Comic Book / Spider-Man 2099

Spider-Man 2099 was the first title of Marvel Comics' Marvel 2099 venture.

Miguel O'Hara, a geneticist for the MegaCorp Alchemax, was working on a way to splice a person's genetic codes to give them superpowers. He bases his ideal creation on one of the heroic age's greatest super-heroes, Spider-Man, hoping to create the ultimate "corporate raider". When an experiment goes awry, resulting in the death of the volunteer, Miguel decides to quit. However, his boss, Tyler Stone, tricks him into taking some Rapture, a drug that bonds with the user's genetic structure and makes them highly addicted. As Alchemax is the only legal supplier of the drug, Stone believes Miguel will have no choice but to stay with Alchemax.

Refusing to accept this, Miguel sneaks into his lab that night, hoping to use his genetic imprint (which he had used as a base in his experiments) to restore him to the way he was before. However, a jealous co-worker sees him and sabotages the machinery, hoping to kill him. Instead, Miguel emerges with the Spider-Man genetic code imprinted on him, having gained fangs, claws, and enhanced strength and vision.

After being forced to run from Alchemax security, Miguel finds himself chased by Venture, a Cyborg sent by Stone to capture him so he can be studied. Donning an outfit he wore for a Day of the Dead festival, Miguel takes on Venture, and beats him, signalling the beginning of his career as the Spider-Man of 2099.

Although Miguel started off looking for a cure for his condition, he soon realized the horrors Alchemax and other corporations had caused in the world, and made it his mission to make things better.

Spider-Man 2099 was by far the most prolific Marvel 2099 title, with the character surviving long after the franchise's end, appearing in such series as Exiles. After guest-starring in the Superior Spider-Man series, Miguel gained a brand new series in 2014, which showcases Miguel's attempts to prevent Alchemax from becoming the company it's known as in the future. As a result of Secret Wars (2015), the title was temporarily renamed Secret Wars 2099 and focused on a 2099 version of The Avengers. With the conclusion of Secret Wars 2099, the book was relaunched under its previous title, with a new Parker Industries-made costume for Miguel. This third volume lasted for twenty-five issues.

In 2019, Spider-Man 2099 made a surprise return in The Amazing Spider-Man (2018), trying to warn Peter that the future had been destabilized due to too many changes manifesting in Earth-616.

He also made a rather unexpected appearance in The Stinger of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and appears in its sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. In both films, he is voiced by Oscar Isaac.

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The original series contains examples of:

