Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is officially out, and it’s taken the world by storm.
The sensational animation and storytelling work together to make this movie utterly brilliant–much
like many of its characters.
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is Spider-Verse Saga Characters: Dumb to Brilliant.
Spoilers for both Into and Across the Spider-Verse, of course.
To be honest, there aren’t really any characters who are outright DUMB in these movies–but
we do want to start with a couple of characters who are a Mixed Bag.
This first spot goes to two characters, actually–Tombstone and Scorpion.
These two are both minor antagonists in the first movie, working under Kingpin.
The main difference in their roles is that Tombstone is trusted even more closely than
Scorpion, acting as his right-hand man and personal bodyguard.
There’s not much to say about them, save for the fact that they’re good bodyguards
with pretty strong senses.
But while this makes them good allies, it doesn’t make them particularly smart in
comparison to other characters.
We now move on to the more well-rounded characters in the brains department–these characters
are Pretty Smart.
To kick this segment off, we move from villains to heroes–and what’s more heroic than
loving parents?
Enter Jefferson Davis and Rio Morales.
These two are the two most regular people in the cast.
Rio, Miles’s mother, is very sensitive to her son’s needs, often being the voice of
reason to his overbearing father.
But that’s not to discredit soon-to-be Captain Jefferson, though.
This tough-as-nails police officer may have a short fuse, but he’s a well-put-together
man who can be summed up as a well-meaning(albeit flawed) father who’s trying his best.
These two aren’t anything too crazy in terms of intellect, but they’re well-rounded,
decent people who are successful in their careers and trying their best as parents.
We hope you’re ready to travel to India and see some sights, because next up is Spider-Man
India.
One of the new additions to the Spider-Verse’s ensemble cast, Pavitr Prabhakar puts the “friendly”
in “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.”
He’s fairly resourceful, using his web slingers as grappling hooks of sorts, and is always
prepared to save people in danger.
Though it is worth mentioning that he’s a bit more clumsy and scatterbrained, as he
is the least experienced of the prominent Spider-People.
Next up is the most animated character of all.
He frolics, he dances, he does things with his…pantses.
He’s Peter Porker, A.K.A.
Spider-Ham.
Spider-Ham is a skillful fighter who has all the resources you’d expect from an adorably
mischievous cartoon character–from smoothly-animated dodges to gigantic mallets that apparently
fit in your pocket.
Spider-Ham is a good help to the team, and a compassionate person overall, even having
one of the most memorable lines in the movie: “Miles, the hardest thing about this job
is…you can’t always save everybody.”
We’re not quite at the genius level yet, but we’re nonetheless moving into a new
tier of intelligence–these characters are Exceptionally Smart.
We’ll be the first to acknowledge that placing Miles Morales this low is probably controversial.
It probably won’t be a surprise to hear that Miles isn’t the smartest character
in the Spider-Verse, but he still shows some pretty impressive feats of intelligence.
He has good battle senses, is quick-witted, has excellent artistic talent, and is actually
very academically gifted.
We see through his interactions with teachers and other staff members at his school that
the only reason his grades aren’t higher is his tendency to miss class for hero work–or
even outright trying to fail on one occasion.
He’s also sharp as a tack, managing to lure all the Spider-People to him so he can escape
from Spider-Man 2099 effectively.
That said, being a kid, his naivete loses him some points; one could say that Miles
is a bit overly optimistic, tending to want to have his cake and eat it too.
Everyone pull out your best shoulder-patting hands, because next up we’re saying “hey”
to Spider-Gwen.
Upgraded from a major supporting character to a deuteragonist in Across the Spider-Verse,
Gwen is a kind, if somewhat reserved, young spider-woman.
Like Miles, she has no shortage of book smarts or street smarts.
She uses the connections she makes to help in her endeavors–one example being the final
scene of Across the Spider-Verse, in which she’s gathered multiple spider-people to
help save Miles, who’s trapped on Earth 42.
We give her a very slight upper hand over Miles in terms of smarts simply because she’s
had more time under Spider-Woman and Spider-Man 2099 to learn the ins and outs of the Spiderverse,
and is a bit less naive than her buddy Miles–smart enough to even try and keep him from disrupting
a canon event.
Our next entry is rather dark.
You might feel as though the air around you has turned into a cold, misty rain…then,
you would perhaps know how it feels to be Spider-Man Noir.
A 1950s private eye detective, Spider-Man Noir is a comic relief hero who joins Miles
alongside Gwen, Spiderham, and Peni Parker in the movie’s second act.
Being a detective, we can assume Noir has a good amount of book smarts.
He’s also a fairly skilled fighter, and usually keeps a cool head.
What keeps him from being any higher is the fact that he’s a bit tactless sometimes;
when Miles is distressed over finding out that his uncle is the Prowler, he insensitively
calls it a “hardcore origin story.”
Speaking of which, let us explain why we’ve allowed The Prowler, A.K.A.
Uncle Aaron, such a high spot on our list.
Uncle Aaron initially seems like a nice guy–a bit of a slacker, graffiti artist, and a fantastic
uncle to his nephew Miles.
But he’s living a pretty dark double life as the bounty hunting supervillain known as
the Prowler–and is on commission by Kingpin to kill Spiderman.
He’s smart enough to constantly stay on Spider-Man’s tail, using every resource
at his disposal to get rid of him.
He might not be a traditional, intellectual genius–but as far as supervillains go, The
Prowler is not a guy you want to be on the enemy list of; like he said himself, he never
quits.
It might seem a bit early, but we’re now getting into the truly brilliant characters.
These are the Geniuses.
All of the Spider-People are cool on some level, but it’s hard to out-cool Spider-Punk.
