently said it earlier shows how much Gwen's words stuck with him.
• At the end, Gwen has gathered a team of eight Spider-people, including herself, which might also be a small nod to the number of legs that a spider has.
• Spider Slinger being one of the few Society members who talks with Miles when he first arrives makes sense when in the original Spider-Verse comic, comic Miles is the one who recruits him and Widow.
• The film is pretty much the The Empire Strikes Back of the Spider-Verse but in two ways.
  • Spot, the typical villain becomes all-powerful and is returning to his dimension to fulfill his destiny.
  • And then there's Miles, the villain to Spider Society, not only humiliates them, mainly Miguel but also fractures them, leading no doubt a civil war.
• A lot of fans were disappointed that the Spider-Man from the 90’s cartoon was absent. However, it makes sense why he wasn’t part of the Spider Society: he’s been to a universe where Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy both lived, so of course he wouldn't believe Miguel about Canon Events.
  • It also makes sense because his final arc in the series was doing exactly what Miles is doing. And Miguel can’t argue against it because it saved the multiverse!
• Why didn't Miles begin glitching immediately upon entering Earth 42 like he did when he entered Mumbattan? While some plot convenience is clearly at play, it may still also be explained by Earth 42 being where the spider that bit him originates from, hence part of Miles' DNA belongs in that universe and prevented him from glitching for a while longer than it did in Mumbattan (as well as Earth 928 where he began glitching after a few minutes).
• Gwen taking one of Miles's collectible figures out of its box may not just be her being ignorant of mint condition. Considering how subtly different universes are, her Earth may not have such a concept.
• Part of Gwen's opening speech (that is really her speech for recruiting Spider-people at the end) has her stating, "You think you know the rest... You don't." Considering this is after she has realised Miguel's view on "canon events" is flawed, this is likely her nod at this, that no, they don't know how things will play out despite of what "canon" says. She also goes on to say, "I thought I knew the rest. But I didn't." which is very possibly Foreshadowing of her learning in Beyond that the "canon" fate of a Gwen Stacy who falls for Spider-Man can be averted as well.
  • Additionally, remove a phrase from her repeated lines and you get "His name is Miles Morales... and he's not the only one." Possibly a clever little clue as the ending shows he's indeed not the only Miles Morales around.
• Spot is shaping out to be the main threat to the multiverse in this story. One of his notable character design features is the underlying "sketch" layer being rather visible in his early appearances. However, he's not the only major character with the sketch layer peeking out. Miguel O'Hara, a later antagonist in this story, also has sketch layers peeking out, most visible in his shoulder regions. And considering the morally dubious actions he took (such as taking the place of his alternate-universe self in order to be with their family) and his abilities, Miguel does qualify as a multiversal villain.
  • Not only that, but the way the sketch layers are presented provides some subtle theming as well. Miguel's "sketch layer" for himself and that of his technology resembles the concept drawings for blueprints, with lines extending past where the edges actually end (seen most clearly on the shoulders of his suit, and subtly on the rounded-off corner of the platform he descends on to meet Miles), as though the angles and numbers were sorted out first and then the details were figured out after. Meanwhile, Spot's sketch layer looks more freehand, and makes him resemble a human figure template that hasn't been detailed yet. Miguel is rigid and methodical to a fault, believing that his "plan" is the only right way to do things, even though it shows some rough spots on the edges; Meanwhile Spot is an "incomplete" person trying to find his identity and place in the world after his accident.
• When Miles uses the Go-Home Machine, he was in his invisible form. In other words, he was actively using his spider's powers. The spider that did not come from Miles' home dimension. There is a non-zero chance that, had he not been invisible, the machine would've sent him back to Earth-1610 and not Earth-42, from which the spider that bit Miles originally came from.
• A minor detail, but another thing that makes Earth-42 Rio stand out from her 1610 counterpart is that 1610 Rio wears jewelry throughout the film; 42 Rio does not (as noted by Cinema Wins), serving as another subtle clue that 42 Rio is struggling more economically due to being a single parent. There is also the possibility that, with 42 New York being as crime-ridden as it is, walking around with jewelry in public would put oneself in danger of being mugged.
• During the chase after Miles, Gwen goes from not wearing her mask, to briefly wearing it, to taking it off again. Notably, she doesn't wear it at first, not really being a need for it in the Society anyway (and visually making her and Peter stand out from the other Spider-people) but it's also likely symbolic for how she's not into catching Miles and still believes she has a shot to reason with him, shown as she tries to smile at him when catching him in her web. But then Miles only gives her an angry glare and severs the web, devastating her and likely making her realise that they have no choice but to catch him. When Miguel orders "Send everyone", she's now wearing her mask and shuts her eyes in pain, showing she has decided to try and be serious about catching him despite how it hurts, and a moment later she helps launch Jess towards Miles (although he easily defeats her). Once Miguel has pinned Miles on the train, however, her mask is off again, showing that she once again feels conflicted about what they're doing and both her and Peter attempt to talk Miguel out of being so harsh on Miles, instead of climbing up to Miguel and helping him contain him.
• When touring the Spider Society headquarters, Miles sees a live action Prowler played by Donald Glover, possibly the Earth-199999 version of Aaron Davis that we previously met in Spider-Man: Homecoming. In that film, Aaron indirectly mentioned his nephew while being interrogated by Peter, and since that Peter is still active, their world's version of Miles Morales is still young and hasn't become Spider-Man yet. During their brief encounter in this film, Earth-1610's Miles is not referred to by his real name by anyone present, he's visibly aged in his later teen years, and due to the Roger Rabbit Effect, he maintains his animated appearance when interacting with live action characters. Because of this, the live action Aaron doesn't recognize this other Miles, but has unknowingly just seen a firsthand glimpse at the future that likely awaits his nephew in his own world.
• During the chase sequence, particularly where everyone is on the train, the camera shots are angled and directed in a way as if Miguel is in the right for stopping Miles. However, it's only when Miles' true plans are revealed where the camera is reframed and it's actually the other way around as Miles' head is above Miguel's, showing that Miles has the morale high ground. Fitting since his surname is Morales.
  • Tellingly enough, Miguel desperately attempts to cling onto the train without regard for how many of his Society members are thrown off by him. Whereas Miles chooses to go home rather than continue fighting the Society.
• When Miguel is showing Miles the Spiderverse, the Canon Events are displayed in a window reminiscent of the "lenses" of the classic Spider-man mask. Which makes sense as they're essentially looking into another universe.
• Once both Gwen and Miles have been sent through the Go-Home-Machine, pay attention to their scenes and the entirety of the ending continues to parallel them to each other, from their state of minds, to the setting around them, to their position in shots directly mirroring each other to their actions (both of them have a scene of giving an emotional speech to their parent, for instance, with the exception of Miles finding out it wasn't his actual mom), and it culminates in both of their final shots being of them giving a confident smile (in Miles' case being blink-and-you'll-miss it, but it's there). This is indicating that despite how Gwen and Miles' friendship has been badly damaged at this point, their relationship is still the heart of the movie and their story together isn't over.

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