• Afterlife Express: Implied to be the case in issue "Route 666". Miguel is in the middle of the desert, yet somehow runs into a guy named Dash who he hasn't seen in decades yet is completely unchanged, Dash somehow knows he's Spider-man, and the truck he's driving is full of people making dead jokes. One of which is the recently deceased Angela Daskalakis. Then a roadblock forces them on an incredibly bumpy road that Dash explains as being "paved with good intentions", and suddenly they're chased by actual demons riding motorcycles. The ending makes it seem like it was All Just a Dream, but Miguel finds one of the tentacles he cut off from the demons. The overall implication is that Dash is either dead or the ferry-man, and he's driving people to the afterlife.
• Awful Wedded Life: George and Conchata O'Hara came at odds at every turn; he favoured Miguel and used him to advance through Alchemax's ranks, even forcing him to attend a boarding school without his wife's consent, while he completely ignored Gabriel's existence, who Conchata favoured herself. The two of them are shown to fight in their every interaction.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The O'Haras and Stones.
  • The father George O'Hara was a short-tempered man who was using physical punishment on his sons, and barely acknowledged Gabriel's existence while pushing Miguel to be perfect (especially messed-up once you realise that Miguel is not even related to him). It got to the point that Miguel hoped the man would grow really old just to suffer from all the perils and indignation of his advanced age.
  • The mother Conchata is outright mad (though the exact mental illness is unspecified), has Miguel as The Unfavorite, and is not above committing crimes. She has even has attempted both murder and suicide. And that's without getting into her past with Tyler Stone.
  • Miguel is a very troubled individual who has very strained relationships with his family (outright calls his mother crazy and wanted his father to suffer, while he barely gets along with his Gabriel), was this close to becoming a Corrupt Corporate Executive and then he finds out that his biological father is his greatest nemesis. Which has its own baggage right there.
  • Gabriel has a much better relationship with his mother, but is constantly at odds with Miguel due to their messed-up dating lives (Miguel has stolen Gabriel's girlfriend at least once) and extremely different life choices - the two barely stay in contact prior to the series.
  • Tyler Stone was Conchata's original lover and Miguel's biological father. He's the Big Bad of the series - a Corrupt Corporate Executive of the highest order - and is not above making Miguel addicted to an extremely dangerous drug just to keep him in his company (even if it turned out that was faked). He also doesn't form any real emotional attachments - while he claims one of his girlfriend s made him happy, he does not hesitate to order the execution of his own son Kron, just as he had done for his wife.
  • Kron Stone was a pathetic and entitled bully as a kid, regularly humiliating and attacking Miguel, and that got even worse as he grew up. In his first appearance in The Punisher 2099, he killed happy families precisely because they were happy. After the Punisher got to him, he ends up half-dead in the sewers andbonds with the Venom Symbiote, now looking for revenge on his father for discarding him. He also tries to kill Miguel several times, apparently unaware that they're related.
  • Eventually Miguel sums up the whole situation with quite the bitterness.
    Miguel: I have two half brothers. One thinks he's my full brother, and hates Spider-man... and the other doesn't know we're related and hates Miguel. Add them up, I've got one whole brother who hates me completely.
    Layla: It's nice to have family.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Miguel was this at first, allowing Vulture 2099 to fall to his death, though his view improved over time.
• Breakout Character: By far the most popular hero of the Marvel 2099 line, and is typically the poster boy for alternate, non-contemporary Spider-Men in comics and other media.
• Bungled Suicide:
  • Miguel attempted this right after his transformation, by jumping of the Alchemex building. However, his talons caught him in time and he realised that he didn't have it in him.
  • His mother Conchata bungles her own suicide, deciding to answer for her crimes in court because Suicide is Shameful.
• The Bus Came Back: Early in the issues a transdimensional portal coughs out the Prophet, a man with mysterious psionic powers. He leaves to Walk the Earth, but comes back several issues later (after the whole Venom debacle), accompanying Xina in her travels. And then they both vanish again.
• Cain and Abel:
  • Miguel's paternal half-brother, Kron Stone, becomes Venom 2099.
  • Played with in Miguel's maternal half-brother, Gabe. Gabe was originally set up by Peter David as a red herring for the identity of Goblin 2099, but it became canon due to Executive Meddling, playing this trope straight with Miguel and Gabe battling each other. However, 2099: Manifest Destiny later Retconned it so Goblin was a shapeshifter assuming Gabe's identity, averting this trope.
• Canon Discontinuity: Following Spider-Man 2099 returning after the Age of Ultron, Peter David retconned everything that happened after he left the team behind Volume 1 when writing Volume 2 and Volume 3.
• Canon Immigrant:
  • John Tensen, A.K.A. Justice is brought into the 2099-verse by an Alchemax scientist.
  • Miguel himself is one in the second series, being as he is now in the "mainstream" Marvel Universe.
• Cassandra Truth: Miguel point-blank tells his mother he's Spider-Man and she refuses to believe it.
• Censor Shadow: Miguel comes out of the genetic resequencer naked, and spends half an issue wearing nothing but an open labcoat and some very convenient shading.
• Cool Old Lady:
  • Miss Angela Daskalakis, Miguel's old teacher. She is a strict lady but she cares deeply for her students, and was not afraid to get her hands dirty to protect them. She protected Miguel from Kron when he was a kid, and eventually gave her life to protect them. All in all, she is one of the very few people Miguel has held in high esteem over the years, and has an epic case of Heroic B So D after he failed to save her.
  • Conchata O'Hara. Regardless of her sons' low opinion on her, she's still the lady who has the guts to stare down and even fight anyone, ranging from Tyler Stone to Metahumans threatening to kill her.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Tyler Stone (And most of the other corporation heads).
• Corporate Samurai: The Specialist, happily leaning heavily on the "samurai" part. Also, Miguel's old job was basically to design guys like this.
• Crapsack World: The Earth is this under Alchemax and the other big corporations, the air is only partially breathable, most large mammals have gone extinct, and the class segregation is more obvious than ever.
