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Miles Morales returns in the epic sequelSpider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, as he continues to juggle being a full-time high school student with being a full-time superhero. Morales thought he learned everything he needed to know about being Spider-Man from Peter B. Parker, but there are certain growing pains that every Spider-Man must endure that he wasn’t informed about until now.
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Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse introduces a few new prominent Marvel characters in Miguel O’Hara, Jessica Drew, and the villain of the week, The Spot. The second installment in Morales’s journey ends with a shocking cliffhanger that sets the stage for a climactic third and final movie. We break down how The Spot threatens the multiverse, what exactly are canon events, and what the ending to Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse could possibly mean for Morales moving forward.
This article contains heavy spoilers for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. Please do not continue reading unless you have seen the movie.
Multiverse In Danger
Despite saving the multiverse in the previous movie by preventing Kingpin from fully activating the Alchemax collider, the machine’s brief period of activation has caused amajor problem for the multiverse. Following the collider’s explosion, a scientist by the name of Jonathan Ohnn was genetically altered by it, which resulted in him turning intoThe Spot.
When The Spot is first introduced in the film, he’s a blundering villain who can’t even steal an ATM properly. The Spot is able tocreate portalsthat he can travel through but he hasn’t figured out how to control them. During his fight with Morales, The Spot accidentally traveled to apocket dimensionthat allowed him toaccess other universes.
Realizing thathis powersincreasedafter being exposed to similar Alchemax colliders in other universes, The Spot traveled across the multiverse consuming more and more energy. Morales and a few other Spider-People tried to intercept The Spot onEarth-50101B, home toPavitr Prabhakar.
Unfortunately, they were unable to stop The Spot from activating that universe’s collider and thecity of Mumbattan started crumbling. During the destruction,Morales disrupts acanon eventwhile saving Prabhakar’s girlfriend’s father, which causes additional ripple effects that couldharm the multiverse.
Canon Events
After saving Inspector Singh from the rubble, agiant black holebegins forming at the bottom of the crater and starts consuming everything near it.Jessica Drewarrived with a team of Spider-People tocontainit. Instead of requesting the help of Morales and his team, Drew sends them back to headquarters to speak withO’Hara.
When they arrive on Earth-928B, O’Hara explains the concept of canon events to Morales. Throughout the multiverse, a seemingly infinite number of Spider-People are constantly being created through a multitude of ways butcertain events must always happen.
Among these events is understanding thatSpider-Man can’t save everyone, which in Prabhakar’s case, meant losing either Inspector Singh or Gayatri. Because Morales disrupted the canon event and saved Inspector Singh, thisbroke the canonand caused the universe to collapse.
O’Hara explained how hetried living in a universe where his variant died and he could take his place. He experienced having a family but it was cut short by the universe suddenly disappearing, along with his daughter.
O’Hara continued telling Morales that losing the captain of the police force was also anunbreakable event, showing him several different universes playing this event. Realizing that hisfather was becoming captain soon, Morales escaped Earth-928 and managed to return to his universe to save his father.
Earth-42
When Morales returned home, he decided totell his mother that he was Spider-Man. However, Rio Morales had no idea who he was. Confused, he followed his mother as she answered the door forAaron Davis.
Seeing his supposed deceased uncle confirmed to Morales that he was sent tothe wrong universe. He follows his uncle onto the roof but is blindsided by someone and knocked out. When he wakes up, Morales is tied to a punching bag and tries pleading with his uncle that hedoesn’t have to be the Prowler.
However, Davis reveals he isn’t the Prowler, as the actual Prowler descends from a window. He removes his mask and reveals that he’sMiles G. Morales. The Earth-42 variant finds no sympathy for his counterpart and the movie ends with Morales being held captive while The Spotarrives in Earth-1610 to destroy his home.
Why Was Morales Sent To Earth-42?
During his initial fight with The Spot, the Alchemax scientist tells Morales that before the collider exploded he was experimenting with its capabilities. Unknown to Ohnn, hetransported the radioactive spider from Earth-42 to Earth-1610. This created asecond spiderin Earth-1610 because Peter Parker of the universe wasalready Spider-Man.
Because Morales was bitten by this second spider, he ended up in the middle of Parker’s fight with Kingpin. When Parker is analyzing Morales with his Spidey-Sense, we see Morales doing the same but thebackground colors change from green and purple to red and blue. This symbolizes Morales’s future changing from himeventually becoming the Prowlerof Earth-1610 to becoming another Spider-Man.
However, this anomaly proceeded to havea domino effect on Earth-1610, and subsequently, Earth-42. The presence of Morales distracted Parker andhe died at the hands of Kingpin. With Parker dead, Morales was thrust into the role of Spider-Man of Earth-1610 and the events of Into The Spider-Verse played out.
Because Morales eventually became the Prowler on Earth-42 and it’s clear that Morales of Earth-1610 wasdestined for the same fate, there’s reason to believe thatallMorales variants across the multiverse are meant to be Prowler. This means Morales of Earth-1610 being Spider-Man makes him truly unique.
The machine on Earth-928 is programmed to send you back to your home universe. The reason why Morales was sent to Earth-42 instead of Earth-1610 is becausethe spider that bit him was originally from Earth-42. And now that there wasn’t a radioactive spider on Earth-42,there wasn’t a Spider-Man either.
What Can We Expect From Beyond The Spider-Verse?
Morales’s epic trilogy through the multiversewill end with Beyond The Spider-Verse. We can assume that Morales escapes his Earth-42 counterpart either with the help ofGhost-Spider and her Spider-Teamor by persuading Prowler Morales to let him go.
Prowler Morales doesn’t seem interested to help Spider-Man save his father, making us think that thelack of Spider-Man on Earth-42 might’ve caused the death of this universe’s Jefferson Davis. While Morales is being held captive, The Spot arrives in Earth-1610 and begins his attack. O’Hara, Drew, and Ben Reilly (though he was incapacitated by Stacy) were patrolling Earth-1610 to hopefully capture Morales, so they will most likelytry to stop The Spot.
If Morales succeeds in saving his father from The Spot, he would be breaking another canon event. However, Stacy was able todivert her canon eventwhen she discovered her father quit the police force and her universe didn’t collapse. And because Morales is an anomalywho wasn’t supposed to be Spider-Man, this establishes a clear precedent that it might be possible for Morales tosave everyone.
