Miles Morales is Spider-Man. That s it, that s the video. Thanks for watching. Oh wait,
you want more? Alright then, let s back up some.
So I loved a lot of things about Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but there was one
part I didn t so much. And I m not talking about what s been the primary sticking point
for many, the way the film s en- No, it s that whole cosmic determinism, and
the way this infinity of Spider-People have become the multiversal enforcers of these
canon events. I guess it s kinda fun in that wanky, Rick-and-Morty, meta-overload way,
but I don t love this for a few reasons, so let s get through those real quick. This first
one s probably more a matter of personal taste, but it feels conceptually unsatisfying. It
s hard to reconcile the conceit of these films, worlds upon worlds of unfettered possibility,
with this new fact that actually, there are limits, certain things happen and must happen
identically between Pig World, Lego World, and everywhere else. Maybe we re being misled
about how the Spider-verse works, what breaking the canon actually does, maybe Part 2 will
tidy this up some, but for now? I think it is a bit of a cheap move. Also, sidebar, if
every universe needs a Spider-Man, that s why Miguel s so peeved with Miles, and that
s why Earth-42 is such a mess, how come it s OK for Miguel and all these other full-time
timecops to do this instead of, y know, Spider-manning in their worlds? Maybe that is a bit of a
nitpick, maybe there is an explanation for that I missed but as things stand, it seems
this is another way that this sequel s new elements don t always fit together perfectly.
(I am going to expand on what I mean there in a Patreon Endnote but it s sort of extraneous
to the rest of this video, so check the pinned comment for a link)
The biggest reason I feel like this, though, is that there is a way in which it sort of
collapses all these Spider-Men down into more colourful TVA agents. Functionally, there
s nothing about this whole agency or really any of the enforcers that s specific to Spider-Man,
or Spider-Manness. I don t love this but I don t think I m supposed to. Apart from that
whole chase sequence, there s really no reason this whole Spider-Society faction couldn t
have been replaced with your standard-issue redshirt functionaries and in fact, that would
almost have been more fitting. Because in their quest to preserve the Spider-canon,
these Spider-Men stop being Spider-Man. Miles becomes an enemy of the Spider-Society
when they tell him his father is fated to die, and that he s not to intervene. Their
reasoning is sound enough again, there s supposedly some sort of universe-damaging effect caused
by tampering with what s meant to happen, and besides enduring personal tragedy is part
of what forges a Spider-Man into the best hero they can be. But this obviously doesn
t work for Miles. Earlier in the film, after a little family
falling out, Miles storms off. It s his life, he says but Rio disagrees. It s not all about
him his life is also his mum s, his dad s, his family s, his community s. (I m paraphrasing
from memory, but that s the general gist.) And while there s a little clingy mom energy
to the way Rio says this, she s obviously not wrong. As John Donne wrote, no Spider-Man
is an island. (I m paraphrasing from memory there too.)
Even in these Spider-Verse films, the effects Miles, Gwen and Peter have on each other,
their lives, their heroism bears this out. It isn t just about his life. How could it
be? Something deceptively important happens about
midway through the film. Miles alters a canon event in Mumbattan, and the Spider-Society
dispatches a squad to try and stabilise the damage - which tells us it s possible. Saving
those people who are supposed to die according to a potentially unreliable narrator doesn
t necessarily doom a world. This changes things. With this in mind, the Spider-Society becomes
a group all about looking out for Spider-Man. Following the canon, letting all these deaths
occur, might teach resilience to the multiverse s arachnid heroes, and it might make the Spider-Society
s lives easier, but it doesn t appear to be the only way. Salvaging a non-canonical universe
doesn t appear to be impossible just inconvenient and risky. But do you know what else is inconvenient
and risky? Being Spider-Man. This is the point, right? This is why we sympathise
with Miles? The way that protecting that abstract Spider-Man archetype across the multiverse
strips our enforcers of their Spider-Manness? Crucially, Miles isn t Spider-Man for Spider-Man
s sake, or even for the multiverse s sake. It s not just his life. He s Spider-Man for
other people. And trying to save other people, even at the cost of multiversal stability,
whether they re his own dad or Mumbattan Captain Stacy? Staring down that trolley problem and
saying no, I m saving them all? That is a quintessential Spider-Man move. That is the
quintessential Spider-Man move. And Miles makes it - when an infinity of Spider-Men
do not. And that s neat. Miles Morales is Spider-Man. He has been for
over a decade now but for some reason, not everyone is eager to recognise the truth of
that simple statement (-it s racism, the reason is racism-). They ll add caveat after caveat,
or they ll just be direct, and say no Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and Miles Morales is
Miles Morales. It won t matter that Tim Drake s Robin, Wally West is the Flash, Sam Alexander
s Nova Miles Morales is different. His character boiled down to his skin colour, (clip: YoungRippa69:
Talking about Peter Darker ) his very existence supposed to be some woke plot, and that Spider-Mantle
is contested. Across the Spider-Verse also sees the validity
of Miles existence, his claim to that mantle, questioned though, of course, in a different
way. He s labelled an anomaly. His existence is a mistake. He shouldn t be Spider-Man,
someone else should have been Spider-Man instead, he s told. But despite this, he s able to
outrun and outsmart the Spider-Society. Despite this, he s the only one of them that aspires
to, y know, save the people that need saving. Between this, and the trans lighting that
illuminates the scene when Gwen comes out as Spider-Woman to her dad, thwarting other
people s ideas of who you re supposed to be, of how you re supposed to be you is, if anything,
a theme more present here than in film one. You re not supposed to be this is a sentiment
weighing down our protagonists the whole way through so I don t think the way this echoes
all that Miles Morales is Miles Morales discourse is a coincidence. And so bearing this in mind,
what do we see in this film? Miles Morales out-Spider-Manning everyone else. Across the
Spider-Verse is a multifaceted piece, with many points to make, some complex but, undoubtedly?