• Cue the Rain: Miguel has just found out that Tyler Stone, the man he hates more than anyone else in the world, is not only his father, but Stone never actually slipped the drug Rapture into his drink. This means that Miguel was never addicted to the drug and he therefore had no need to experiment on himself in order to kick the addiction. Thus, he never had to become Spider-Man at all. Naturally, this is when it starts to rain.
  Miguel: I turned into a spider freak to shake an addiction I never had. My entire life is a lie. Lord in Heaven, what else can happen to m— Cue the Rain
• Deadpan Snarker: Peter David writes this series. It's a given. However, Miguel is only snarky when he's not wearing the costume.
• Deducing the Secret Identity:
  • Miguel's brother Gabriel figures out that Miguel is the new Spider-Man from his very first outing because his suit is the costume that Miguel wore to the Festival of the Dead the year before. Miguel thinks that Gabriel doesn't know, but Gabriel instead of revealing that he knows he instead plays at being a Secret Secret-Keeper and a Stealth Mentor.
  • Vulture 2099, while he doesn't identify Miguel by name (they never met before), he quickly figures out that Miguel is a corporate scientist that got his powers from a Corporate Samurai experiment gone wrong after just a few lines of dialogue.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Both Dana and Miss Daskalakis die in Miguel's arms.
• Dirty Coward: How Xina viewed Miguel when they were kids at school, when Miguel never took the chance to stand up to Kron Stone. Turned on its head however when you consider that Miguel never did so because he was afraid that Kron wouldn't ever actually get expelled from the school due to his actions. Therefore, in the event that he did stand up to Kron, Miguel assumed that he would be stuck with him at school for the next few years, making it more of a pick-your-battles kind of thing than outright cowardice. And considering who Kron's father is, this isn't a bad assumption on his part. Miguel eventually gets over it; however, when Kron assaults Xina and later attempts to kill Miguel with a knife, fighting back against the other boy and testifying against him in a trial. However, he's almost proven right, when Tyler Stone steps in to strongarm the school into keeping Kron on. If not for the headmistress standing up to him, Miguel's prior assumptions would have proven true.
• Easily Forgiven: Miguel and Dana carry on an affair behind Gabriel's back for three weeks and he's rightfully angry about it when he finds out from Xina. Miguel telling him that the relationship was already over and Xina telling him that it was dull also didn't help matters. Yet he almost immediately forgives both of them when Dana asks him to forgive Miguel, stating that she doesn't want to see the bond between brothers destroyed.
• Exact Words:
  • Tyler Stone talks Gabriel down, after he's pointed a gun at a bunch of officers, partially through mentioning that he won't even be arrested. After Gabriel has surrendered his gun, Stone then specifically tells the guards not to arrest him as he's walking away. He didn't say they couldn't brutally beat him, however.
  • Xina told Miguel she has an antique car. Turns out it's a rocket car.
• Fantastic Drug:
  • Rapture is a legal designer drug developed by (and exclusive to) the Alchemax corporation, distributed to employees in order to keep them loyal to the company. A "very high-powered, mind-expanding hallucinogen", it causes the user to feel perfectly calm and collected... unless he tries to fight the drug's effects, in which case it causes him to hallucinate wildly, "seeing monsters everywhere." It also bonds with the user's DNA in short order, becoming so addictive "you need it the way you need air to breathe."
  • The Chameleon is reimagined as a designer drug that alters the user's DNA and allows largely uncontrollable shapeshifting that, more often than not, results in a slow and agonizing death. It's so volatile that even Alchemax (its creator) wants nothing more to do with it.
• Female Gaze:
  • Part of the reason why Kasey is attracted to Spider-Man is because in her own words he has the tightest ass she's ever seen.
  • It's a superhero comic. Muscular physiques and form-fitting clothes are part of the package.
• Foreshadowing: It's eventually revealed that Miguel's boss, Tyler Stone, is actually his biological father. While this comes as a complete surprise to him, there are a few hints earlier in the series to this revelation, such as the fact that Stone refers to a young Miguel as son and personally arrives to pick him up to take him to the Alchemax School for Gifted Youngsters, which is noted to be unusual.
• Future Slang: "Shock", the 2099 equivalent of "fuck".
• Hell Is That Noise: As always, the Venom symbiote remains vulnerable to sound and once Spider-Man discovers this it quickly loses any edge it had over him.
• I Am a Humanitarian: The Vulture of 2099 and his entire gang are all cannibals.
• Insufferable Genius: Miguel has this air when he first appears. Same goes for Jordan Boon.
• It's Personal: A Public Eye officer goes against Stone's orders and has his squad fire on Miguel, due to the fact that Miguel had badly cut up his son (also a PE officer) a few weeks before with his talons.
• Legacy Character: Besides the title character, there are also 2099 equivalents of Spider-Man foes like the Vulture, Venom, Green Goblin, Chameleon, and... Namor. As well as legacy heroes like Thor, Captain America and The Punisher.
• Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: The Trope Namer for this, the poem by Percy Shelley, is referenced and nearly recited in full word for word after Doom's fall in front of the destroyed White House. Could also be applied to the 2099 setting itself where the heroes of the Heroic Age, for all their glory and power, are now little more than footnotes in history, with most of them having faded into obscurity altogether.
• Love Dodecahedron: Miguel is in love with and engaged to Dana D'Angelo, who was dating his younger brother Gabriel when they originally got together, when Miguel was already with Xina Kwan. Early on Gabriel still shows signs of having feelings for Dana and they even share a kiss, but he is already in a relationship, and in love with, Kasey Nash, who later breaks up with him after she falls in love with Spider-Man, which is Miguel's secret identity. Shortly afterwards Dana starts seeing Tyler Stone. The Miguel/Dana/Tyler side of things is resolved when Dana is tragically killed and Miguel later gets back together with Xina, after which the two get married.
• Love at First Sight: Miguel towards Dana, even though he was with Xina at the time. It was mutual, much to the displeasure of Gabriel and Xina.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: While eavesdropping on his mother and Tyler Stone, Miguel learns that Stone is his biological father. Later, Stone does tell Miguel himself in a last-ditch attempt to rattle him, but Miguel calmly sips his coffee, tells him he already knew and orders him to get out of his office.
• Made of Indestructium:
  • Flipside apparently. Not only did it survive in perfect condition for decades, it also effortlessly repairs itself after getting shot full of holes and getting blown apart by Spider-Man.
  • Miguel and some other Alchemax scientists also discover a Russian submarine that was intact since the Cold War. Though to be fair, it was trapped in a glacier.
• MegaCorp: Alchemax (among others).
• Memento Macguffin: It's eventually revealed that Lyla, the holographic assistant in Miguel's apartment, is this. She was designed based off of a tattoo that his former girlfriend Xina had of Marilyn Monroe. Miguel is shown to be fairly attached to her throughout the series, wanting her to be repaired after she malfunctions and attempts to kill him and Dana, even though his brother points out it would be much easier to simply get a new assistant.
• Motor Mouth: In an inversion from his inspiration, Miguel is the snarky jokester, while in costume, he doesn't say much, even keeping his voice "low and nasty" when he speaks. Lampshaded when he's fighting Venture, who won't stop talking, and Miguel thinks "Lord! Do I annoy people this much when I mouth off?"
• Murder by Mistake:
  • Miguel killed Aaron Delgato and the Specialist by accident because he could not control his powers at that point.
  • A group of police officers fatally shoot Dana when they shot Venom 2099 and their bullets went right through him, hitting her.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Early on, the AI in Miguel's apartment offers to change her appearance and switches between 3 or 4 different ones. The last one that offers to make him some warm milk and brownies looks exactly like Aunt May. After a not so subtle moment of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, when Miguel looks directly at the reader, he tells her to "kill it".
  • Issue #4 features Gabriel telling Miguel that "with great power must come great responsibility". Miguel later turns this on its head by saying his brother was wrong. "With great power comes great guilt".
  • When Miguel takes over Tyler's position in Alchemax, he begins looking around for someone to fill the role of his bodyguard. No one wants the job except one lady named April, who also happens to look exactly like Aunt May.
  • In issue #45, before running off to deal with a threat, Miguel claims that "this looks like a job for everybody's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man", even mentioning that it has a nice ring to it.
  • Issue #46 sees Miguel referring to himself as the "shockin sensational Spider-Man".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Due to just having had a run-in with his sister Risque, Miguel is already on edge the second time he meets Venture. He therefore immediately begins attacking the other man, assuming that Venture is attempting to capture him for Alchemax again. Only, as Venture reveals at the fight's conclusion, he wasn't. While he'd spent months since their last fight being angry at Spider-Man, as he himself notes, he had a lifetime of hatred towards his sister and was happy Spider-Man had defeated her. He mentions that had Spider-Man only listened to him they might have become friends, but because of his assault he'll be looking to kill Miguel the next time they meet.
  • Had Miguel not given Alchemax's officers the go ahead to use lethal force against Venom 2099, it is likely that Dana wouldn't have died, since using said force against Venom is what resulted in her death. Of course, seeing as she had been captured by Venom, she may have very well died anyways and not using lethal force against a monster like Venom would be pretty dumb.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • When Miguel tried to remove the Rapture in his system, Aaron Delgato, Miguel's supervisor, sabotaged the attempt with Spider DNA. That wound up bestowing Miguel with spider-powers that would enable him to become one of Alchemax's biggest enemies. And all of that wouldn't have happened if Tyler Stone hadn't thwarted Miguel's attempt to quit in the first place.
  • Later, Tyler Stone gave his old position to Miguel due to health reasons. Therefore, he no longer has any sort of authority in his own company, something that everyone from Miguel to random scientists take advantage of.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After Kron Stone has been captured and stripped of the Venom Symbiote he initially refuses to give Alchemax any information on the Symbiote and mocks Miguel over the deaths of innocent people and Dana. Miguel, who's already barely holding it together by this point, makes Kron an offer: if Kron can beat Miguel in a fight he can walk away a free man. Kron, not knowing Miguel is a superhuman, jumps at the chance. Naturally, he loses and it ends with Miguel beating him to a pulp, even after he's down.
  several panels of Miguel beating the crap out of Kron
  Kron: Awright...awright...I'll talk.
  Miguel: I know you will, Kron. But this isn't just about you talking. It's about all the people who'll never talk again...never smile or laugh or make love again...because of you. I don't want you to talk, Kron. I want you to scream. And we'll build from there.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • It's seeing that there's a human inside the Venom symbiote that breaks Spider-Man out of his murderous rage and, along with Venom's begging, makes him think twice about killing him. Tyler Stone also believes this of him and Miguel, that they both destroy the people closest to them. Miguel vehemently denies this however.
  • Vulture tries to evoke this with Spider-Man. He says that Spider-Man's corporate mentality isn't all that different to what he's is doing.
• Offing the Offspring: Tyler Stone attempts to do this with Kron after the whole Venom business is over, pointing out that Kron is little more than a lab animal since he was declared legally dead and that lab specimens are disposed of all the time. The only thing that saves Kron is that Tyler no longer has any authority at Alchemax when he gives the order.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Miguel runs into this after a strange adventure where he came across an old friend in the middle of the desert, along with a recently deceased friend, and a bunch of strange vampire bat-type bikers. The adventure started with the implication that it was just another part of 2099's strangeness. When it's over, however, Miguel wakes up on the side of the road as if it never happened, but he does find a barb that one of the bat bikers had in his dream, implying that it might have happened to some extent.
• Patricide: Attempted anyways. Kron Stone reveals that after bonding to the Venom Symbiote he was forced to retreat back into the sewer, after faking his own death, since he was so exhausted. He then returned to the surface when he heard his father was in the hospital, since he wanted to take "one last try at killing him".
• Pet the Dog:
  • Miguel takes the time to comfort the widow of the Thorite who saved him in the second issue.
  • Tyler Stone, who has shown no redeeming qualities thus far, sheds a tear when he finds out about Dana's death. He was dating her at the time.
