Again, HEAVY SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It admittedly seems silly to still be putting spoiler warnings for a movie that has already been in theaters for around a month, but I want to make absolutely sure nobody stumbles onto this post by mistake.
One of the greatest virtues of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is, ironically enough, one of its greatest vices as well. It deconstructs the notion of what defines Spider-Man by challenging one of the very central pillars of the Spider-Man story: tragedy.
Miles Morales, the central character of Across the Spider Verse and Gwen Stacy, who is arguably his co-lead in this film, have both experienced their fair share of life-defining tragedies. Miles' uncle Aaron who moonlighted as the Prowler, died at the hands of the Kingpin, while Gwen inadvertently killed her best friend, Peter Parker, who fought her to the death as the Lizard.
According to the Spider Society led by Spider-Man 2099, however, this isn't enough; just as Peter Parker, in his many iterations across the multi...err...Spider-verse, has had to suffer the death of Captain George Stacy, so must Miles suffer the death of his police captain father (as he did, incidentally, in the 2018 Playstation 4 game Spider-Man). So committed, in fact, is the Spider Society to bringing about this "canon event" as they call it, that they imprison Miles to make sure he cannot prevent it from happening.
Now, this was a real "wait, what?" moment for me and not for the reasons that I think the filmmakers may have intended it to be.
The idea of imprisoning someone who is out to save his father's life is, to the best of my knowledge as a regular Spider-Man reader for nearly forty years, not something any Peter Parker would agree to, let alone a multitude of them. This is NOT the same thing as Peter Porker telling Miles he can't save everyone in the first film after his uncle's death at Kingpin's hands, nor is it the same thing as Peter Parker of the PS4 game choosing to save New York with the cure for the city wide pandemic, even if it means that Aunt May dies from the disease in the process. This is hordes of different versions of Peter Parker, agreeing that a precognitive process that is, at best, questionable, should take precedence over the impulse to help people, which is what Spider-Man does. The film is asking us to believe that Peter Parker, or worse, MANY Peter Parkers, would agree to let people die and would even IMPRISON someone out to prevent it.
Suddenly, the Spider Society doesn't feel like a realm full of Spider-Mans nearly as much as it does a realm full of Spider-Man editors, those eternally anonymous, utterly insufferable bogeymen who have, for decades, foisted narrative abominations on hapless readers like "Sins Past," "One More Day," and most recently, "What Did Peter Do?" These people are the real reason why Peter Parker cannot hold down a regular job, unlike, say Clark Kent, or keep a stable relationship, unlike, say Reed Richards; because his life, like that of an eternal adolescent, has to remain mired in tragedy, trauma and personal setbacks. Peter has actually obtained a graduate degree throughout his sixty years of existence in publication, but depending on which branch of editorial you ask, some would say he hasn't even graduated from college.
Miles is no exception to Marvel's addiction to tragedy; in the early, Ultimate Universe iteration of the book, his mother Rio died from a gunshot wound, which actually caused Miles to quit being Spider-Man. Marvel walked the death back when they transplanted him from the Ultimate to the mainstream 616 universe, but elsewhere, Miles has seen his dad die (the PS4) game, or his uncle (Into the Spider-Verse).
I appreciate the fact that this movie pushes back against that concept and its proponents, and even ends on a cliffhanger that strongly suggests that for Miles to lose his dad would only push him into villainy, contrary to the Spider Society's thesis that he needs the tragedy to become a fully-realized hero. It's something that needs to be said, after all. There is far more to being Spider-Man than just reacting to personal tragedy.
My problem is that in trying to make this point, the movie dehumanizes its army of Spider-Men into mindless automatons ready to do Spider-Man 2099's bidding, a whole bunch of sheep who have bought wholesale into this concept of "the canon" without any semblance of critical thinking, which seems problematic when one considers that most incarnations of Spider-Man are supposed to have, as their alter-egos, geniuses.
I enjoyed the movie, make no mistake, but in trying to make a broader point I feel it undermined its narrative ever so slightly. I don't know if anyone else shares my opinion, but I stand by it just the same.
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