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Fridge is for post-viewing discussion, so all spoilers are unmarked.
Fridge Brilliance
Fridge Horror
- Miguel directly references Spider-Man: No Way Home, confirming without a doubt that the MCU is part of this multiverse, which was only indirectly inferred from Sony's Spider-Man Universe being an alternate universe to both the MCU and Miles's universe. Cheers aside, this means all the universes in this movie and retroactively in the last one are both at risk of Incursions due to the multiversal travel and in the Council of Kangs' sights, especially since they now see anyone besides them traveling the multiverse as a threat to their plans. This makes the Spider-Society's mission to protect the multiverse horribly ironic, as by coming together in the first place, they are dooming their realities. The only thing making this uncertain is the fact that while the MCU is canon to the Spider-Verse films, Marvel Studios hasn't spoken on whether they feel the same way.
- This also partly goes to explain why Miguel was so pissed off regarding Dr. Strange and Peter. The spider-verse is apparently a bit of an offshoot to main multiverse established in Loki and Strange 2, but MCU Peter is an explicit overlap between the two. It’s possible that the incident would have caused multiple multiverses to collapse, rather than just a single one. Additionally, given that the Society is capturing misplaced villains and returning them, (like MCU Aaron Davis), it’s possible that Strange may have missed, or misplaced a few when he tried to correct this, leaving Miguel to clean up the remnants. Who’s to say that Miguel and his agents weren’t on the other side of the rifts, trying to help out?
- It appears like there is not only no Spider-Man on Earth-42, but no superheroes at all. Villains like the Prowler are running rampant and there's little anyone can do to stop them.
- Alternatively, even if there were heroes in Earth-42, the lack of any friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would have almost certainly undermined any attempt in 42!New York City to foster inspiring role-models. Especially given how horribly crime-ridden it is that someone like Frank Castle would more likely be seen as an appealing basis for would-be vigilantes.
- In Earth 42, Miles' father died instead of his uncle Aaron, which is implied to have contributed to his villainous identity as the Prowler. If this had happened to "our" Miles, what kind of darker path could he have gone down?
- While having a moment, Gwen solemnly tells Miles that "a Gwen Stacy who falls for Spider-Man" is never going to end well. Given that it's one of the most famous events in comic book history, it's very much likely that this Gwen has already witnessed herself dying in numerous other universes, which also most likely including the Gwen Stacy of Earth-12073 as well. And the same also applies to Peter B. Parker and any of his deceased variants in other universes, including Miles' own. Additionally, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness established that people can see into the lives of their variants through dreams. Gwen may have had repeated nightmares of dying, and found out from the Spider-Society that those actually happened.
- Additionally, since she knows that there are many variants of Captain George Stacy who died in other universes, she must've also realized that her own father is going to die any day, too, which is probably one of the major reasons why she doesn't want to return to her home universe since it means she has to watch her father die eventually. This also makes Miguel's decision to kick her out after she made one too many mistakes even more cruel: he's exiling Gwen back to her home universe when he knows that it means she most likely has to watch her father die. Fortunate for Gwen, her father has quit the police force in the meantime and thus avoided his canonical fate and proving Miguel wrong.
- On Earth-616note , the Canon Event of a police captain close to Spider-Man being killed claimed two victims; George Stacy and Jean DeWolff. Meaning that even if Miles manages to save his father, that doesn't mean someone else won't also be claimed by it.
- Additionally, since Earth-65's George Stacy has resigned from the force, it seems to have saved him from his fate. But what about his potential replacement? It's revealed that Yuriko Watanabe also exists in Earth-65 who is Captain Stacy's Number Two, and there's a chance that she could become the next police captain who replaced George Stacy. There's another Yuriko Watanabe on Earth-1048 who was also a police captain and a close ally of Spider-Man, too. Even if she doesn't die, she turns into a vigilante named Wraith instead. What if the same thing could also happen to Earth-65's Yuri as well?
- Gwen threw Scarlet Spider through a portal and into another dimension...without the watch that would keep him from glitching painfully out of existence.
- Assuming she knows which dimension he's from (which is very possible since they were coworkers) she probably sent him home where that won't happen.
- Even if she didn't, the Spider Society would eventually detect him as an anomaly and go rescue him.