• Poisonous Person:
  • Venom 2099, with the Symbiote having mutated to the point that it now secrets acid through touch.
  • Miguel has poisonous fangs.
• Public Domain Artifact: In this case, the Longinus Spear. True to form, when Thanatos stabs the Net Prophet with it, he just can't stop bleeding. Miguel has to use a heat sealer to close the wound.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • What Miguel hopes to be and strives to be after taking over for Tyler Stone as the head of Alchemax's Research and Development Division.
  • Miss Daskalakis is portrayed that way, as she tolerates absolutely no bullying in her school and has no problem helping out the victims in defending themselves.
  • Surprisingly, Tyler Stone turns out to be one; after his personal assistant tried to choke him because of a computer virus that was infecting him, Stone instantly forgives him, saying that he's used to people wanting to choke him, and they are in full possession of their faculties.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • Miguel obtains red irises after the experiment and he's certainly one of the most dangerous people in his verse.
  • Winston's eyes are red beneath his shades. They're also a sign that he's out of control.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Kron Stone first appeared in The Punisher 2099. After Jake Gallows stabbed and left him for dead in a sewer, the Venom symbiote found and bonded with him, and Kron went after Miguel.
• Rule of Three: Miguel counting his misfortunes in issue 17.
  Miguel: And then my accelerated vision saw three things, one after the other, which got me progressively more upset.
  "Bloodsword! That idiot? I thought I disposed of his in short enough order to..." That was one.
  "Oh shock. That's Thor's Hammer! Where did he—?" That was two.
  "MOM?!?" Three strikes, I'm out.
• Sadistic Choice: Venom 2099 forces Miguel into this, asking him to pick who will live and who will die between Dana and Xina.
• Scary Scorpions: In the Timestorm 2009–2099 crossover, an alternate version of Kron Stone is transformed into Scorpion 2099 rather than Venom. A chemical incident mutates him into a hideous, possibly mindless scorpion-like monster.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Gabriel for Miguel, as he realizes his brother is Spider-Man at the start of the series, but doesn't tell him until much later. Tyler Stone later claims the same thing in issue #44. Gabriel explains how he figured it out, which is hinted at from the series start, Tyler however never does. Miguel also wonders in the same issue, when he reveals his powers to Tyler and his mother, whether his mother always knew as well.
• The Sociopath: Tyler Stone. He pretended to get Miguel hooked to rapture, a drug that instantly hooks the user for life, in order to force him to continue working for Alchemax, the only company that provides the drug. The fact he was only pretending to do this, but made Miguel believe he was completely serious, possibly makes this all the worse. He flushed his son's ashes down a toilet, set up Spider-Man to kill The Specialist, shows a blatant disregard for the lives of other people on a regular basis, and, based on a conversation with Conchata O'Hara, murdered his own wife. Little surprise that his son Kron ended up as an entitled bully who has no qualms with attempted murder.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Miguel, Xina, Gabriel, and Kasey all experience this to some extent when they return from Mexico, having spent the Day of the Dead there. They find that Doom has taken control of the White House as President, Miguel is offered Tyler Stone's old job as head of Alchemax's Research and Development department, Dana and Tyler are dating, and Spider-Man is no longer such a wanted man with Doom wanting to work with him.
• Title by Year: Like all the titles in the Marvel 2099 family.
• Tuckerization: After Miguel Ferrer's passing, David, who was friends with the actor, revealed Miguel was named after him.
• Twofer Token Minority: Miguel and his brother are of both Irish and Mexican descent.
• Turn Out Like His Father: The reason that Miguel is The Unfavorite, as he always suspected. However, he's only half-right. As he later finds out, his mother doesn't dislike him because she fears he'll turn out like her husband, George O'Hara, but because she believes she sees him growing more and more like his real father everyday, Tyler Stone.
• The Unfavorite: Miguel's mother prefers his younger brother, Gabriel (she admires Spider-Man, though). It's telling that before she attempts to commit suicide, she leaves a message explaining why to Gabriel and not Miguel. Though by the end of the series, her relationship with Miguel has improved somewhat, with her admitting she has a lot to make up for in regards to him. And when she does die, her last words are that she loved both her sons.
• Ungrateful Bastard: When Miguel saves the Specialist from falling, the Specialist doesn't halt his attack, instead chiding Miguel for having no killing edge.
• Unwanted False Faith: Almost as soon as he shows up as Spider-Man, people begin hailing Miguel as the harbinger of Thor and the first sign of a new golden age. Eventually, he begins using this to help him in a few tight spots.
• Villain Takes an Interest: At first, Tyler Stone wanted Spider-Man to be taken in alive, so Alchemax could study and replicate his powers. He even had the Public Eye officer who ordered his squad to fire on Spidey "fired... with prejudice" when it looked like his actions had killed Spider-Man.
• Villains Want Mercy: After everything he has done, killing countless number of people, including Dana, Venom 2099 resorts to begging for mercy when Spider-Man finally defeats him.
• Walk the Earth:
  • Miguel does this for a while after finding out Tyler Stone is his father. Doubles as a Journey to Find Oneself.
  • John Tensen starts one such journey to see and fight the injustice in the world.
  • Xina starts this journey as a means to cope with Dana's death. She eventually meets John Tensen, and the two travel together.
• Where It All Began: Dana ends up dying beside Miguel right outside the club where the two of them first met.
• Whole Episode Flashback: The first three issues revolve around Miguel reciting his origin to his holographic computer, Lyla.
• The Whole World Is Watching: Tyler Stone decides to broadcast Spider-Man's fight with the Specialist to every channel - a fight which resulted in Miguel accidentally killing the Specialist. This had an avalanche of consequences, such as his brother figuring out his Secret Identity, the Thorites starting a new cult, Vulture taking an interest, and more.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Miguel's brother Gabriel quotes this to Miguel in issue #4, having been quoted it himself by his new girlfriend Kasey. Miguel initially scoffs at the idea, but after Kasey is kidnapped right in front of him after he failed to act, he starts to see the truth in it (after a fashion):
  Miguel: Wrong. Completely wrong. With great power comes great guilt.

