How are two brothers' fates tied together? Why is Miles Morales responsible for that
shocking twist? Let's untangle some of the more twisted webs in "Spider-Man:
Across the Spider-Verse." Major spoilers ahead!
One of the more mundane conflicts in "Across the Spider-Verse" is also one of the first places
where audiences might get a bit confused. When Miles shows up late to his dad's promotion party,
he gets into it with both his parents and ends up grounded. The only problem
with this is that Miles doesn't live with his parents most of the time.
Miles lives in a dorm at Visions during the weekdays — at least that's the case
in the first "Spider-Verse." But Miles takes it pretty seriously
when his parents say he is grounded for a month.
"Want to get out of here?"
"I'm…grounded."
Even if he wasn't Spider-Man, wouldn't Miles be living without their supervision most of
the time anyway? So, what's the point of grounding him?
The point of this sequence is to raise the emotional stakes between Miles and
his parents in a relatable way. In this way, it makes sense and succeeds in, uh,
grounding Miles as a character who is starting to grow into his later teen years. It sets up
the thematic stakes of not just this movie, but the next one in the series as well.
Right after his parents decide to ground him, Rio Morales observes
that Miles has a genuine connection to Gwen and lets him go out instead. So,
what gives? Why does Miles' mom go behind his dad's back?
The choice makes sense given the movie's focus on giving Rio Morales more to do than she gets
in the first film. While she is barely a character in "Into the Spider-Verse," this
moment allows her to make decisions and have agency apart from Jefferson. This choice also
comes after Rio gives a touching speech about how she's spent her whole life protecting Miles
from the world. "Across the Spider-Verse" acknowledges that part of a coming-of-age
story is parents recognizing that they have to start to let go and trust their kids. Rio
Morales has begun to accept this, while Miles' dad might never quite get there.
In the end of the movie, Miles finally decides to fess up. Importantly, he chooses to tell his
mom that he is Spider-Man. Because she shows more fluency in Miles' emotions earlier in the story,
he feels that he can open up to her, and the audience understands
why he's more comfortable sharing his spider-secret with his mom than his dad.
Introduced to this cinematic universe in the end credits sequence of "Into
the Spider-Verse," Miguel O'Hara appears for real in "Across the Spider-Verse." Spider-Man
2099 is a dimension-hopping Spidey who is the de facto leader of the group of Spider-People
that makes sure the Spider-Verse stays intact. But what exactly is his deal?
"You know, you're the only Spider-Man who isn't funny. You're supposed to be funny."
Between his Spider-Man 2099 powers, claws, tendency to shift into animalistic shapes,
and his menacing red eyes, it's not clear whether we are supposed to trust Miguel or fear him.
It's joked that he might be a vampire, but his true nature is intentionally kept mysterious.
It's clear that the morality of Spider-Man 2099 will be a
continued plot thread in the next entry in the "Spider-Verse" saga.
The second half of "Across the Spider-Verse" finds Miles, Gwen, and the rest of the Spider-People
chasing the Spot as he tries to grow powerful enough to defeat Spider-Man. Traveling from one
universe's main Alchemax building to the next, he recreates the chemical explosion
that originally turned him into a villain in a bid to grow to an even higher power level.
"You know I can't really get a job anywhere anymore being like this,
so I've turned to a life of crime."
In trying to stop him, Miles gets caught in the explosion and sees a flash of images. This
moment acts as the catalyst for the visions that Miles sees for the rest of the movie.
In a couple of instances during the last parts of "Across the Spider-Verse," Miles sees visions of
The Spot and some vague glimpses of the future. While we don't know for sure what's going on,
there is definitely more significance to this event that isn't being talked about
yet. Something clearly happens to Miles in this moment that connects him to The Spot.
There is quite a bit of exposition in the middle of "Across the Spider-Verse." Many
important ideas are communicated to Miles — and by extension,
the audience — for the first time and some of them are sure to go over the
average viewer's head. The big, confusing one here is the idea of a "canon event."
"Miles, there's chapters that are a part of every Spider's story, every time."
These events are supposed to happen, in some shape or form, to every Spider-Person. These are canon
events, and most often they occur in the form of a tragedy — the death of
the mentor figure or lover, for example. These are character-defining details that
have been twisted and applied to each version of the character throughout decades of comics.