- Still, the fact Gwen just sent Scarlet Spider someplace else without a thought really shows how she feels about the society right now. The Spider Society had mistreated her, hunted her would-be boyfriend, brainwashed her into JOINING that hunt, and she now learnt that the Canon Event which they chewed people out for doesn't exist, so Gwen was in a really, REALLY foul mood to break a lot of bones, especially Miguel's who was already on her "hate" list for all the mentioned actions against her and Miles.
- Canon Events become a lot more terrifying when you think about how this affects the original comic book version of Peter Parker and what he's been through. Because Destiny Says So, his infamous Parker luck is taken to almost Cosmic Plaything levels and there's nothing he can do about it without destroying the universe.
- The Spider-Society is a group monitoring the multiverse who is insistent that events play out how they're supposed to according to a predestined plan referred to by a specific reverent term to prevent a multiversal calamity, even when those events claim the lives of innocent people. If anyone wants to deviate from the plan to save people, they are stopped, while not stopping to think about if these events really must happen. They also have a chipper holographic AI working with them. That sounds an awful lot like the TVA. The Spider-Society doesn't prune timelines, sure, but the resemblance is still there.
- An awed Gwen asking Jess to adopt her is essentially tempting fate since just minutes later this is essentially what happens, with Jess becoming Gwen's mentor and convincing Miguel to let her into the Spider Society when George discovers her identity. While it is ambiguous if that relationship is deeper than mentor/mentee or not, if it is then technically Gwen ended up being betrayed by parental figures twice in one film!
- It also hints at how vulnerable Gwen is to being indoctrinated by the Spider Society at that point. Her relationship with her father is broken and she is willing to do anything to belong.
- In the previous film, Peni Parker was very cheerful and enthusiastic; we only see her sad when her Robot Buddy gets destroyed in the climax. But in this film, Peni's general demeanor is much more somber, and she's lost her cheerfulness and enthusiasm. In addition to losing a friend at the climax of the previous film, Peni may have had some negative experiences in her universe, negative enough to convince her to (initially) support the idea that being a Spider-person means making sacrifices.
- If it's anything like what happened to her in the comics, Peni might still be recovering from loss. In her universe, her version of the Venom symbiote (named VEN#M) was an EVA-UNIT esque machine that not only ate her friend, who made the machine to begin with, but also her worlds' Aunt May. It was already established in the first movie that Peni lost her father some time ago, but she never mentioned losing anyone else close to her. The events of VEN#M's attack might have just happened later in this universe, which would've caused Peni to relapse when it came to grief. Adding all to all THAT, the same time VEN#M came around, Peni was recruited for the Spider-Geddon event, meaning she had no time to even remotely process her loss. Just replace Spider-Geddon with "recruited into the Spider-Society and making sure the multiverse stays intact'', and is it any question to why she became so miserable?
- If several versions of George Stacy who have some link to a Spider-Man is fated to die, and depending if they became closer down the line, it could be possible that the Captain Stacy from the Spider-Man Trilogy has died by this point, or is fated to die eventually.
- Do Canon Events apply to all superheroes, not just Spider-People? Is everybody who takes the Super-Soldier Serum always meant to be lost in time until the present? Is Iron Man always destined to die, as shown by his many deaths in ''What If...?
- Miguel O'Hara has a singleminded belief that some people have to die for the universe to continue surviving, an insistence on choosing what he believes to be the Lesser of Two Evils on behalf of others, and displays increasing instability when said others who are/would be personally affected by said deaths predictably have something to say about it. These traits make him a bit reminiscent of another antagonist recent viewers of Marvel-related media would be very familiar with.
- The Spider-Society is huge, with Spider-Men from hundreds of universes being gathered at their headquarters. If Miguel's got them all dedicated cleaning up multiversal threats, then what's going on in the cities where most of them operate, typically as street-level crimefighters? And has Miguel lost sight of this, or does he also regard the people who might die because of their Spider-Man's frequent absences from their universe as necessary sacrifices?
- Gwen herself has been away from her home universe for quite some time now, perhaps even some months. She cannot go home since she believes her father would arrest her, which means that she has been working for the Spider-Society all this time. Her home universe doesn't have a Spider-Woman to protect it for quite a few months now.