One of them is simply this: Miles Morales is Spider-Man.
In an ideal world I d be able to leave that point there, but, as Madonna said, this is
not an ideal world, and I am not an ideal boy. (Again, paraphrasing from memory.) No,
ours is an age of media illiteracy, and as such, I think I m best to include a pre-emptive
defence-slash-elaboration. The particular style of analytical gymnastics YouTube chuds
like to abuse a full video on which is coming soon, by the way would surely look at Miles,
the newer Spiderman of colour, outspidermanning the others, the straight white males, and
conclude that this is bad and woke and tokenising, etcetera etcetera, that this affirmation only
works because all those other Spidermen are acting out-of-character, that what we re seeing
is actually multiversal character assassination, Spidercide on an interdimensional scale.
But here s the thing: it isn t character assassination. Given the information most members of the
Spider-Society have, their choices do make sense so long as we keep in mind the different
perspectives of these characters. The Spider-Society are seeing the Spider-Verse and it s rules,
are seeing canon from a sort of top-down perspective like the well-read viewer, they know these
things happen to Spidermen, and that ultimately, he gets through them. The Society s led by
people who ve suffered all these tragedies themselves, that tried to stop them, but couldn
t. To them, it s probably easier to imagine that these tragedies are utterly inevitable.
The leadership knows every Spidey gets through, though, they know about great power, great
responsibility, yada yada yada. They know that Spider-Man can t save everyone. These
lessons are obvious from a multiverse of data and so they ve set about applying them didactically
to every new reality. From their perspective, from the top down, in retrospect, that makes
sense. But Miles is seeing all this from the ground level. He s living it for the first
time as far as he s concerned, for the only time. This isn t abstract to him. Whether
this happens to other Spideys, whether they come out stronger that s meaningless. This
is his dad s death we re talking about, and all these jabronis are telling him he can
t even try to stop it? They all got to try why shouldn t he? Oh right, there s a bunch
of multidimensional weirdos telling him it s fated one minute, then admitting his existence
itself is an anomaly? Sure, I d be convinced! Who s to say they re even right? But maybe
they are, maybe there is a trolley problem here let his dad die or save him, dooming
the world. Maybe his best efforts will be for nought. Maybe there s no way to get that
happy ending but he has to try. He has to fling himself in front of that trolley, shoot
some webs, and pull with every fibre of his being.
Everyone s choices here make sense. Miles Spider-Man isn t being artificially affirmed
at the expense of anyone else he proves himself, again not that he even needed to. So, y know,
if you see anyone trying to make that argument? Send em here.
In summation, then, I loved a lot of things about Across the Spider-Verse but what I maybe
love most is the way it trashes these narratives, shows again without a shadow of a doubt that
Miles Morales is Spider-Man, no caveats, no asterisks that there s a wealth of value in
legacy characters, in this character in particular, in seeing this amazing story, this amazing
mantle, the powers, the possibilities, the highs, the lows, with fresh eyes, with different
eyes, with Miles eyes and in seeing him change that story.
- But for real though, why didn t they just
call it Part 1, you know? -
Thanks for watching! Drop a like, hit subscribe, I m trying to hit 100k this year, maybe check
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and WeirdyBeardy.