For the Peter Parker of Earth-616, these tragedies are the losses of Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy. But
even in a universe where Gwen survives, that universe's Spider-Man still has their
equivalent to Gwen. According to Miguel, if you stop one of these from happening, your universe
will eventually fall apart. Miles is willing to put that theory to the test by trying to
save his dad from his impending death, despite it being pre-ordained as one of his "canon events."
Not only does "Across the Spider-Verse" introduce the concept of canon events,
but it also immediately complicates it by giving Miles knowledge of the future.
He wants to jump back into his timeline and stop his dad's supposedly inevitable death,
but Miguel shuts him down by trapping him. When Gwen learns that Miles' dad is supposed to die
after becoming a police captain, she realizes her own father's fate could follow the same pattern.
The death of Captain Stacy is a canonical event that happens in
a few major Peter Parker stories and, for obvious reasons, also has a major impact
on Gwen Stacy's history. On Earth-616, it's a prelude to an even bigger death — Gwen's.
Similarly, the death of Miles' dad, Jefferson Davis, is a defining moment for that character
in Insomniac's "Spider-Man" video game. "Across the Spider-Verse" parallels this loss and even
presents the option that it might be preventable. By using a promotion to captain as symbolic of
a death sentence, the movie once again draws a parallel between the stories of Gwen and Miles.
Right before Gwen's dad is killed, it is shown that he's promoted to Captain,
which mirrors Jefferson's promotion. These two fates are tied together. In the end,
it seems like Gwen has saved her dad from taking the promotion by revealing she is
Spider-Woman. This suggests that perhaps Miles can save his father by telling him the truth.
"Across the Spider-Verse" expands upon and solidifies the idea that
there is only meant to be one Spider-Person per universe.
"My name is Miles Morales. I'm Brooklyn's one and only Spider-Man."
This makes Miles Morales an anomaly, by definition, which puts him between a rock
and a hard place by the end of the movie. You see, Miles is a second Spider-Man in a world that was
only supposed to have one — the Peter Parker that died in the beginning of "Into the Spider-Verse."
But by getting bitten by a radioactive spider from another dimension, Earth-42, Miles Morales
apparently became an individual who isn't supposed to exist in the makeup of the Spider-Verse.
What this movie establishes is that every universe has its own Spider-Person,
and they have a predetermined destiny. This universe's Miles Morales was never part of the
Spider-Verse's plan. Gwen knows more than she lets on about this for the entire movie and,
retroactively, you see why she has been so distant and so caring at the same time. She
knows Miles wouldn't have been able to just accept the news about his dad without trying
to intervene, making the inevitable reveal of her knowledge even more heartbreaking.
Miles was never meant to be Spider-Man, and not only did his presence get Peter Parker killed,
it created a universe where there is no Spider-Man. "Across the Spider-Verse”
only begins to scratch the surface of what that world could look like.
The final twist in "Across the Spider-Verse" is that in the dimension that Miles indirectly robbed
of a Spider-Man, Miles turns into something else. First-time viewers will assume that the
menacing Aaron is still the Prowler, but they will be proven wrong when the real Prowler pops
into the scene. That's right — this version of Miles Morales turned into a super villain.
This twist ending sets up Miles as the Prowler to be the big bad, or at least one of them,
in "Beyond the Spider-Verse." It's not explained whether the Miles on Earth-42
ends up as the Prowler because our Miles took his place as Spider-Man, or because the lack of
a Spider-Man led him down this path. Either way, the Miles we know has created a super villain in
a world without a Spider-Man to stop him. And now it will be his responsibility to literally fight
with himself, finally blurring the line between Miles' internal conflicts and external threats.
In one of the final scenes of the movie, once it's finally revealed where Miles has teleported to,
we see a mural painted in memory of Jefferson Davis. At the same time, we already know that
Uncle Aaron is alive in this universe. These two things could be connected, and we may later
learn that Jefferson's death is connected with the reasons that Aaron is still alive.
In the first "Spider-Verse," Aaron dies after being revealed as The Prowler. But
that's not always how the story goes down. In the Insomniac "Spider-Man" game, for example,
Jefferson dies while Aaron is still alive. In fact, all signs point to the idea that
Miles' dad needs to die for the character to move along his natural arc. Since Miles is an anomaly
in "Across the Spider-Verse," this might even suggest that his dad was supposed to die earlier,
but Miles altered the path, which ended up leading to his uncle's death instead.
Many of these details won't be cleared up until the sequel. One thing is for sure though:
This alternate universe where one Davis brother dies instead of the
other will be important in "Beyond the Spider-Verse."