Also known as Hobie, Spider-Punk is another new addition to the core Spider people.
Don’t let the “Punk” title fool you–Hobie isn’t just a wannabe anarchist, he’s…well,
a legit anarchist.
He has impressive intuition, always seeing through to the core of people’s issues–being
one of the only ones who questions O’Hara’s assertion that canon events must play out
in their entirety.
He also has great foresight and technical smarts, not only being able to build one of
the watches worn by the Spider-People but even foreseeing the fact that Gwen might need
one in the future.
We’ve talked about plenty of characters who aren’t traditional geniuses in the book-smarts
sense, but in Hobie’s case, his street smarts and fantastic intuition are enough to give
him a spot in the Genius tier.
Any anime fans in the chat?
If so, you’ll feel right at home with our next entry, Peni Parker.
She might be adorable, but don’t let that fool you–she doesn’t fool around.
She’s able to effortlessly control her father’s robot which, given the scenes we see her doing
so in, looks pretty darn complicated.
We see at the end of the movie that she’s able to repair it when it’s broken, too–with
a bit of help from her little spider buddy, of course.
Her intellectual equality with the other Spider-People is quite impressive when you consider the
fact that she’s only 14 years old, making her not only the youngest of the geniuses,
but the youngest character on this entire list.
We’ve talked about the littlest character, and now it’s time to move on to a man who’s
anything but little: Kingpin.
He’s the underground ruler of New York City.
Sure, he’s not solving the greatest mysteries of science itself, but he’s an utterly brilliant
supervillain businessman.
He has connections with numerous supervillains, bounty hunters, and companies, and uses them
to further his goal of completing the Super Collider to find alternate-universe versions
of his family–all the while keeping up appearances as a friendly businessman in public.
Also notable is the fact that he’s able to understand Alchemax’s work on the Super-Collider,
and even helps oversee its testing sometimes.
But let’s move away from Kingpin for this next entry.
He lost a child, after all–and we don’t wanna make him jealous when we talk about
Jessica Drew, who eagerly awaits bringing hers into the world.
Jessica Drew, or Spider-Woman, is known for her sick motorcycle skills and heavy influence
in Spider-Society.
She oversees many other Spider-People and helps them out, showing excellent time management
and people skills.
She’s also compassionate, insisting on taking Gwen under her wing so she won’t be alone.
Well, now, there is ONE flaw we can point out: at one point, she calls Peter B. Parker
a bad mentor, and that’s clearly BS.
Even though he wasn’t interested in mentoring Miles from the get-go due to his struggles,
he more than made up for it with his subsequent actions.
For one thing, Peter is a scientific genius–he developed much of his own gear himself, as
well as some web shooters for his little daughter Mayday.
He also has no reservations about making another goober to shut down the Super Collider.
On top of this scientific intellect, he has good emotional intelligence as well, offering
Miles a lot of advice and doing his best to support him and keep him safe, even if that
means pointing out when he isn’t quite ready sometimes.
Peter is an indisputable and iconic genius, with great battle senses and extensive scientific
knowledge.
For our top three, we’re opening up a brand new tier of smarts, because these characters
have earned it.
These are the Supergeniuses.
This next spot is the Bronze Medal of Intellect.
Can you spot who it is yet?
You guessed it–it’s Miles’s Roommate, Ganke Lee–just kidding.
It’s The Spot.
Don’t let his “joke villain” vibe fool you–The Spot was once a scientist at Alchemax,
which shows that he’s always been quite smart, able to not only comprehend the power
of the Super Collider but help develop it and even replicate it to enhance his mutant
power.
He wants revenge on Miles for throwing a bagel at him and causing him to become the Spot
indirectly, taking everything from him.
With his own pseudo-Super Collider, he manages to start tearing apart the fabric of the universe
itself–being able to harness that power on his own is quite the intellectual feat.
For a usual joke villain, he’s one of the biggest threats the Spider-Verse has seen
yet.
But as intelligent as the Spot is, our next entry has the upper hand…wait, there’s
six, actually– Dr. Olivia Octavius, A.k.A.
Doc Ock.
A sadistic scientist and the CEO of Alchemax, it likely requires little explanation as to
why she’s so high.
She’s the one in charge of developing the Super Collider, commissioned by Kingpin, allowing
Spider-People from alternate dimensions to cross over.
Her scientific genius needs no introduction, but her people skills are equally impressive.
She manages to successfully pull off the facade of a fun, dorky scientist girl to get Peter
to let his guard down–only to reveal her sadistic intentions to watch him die a horrific
death once he’s powerless to stop it.
Call it recency bias if you will, but out Gold Medal of Intellect has to go to Across
the SpiderVerse’s antihero addition–we’re putting Miguel O’Hara, A.K.A.
Spider-Man 2099 at the top of our list.
We’re not going to act like it was an easy decision, either–all of the characters in
the genius category are…well, geniuses, especially the last few.
But Miguel O’Hara has all the feats of the last few and then some.
O’Hara is the founder and leader of the Spider Society in which Spider-People come
together and are united to ensure that each one goes about the way they’re intended
to.
Sometimes this means making hard choices, but O’Hara sees the big picture of the entire
Spiderverse for the sake of ensuring that each universe is safe from harm as much as
possible.
He’s practically omnipotent compared to other characters.
He’s highly respected among Spider-People, who obey his commands with(mostly) no question,
and he’s able to utilize interdimensional technology to assign different spiders to
different areas to help out–and keep them from glitching in said dimensions.
His moral nature is highly debatable, but in our eyes he’s the smartest character
we’ve seen in the Spider-Verse.