- Miguel's insistence that his Canon Events theory has to be right and doubling-down on it even in the prospect of alternatives goes beyond scientific reasoning. Combined with his predisposition to bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, as well as how said theory plays right into the internal psychological wounds of many Spider-Men and seemingly gives an explanation for that trauma (whether it's Gwen's vulnerability to avoiding fate or Peter B.'s lingering guilt), he had inadvertently turned the Society into a cult without realizing it. Tellingly, the ones who ultimately turn against him are those who were never conditioned to accept it in the first place, or were snapped out of it by Miguel's own actions.
- While most unlikely intentional, the way Miguel and Jess end up recruiting (and later losing) Gwen is also similar to a cult. Gwen, already having close to no friends in her home dimension, has a massive falling out with her father, her last link to home, causing her to fall in with Spider-Society as her only way out. There, she meets and stays with a group of like-minded Spider-people, gains a maternal-like mentor in Jess, and finds purpose and busywork in maintaining Canon, meaning she has had no time to process what happened at home, and is being further drawn in to the point of that she has trouble going against the group when they turn against Miles. It's only when she reestablishes relations with both Miles and her father, giving her outside perspective she's been sorely lacking, that she finally finds the courage to truly rebel against Miguel.
- During his return "home", Miles sees flashes of his traumas, with Miguel's Breaking Speech, the Spot and the death of his uncle all showing up. But interestingly, we also see a wave of Octavia's tentacles reaching out to grab him at the climax of the dream sequence. Apparently, his first adventure left far deeper psychological scars than we thought.
- Gwen recruiting Pavitr to rescue Miles from Earth-42 implies she filled him into the whole "canon theory" from Miguel. Meaning she told the truth about how they were supposed to let Inspector Singh die and how she was supposed to not save him. The conversation wasn't shown but it wouldn't be surprising if Gwen lost another friendship.
- This also makes you wonder: just how many canon events did Gwen herself end up enforcing? How many Spiders did she stop from saving their police captains - possibly by force? If she stopped even one, that effectively makes her an indirect cosmic assassin.
- Miles' close relationship with his uncle and how much he looks up to him in the first movie immediately takes on a darker meaning once Across reveals that, had the misplaced spider not bit Miles, that close relationship would apparently have ended in him working alongside Aaron as a criminal and potentially even taken the Prowler mantle up after him (which is what happened to Earth 42's Miles). In fact, when Miles first meets Spider-Man and their spider-senses go off, Miles' spider-sense shows the Prowler's colors: green and purple - before Spider-Man's influence makes them turn red and blue, instead. Talk about next level of Foreshadowing.
- Additionally, there's the scene where Miles is assigned a personal essay from his teacher, with the request that he'll write about "What kind of person you want to be."' As these words echo in his mind, Miles looks out the window and smirks, then leaves to visit Uncle Aaron aka The Prowler.
- When Miles ends up in Earth-42 and has to quickly cover up his Spider-Man suit from his mother, he puts on a green jacket with a purple hoodie. Green and purple are colours associated with Spider-Man's villains, purple specifically being The Prowler's main colour, serving as an early hint that Earth-42 Miles is the villainous Prowler.
- Miguel's annoyance/anger at Holland Spider-Man and Strange goes deeper than just creating an anomaly. Remember, the spell that was cast was threatening to draw in everyone that 'knew Peter was Spider-Man'. So there's that side as well. But even deeper, Holland also reverses it with the reverse language. Given that Strange had to affect the multi-verse in order to prevent people from crossing over, it's possible that his spell caused various Peter-oriented Spider-Men across the multi-verse to suddenly find themselves in a situation where no one they trust (or not) knows that Peter is Spider-Man and have to fix that. And this applied even for Peter-adjacent people like Miguel who doesn't call Holland "Peter" but "that nerd", implying that he doesn't know Peter is Spider-Man of that universe. At the minimum for someone like Miguel, he can easily re-discover the information but nevertheless, fixing the lost memories would have been a huge mess for countless Spiders.
- While hilarious in the trailer, the Spider-therapist's flippant and almost mocking attitude towards his client has most likely exacerbated the trauma his fellow Spiders are going through, and may, in and of itself, be emblematic of a systemic problem within the Spider Society. His knowledge of Canon Events has most likely numbed him to the hardships all the Spiders have endured, as everyone there has lost their Uncle Ben(s) and their Gwen Stacy(s), so he sees no point in taking it seriously because they'll get over it eventually in the grand scheme of things. Except they really don't. While they may seem inevitable and even insignificant compared to the scale of the multiverse, for each individual Spider-person, each and every loss they must go through is a traumatic and heart-breaking experience. A competent therapist may be able to help them process their grief in a healthy manner. But the Spider-therapist's flippant attitude, as if the loss of their loved ones is no big deal, is like a hammer to their psyche. The end result from this shoddy therapy is mostly likely all the Spider-people all compounding their grief and trauma to the point of self-destruction as a coping mechanism, all for the sake of the multiverse. And it may even be intentional! While it's unlikely Miguel gave a direct order to Spider-therapist to further traumatize his clients, a broken Spider-person would be more likely to step in line, and more likely to perpetuate the cycle of suffering by maintaining Canon. After all, everyone goes through this...