The 2014 and 2015 series provides examples of:

• Affirmative-Action Legacy: Almost all the super-heroes of 2099 fall under this. For instance, Strange, Captain America and Moon Knight are all women, the new Black Widow is black, and so on and forth.
• All According to Plan: Hurrah, Miguel manages to fix Doom's time-machine, escape the Maestro and return to the present. Just like the Maestro wanted.
• Art Shift: Downplayed, Miguel is drawn with heavy shadows and thicker outline, reminiscing of his 90s artstyle, it's not very prominent but once you note it, it's hard to take away from it. Another clue for him to show he's a Fish out of Temporal Water
• Back for the Dead: The Miguel from Exiles returns in issue #5... only for Morlun to effortlessly kill him.
• Bad Future: When Miguel gets back to his own time, it's a future where Maestro, the future Hulk, rules what's left of humanity. Alchemax ended up doing something that led to nukes flying and blew everything up.
• Badass Family: Miguel is Spider-Man, his half-brother Stone is Venom, Tempest becomes a superhero, her mother has Death Ray powers, and the son Gabriel becomes the new Spider-Man.
• Batter Up!: Punisher 2099 versus Morlun's brother Daemos, who states that a baseball bat won't do anything to him. Jake points out that it's made of titanium. It still doesn't do much, though.
• Big Damn Kiss: Miguel gives this to Tempest, right after her brainwashing kicks in and she kills him. It even has the classic pose from that "the war is over" picture.
• BFG: Gabe O'Hara just so happens to have one of these in his apartment. Apparently his ex left it there, just in case.
• The Bus Came Back: During the Civil War II crossover, versions of the 2099 Defenders and Avengers (from Secret Wars) appear, along with Daredevil, Moon Knight and some of the X-Men.
• Call-Back:
  • Miguel recognizes the Maestro from the encounter with him in Peter David's Captain Marvel.
  • One of the Bad Futures is full of references to the original Spider-man 2099 run; Gabe still has his avatar Firelight (and the Cybernet is still around), Kana is still his girlfriend and somehow has the Payback Armor, Father Jennifer is the Goblin, Kron is still Venom and knows his relationship with Miguel, and Conchata receives a brief mention.
• Canon Discontinuity: Everything that happened in Vol. 1 after Peter David left is completely disregarded, as the amount of Time Travel involved means that Alternate Universe is in play.
• Cassandra Truth: When asked who he is by people in the modern day, Miguel just tells them the truth.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Played with. Miguel is actually wearing his costume at all times, and has Lyla project a hologram of ordinary clothing over it. All he has to do to "switch" is to tell her to drop the projection.
• Close-Enough Timeline: The restored Earth-928 that Miguel returns to at the end of the series combines aspects of the original timeline and Earth-23291 from Secret Wars (2015), though Miguel doesn't seem to mind.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: Liz Allen takes less than a day to figure out that Miguel's the most likely candidate to be Spider-Man 2099, because his Social Security Number belongs to a dead man, and none of his other credentials check out.
• Create Your Own Villain: Miguel curing Tempest of her cancer inadvertently turned her into a mutate bug monster that wants to eat him.
• Cross Through: Miguel shows up in the final issue of All-New X-Factor, where it turns out a character from there is an old acquaintance of Miguel's, and a former employee of Alchemax, out to destroy the company before it was ever made, using the heroes of the modern age.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Maestro vs Spider-Man 2099. It goes as exactly how you would expect it to.
• Curse Cut Short: When Miguel shoves Roberta through the time machine, while refusing to explain why.
  Roberta: You sonuva biiIIIIII-
• Disaster Scavengers: Miguel runs into a pair almost immediately on his return to 2099.
• Distaff Counterpart: The Inhuman Gloriana is a golden Reality Warper with power to move things through time and space. Her name is even a feminine version of Glorian's.
• Doppelganger Link: Miguel can sense whenever any of his Alternate Selves dies. That feeling manifests as physical pain, and he also catches brief glimpses of their deaths.
• Everyone Is a Tomato: The Power Pack and J.J.J of 2099 Miguel meets in the Civil War II crossover are all deep-cover Skrulls.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Miguel doesn't play this straight in vol 2. He doesn't seem too bothered being eighty-five years in the past, or confused by it. Though he doesn't know what The Wizard of Oz is.
• Foreshadowing: When Tempest gets turned into a spider-wasp monster, Lyla notes that this shouldn't have happened unless there was something going on with her already. After Secret Wars, it turns out her mother had superpowers.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The T.O.T.E.M. assassin in issue 1 judges potential attackers and / or victims by their value to the timeline. If they or any potential unborn descendants of theirs are important, he won't kill them.
  • In the 2099 Miguel and Roberta Mendez visit in issues 14-16, that world's version of Roberta died when Alchemax tried to make her Captain America, and her husband / handler has become a reclusive wreck. Also, because of aforementioned dying, Roberta's kids weren't born.
• Freakiness Shame: When Tyler Stone "treats" Tempest's paralysis, she ends up transformed in a insect-like but still humanoid form, with wings and silver scales, which overall looks like an armoured fairy. Tempest is very ashamed of this, but Miguel confesses it looks kind of attractive.
  Tempest: Attractive!?
  Miguel: Would you rather I was repulsed by you?
  Tempest: Well, no...
  Miguel: Then take the compliment.
• Future Imperfect: The Hawkeye of 2099 is baffled when Hercules mentions that in ages past, people used to get the news on pieces of paper.
• Get Out!: Tempest, after waking up to find Spidey in her apartment holding something he's just injected her with. Hard to blame her, really.
• Grandfather Paradox: Miguel tries to stop Tyler Stone from traveling back in time to ensure the creation of Alchemax, and then has to stop the Superior Spider-Man from killing his grandfather Tiberius.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Elektra of all people shows up and teams up with Miguel and Captain America 2099; turns out the Fist is an off-shot of the Hand.
• High-Altitude Interrogation: Elektra with the help of Roberta and Miguel tries to interrogate a man who attacked them by holding him one-armed over the edge of a cliff.
  Miguel: Isn't your arm getting tired?
  Elektra: Actually, it is. I decided to toughen it out.
• Hulking Out: Roberta Mendez, the Captain America of Secret Wars 2099, looks like an average woman most of the time. When her super-soldier serum kicks in, though, she quickly develops the build of a female weightlifter.
• Hypocritical Humor: Early on in Vol. 3, Miguel goes to a Bad Future, and while there hears two attackers use Cosmic Marvel's handy all-purpose swear word "flark". Miguel, who liberally uses "shock", thinks this sounds ridiculous.
• I Lied: Miguel, when he admits he had no idea what the forcefield holding Daemos would do when he broke free.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Despite what it may initially appear; Miguel's original Spider-Man suit from the first 2099 run was black not blue, which has mislead many over the years including other artists. The reason why the suit looks blue was due to ink contrast limitations, as it was easier to print blues with blacks than it was to print blacks with greys.
• In Spite of a Nail: Versions of the Sam Fisk Daredevil and Warda Wilson Deadpool exist in the Civil War II version of 2099, despite the fact the Marvel Knights 2099 and Deadpool 2099 realities are nothing like the "standard" 2099-verse or its alternates.