- If the Spectacular Spider-Man in this film is the same one from the 2009 cartoon, that means his Captain Stacy died sometime after Season 2 of the TV show, and it broke him so badly that he was susceptible to Miguel's reasoning that it was a canon event, absolving him of some of his guilt.
- In the comics, Pavitr's girlfriend is an Indian version of Mary Jane, whereas in this movie he's dating his universe's equivalent of Gwen Stacy instead. Considering Pavitr just started to have his canon events happen to him, it's likely that, following the death of Inspector Singh that was supposed to occur, him losing Gayatri just like most Spider Men lose their Gwens was next.
- Miles may have taken inspiration from uncle Aaron for his new suit's design: Aaron's Prowler suit had the same "fly ambiance down the sides", only purple instead of red. This recontextualizes the ribbing he gets for "bleeding from the armpits" from Hobie and Peter B. into something accidentally quite hurtful, though there's no way they would know.
- It's completely unclear how long Miguel's "Canon Event" theory has been with the Spider Society ever since the destruction of Miguel's adopted world. There's no telling how many times the society stopped Spiders from intervening and let their loved ones die. And given that Miles is going to disprove the "Canon Event" to be false, many of the Spider Society are going to suffer severe mental breakdowns.
- There's the disturbing possibility that Gwen herself may have successfully enforced some of these canon events. This would be a dark contrast to her failed attempt at enforcing Pavitr's, which was only thwarted by Miles's presence and sheer determination to do the right thing.
- Although, the seeds have been put in place. After Gwen learns her father escaped his "Canon Event", you can see in Gwen's horrified face that she accepted and nearly condemned her father to death - and Miles's too. Then there's Miguel who's implied to be wondering if his theories were wrong, but brushes it off because if they were wrong, he may have to face the facts that he caused unwanted murder for no reason at all.
- It is terrifying in itself to see Miguel violently ripping into the Go Home Machine in a desperate attempt to stop Miles from returning to his home dimension and save his father from his impending death, but one thing that many don't bring up is just before Miguel bursts through the entrance, Miles' Spider-Sense goes off. This, along with what we see from Miguel, suggests that Miguel had crossed a dangerous threshold and was no longer trying to merely restrain Miles, but was fully intent on mauling or even killing him. While he did end up in the wrong dimension, Margo did save Miles from being savaged by allowing him to escape.
- In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, we see Peter B. narrowing his eyes after seeing Miguel banished Gwen back to her universe. It's probably at that point he realizes that if Miguel is hell-bent on forcing Spiders to watch their Canon Events, that could mean he's going to make his daughter watch him die. It makes his "I'm going to put the baby back to bed" line more like "I better get away as far as possible from these maniacs".
- Even if Miguel is right about "Canon events," he's right in the wrong way. The point isn't that people close to Spider-Man die, it's that Spider-Man tried and failed to save them. This causes pain and heartbreak, but also motivates that Spider-Man to do better next time. Just witness Peter 3 saving MJ. By interfering in these events, the Spider-People involved don't learn the lesson, don't grow to their full potential. Of course, the same could be said of Miles' interference in Pavitr's Canon event...
- What would have happened if Miguel had gotten his way and he successfully locked Miles up for two days, then let him go once his father had died? How would Miles have actually handled his fellow Spider-Men, whom he wanted so badly to be with, trapping him for two days in order for his dad to be killed? It doesn't take much to imagine that Miles' mind would have gone to a very dark place after that, perhaps refusing to be Spider-Man anymore in his grief or even hatred of the Society. Alternatively, Miles' mind might have gone so far as to cross into the territory where he allegedly was originally meant to have become either the Prowler's sidekick, or the Prowler himself, coping with the loss of his father, making a frightening similarity to what became of his alternate self on Earth 42.