• It Runs in the Family: You only need to be around Tiberius Stone for about five seconds to see where his son got it from.
  Miguel: (after Tiberius leaves him behind to wait out a supervillain attack in his bunker) Hard to believe he's my grandfather. (Beat) No, wait. It's pretty easy.
• Insane Troll Logic: T.O.T.E.M. sends a man to kill Miguel for illegal time-travel, rather than, say, just sending him back to his own time. Miguel even calls the guy out on it. The guy's basic response to Miguel calling his orders insane was "I know. Go argue with the law."
• Jerkass: Tiberius Stone, and Liz Allen.
• Lampshade Hanging: During the Spider-verse crossover, Lady Spider and Doctor Octopus get into a debate over the fact his group is called the Six of Sinistry. May points out that isn't a word (Ock insists it is).
• Lecherous Stepparent: It's revealed that Tempest's step-father had set up hidden cameras all over the house and took countless pictures of her, much like a stalker. She wasn't even in her teens at the time.
• Logical Weakness: Atropos can't cut someone's life thread if they're already dead.
• Medium Awareness: Deadpool 2099's cameo in vol 3 issue 16 has her attempt at killing Skrull!Jonah Jameson spoiled by the issue ending, which she grumbles about.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: Miguel versus the Maestro. Maestro's the one doing the mashing, hitting Miguel against the ground twelve times, and Miguel notes that, as powerful as he is, he could just as easily kill him. The only reason the Maestro is mashing him is for funsies.
• Mistaken Identity: The Scorpion mistakes Miguel for the present day Spider-Man (which, considering Spider-Man had recently punched his jaw off, isn't good for Miguel).
• My Beloved Smother: Tempest's mother is such a control freak that she makes Miguel think Tempest died after she and Miguel were caught in a terrorist attack that put Tempest into a coma. When she's in private, talking to her unconscious daughter, it's apparent that this is less about concern for Tempest's happiness than it is about having her own plans for Tempest's life. Later, though, it's revealed that her overprotective tendencies are because she herself has dangerous superpowers, and she wanted to keep Tempest from hurting somebody by accident if they turned out to be hereditary.
• My Suit Is Also Super: Miguel's new white suit is a mix of UMF and Kevlar (making invulnerable to almost everything), has in-built thrusters, a new refined glider system and an in-built GPS-radar system. Even with his 2099 standards, Miguel admits that it's cutting edge technology.
• Neck Snap: Morlun disposes of an alternate version of Miguel's father like this.
• No OSHA Compliance: The Doc Ock of Lady Spider's world uses a radioactive backpack, but since he lives in the 1800s, he has no idea about how nuclear safety works, and has given himself a fatal dose of radiation.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: How Lyla describes herself. In 2099, she is commonplace, but in 2015 she is beyond cutting edge and can hack absolutely anything.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Miguel, in issue 9, after getting thrown into a cell and realizing he's sharing it with Doctor Strange 2099.
  • And in the 2015 series, when he finds out he rides the same airplane with Elektra.
• Physical God: Atropos of the Greek Faiths who is the Big Bad of the series.
• Retcon: Back in Exiles, it was stated that cancer was still around in 2099, when an Alchemax scientist got fired for trying to sell a cure for free. In vol. 2, Miguel is able to acquire a cure when he returns to his own time, with the scientist claiming it's been kicking around since the 2040s. Since that story featured a diferent version Miguel, its also possible that those were diferent versions 2099 and Alchemax.
• Running Gag: Nobody, and we mean nobody can get over Captain America 2099 being a woman.
  cops over the radio: You sound like a woman!
  Captain America 2099: I get that a lot.
• Sarcastic Confession: Whenever Miguel lets something slip that would tip off a person that there's something off about him, he simply admits he's from the future. By the end of issue #2, he's gained a bit of a rep as a jokester when it comes to these kinds of things.
• Secret-Keeper: Surprisingly, Kron Stone. In one of the bad futures, he knows exactly who Spider-man is under the mask, but forbids the Sinister Six (whose he's a member of) to unmask him.
• Sequel Hook: Miguel is not completely satisfied with the ending of his adventures...
  Miguel: So I saved 2099, at the cost of the woman I loved and my son. Yeah. Like that's going to stick.
• Shout-Out:
  • At one point Miguel completely misses a reference to The Wizard of Oz, which prompts Raul to ask how could someone possible miss it.
  • Miguel later says that he won't rush it like Rambo, and he asks confirmation if that's actually his name.
  • Later he makes a Batman joke.
    Miguel: The commissioner needs me. He's shining the Spider-signal on a cloud.
• Someone to Remember Him By: The last chapter sees Miguel killed by a brainwashed Tempest, while she is pregnant with his son Gabriel.
• Spotting the Thread: Liz Allen realizes Spidey 2099 must be an Alchemax employee in issue 1, because he appeared inside the Alchemax building without breaking in, and while he could have just been someone visiting, she notes this is too unlikely.
• Sunglasses at Night: Miguel wears shades all the time, both due to his enhanced eyesight which makes him sensitive to bright lights, and to hide his deep red irises.
• Synthetic Plague: Tyler Stone attempts to release one in the middle of New York. It gets foiled by his time-travelling grandson.
• Tempting Fate: The Kraven of the Six of Sinistry declares that Miguel cannot break through the glass of his steampunk mecha's porthole. Miguel then proceeds to smash it with one punch.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal: The CEO of Alchemax Tyler Stone was already an immoral monster, between the abusive treatment towards his family, the human experimentation, and the horrendous treatment of his employees. However, in volume 3 of the comic, he joins in on a plot to murder one million people after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Miguel doesn't feel particularly sorry for him.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Miguel's attempts to fix the future by changing the past result in a series of Bad Futures that converge thanks to the Hand cherrypicking supervillains.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the very end, Tempest becomes the superhero Honeybee.
• Trapped in the Past:
  • Miguel begins the series stuck in the Marvel 616 universe and trying to undermine the nascent Alchemax. And when he does get back to the future, it's an alternate one because Alchemax ended up destroying the world.
  • Roberta Mendez (a.k.a. Captain America 2099) joins him in the present day after Secret Wars (2015), but thanks to her mental conditioning, she has no idea that she's temporally displaced or separated from her family when she isn't in hero-mode.
  • Sonny Frisco (Iron Man 2099) also ends up in the past via unknown means, and ends up working for Fist after his Laser-Guided Amnesia. While that amnesia never gets cured, after having the explanation explained to him, he starts working with Miguel and Roberta.
• Unwitting Pawn: Miguel ends up helping Maestro get back to the past by fixing Doom's time machine.
• Villains Out Shopping: While the Sinister Six 2099 discuss what to do with the captured Miguel, Winston shows up, and suddenly everyone is arguing over what pizza to order.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Tempest says this about Miguel's. She is, admittedly, very drunk at the time.
• Winged Humanoid: Hawkeye 2099. The others ask him whether the wings are natural or not, and apparently they are.
• Zeerust: Invoked when Miguel tries to look "futuristic" to Liz Allen, donning something that wouldn't look out of place in TRON to sell the idea.

The 2019 series provides examples of:

• Alternate Self: In the wake of Amazing Spider-Man #34, Earth-928's Miguel O'Hara is seemingly erased from existence and is replaced by a new version of himself living in a rebooted 2099 timeline, who has yet to acquire his Spider-Man powers. However, he suffers from Rapture-induced hallucinations of the Earth-928 Miguel O'Hara and runs into the elderly Miguel from the original three volume run.
• Arc Words: "Ouroboros", the snake that eats its own tail.
• Call-Back: When Miguel and Peter Parker first met, Miguel pointed out that the whole superhero thing is pretty stupid since it involves running towards danger. In the reboot, the new Miguel tells the original Miguel pretty much the same thing, and the old one agrees. However he also says that they gave people hope.
• Descent into Addiction: Miguel exposits Alchemax's rather nefarious scheme to keep control of its employees — in order to work at Alchemax, applicants must take a mind-altering drug called Rapture, which is highly addictive. Miguel had quit working for Alchemax after encountering a Thorite mutated into a spider-monster; and his Rapture withdrawal causes him to have hallucinations and nightmares of his Earth-616 self.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Miguel's house and the various holograms now have this aesthetic.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Invoked by Alchemax in order to keep its employees beholden to them using a highly addictive intelligence-enhancing drug called Rapture. Miguel notes that the company uses tautology to restrict employees: in order to work for Alchemax employees must take the drug, and in order to legally obtain the drug they have to already be working for Alchemax.
  • Ironically, Rapture does seem to allow Miguel to Flash Sideways.
• MegaCorp: Alchemax is one of several massive corporations, though it seems primarily involved in pharmaceuticals as Venom 2099 has it ostensibly trying to use the Venom symbiote as a cure for the skullfire plague (though its actual motives are more sinister), and Miguel's research into a Thorite mutated into a Man-Spider is presented as having biomedical applications.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Tyler Stone admonishes Miguel for rejecting Alchemax's Rapture, he quips that it's not like he spiked Miguel's drink with it — which is exactly what happened in the original Spider-Man 2099 continuity.
  • At one point Miguel contemplates working for Eco, which does environmental clean-up, and Gabriel responds that they cover up the ecological damage they caused. This is the reason why Ravage quit the company in the original 2099 run.
  • At one point, Miguel has various hallucinations, which show him the X-Men 2099, Ravage, and Doom 2099.
  • He also remembers tidbits of his own history as Spider-Man, which comes in the form of the very first panel of the very first volume.
  • He briefly sees a drug dealer replaced by the Green Goblin.
  • There's an identity theft device called Mystique.
  • Gabriel is running around with a gang called the Vultures, rescuing people, even though the Vultures are vicious criminals. In the original comics, Vulture 2099 led a gang called the Freakers and rescued Miguel from the Public Eye.
• The Reveal: In Amazing Spider-Man #34 Miguel reveals to Peter that "Earth-928" is part of the same timeline as the Prime Marvel Universe instead of an alternate universe that branched off Earth-616, and is thus in the process of being wiped from existence due to alterations made to its past.^note Earth-928 being a possible future timeline of Earth-616 was previously established in Spider-Verse and reiterated in Spider-Man 2099 Vol. 2 and 3, but Miguel's world was still referred to as Earth-928 in the comics and treated as an alternate universe by Marvel's official databooks and several other comics.
• Ret-Gone: The future timeline that Miguel created in Spider-Man 2099 is erased from existence due to the present of Earth-616 diverging too much from it.
• Villain Respect: Miguel's drug dealer is actually impressed that Miguel quit Alchemax.

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