That’s no secret at the moment Spider-Man: About the Spider-Verse ends on a giant cliffhanger – one we won’t see resolved until 2024.
a lot of themes and plot points led to that cliffhanger, but most importantly, there are two particularly big reveals for Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) in this film that energize the final moments. Here’s the thing, though: those two huge truths can contradict each other. Either they can fix each other, or they can be used as a giant launching pad for the franchise’s themes of destiny and interconnectedness. Or all of the above! Let’s get into it.
[Ed. note: This post contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.]
Image: Sony Pictures
The first big one Miles learns into About the Spider-Verse is that all the alternate versions of him in the multiverse – the Spider-People who form an elite reality protection team – are linked not only by their spider abilities, but also by “canon events” – major (often devastating) life moments that affect them all experience, and more importantly, all of them to have experienced. For example, a police captain close to Spider-Man always dies, crushed by falling debris while rescuing a child.
Miles realizes this means his father, Jeff (Brian Tyree Henry) – who just now recently promoted to captain – will die in a few days. Miles wants to save his father, but the leader of the interdimensional Spider coalition, Miguel O’Hara (aka Spider-Man 2099, voiced by Oscar Isaac), says he can’t, then traps Miles prevent him from intervening. Miles escapes captivity and tries to return to his home universe, on the run from an entire army of Spider-People.
As the chase escalates, Miguel reveals that Miles is actually the original anomaly, the reason for every disturbance currently taking place in the multiverse. The radioactive spider that bit Miles and gave him his powers, according to the usual Spider-Man origin story, was from a completely different universe. That universe now has no Spider-Man of its own and Miles should never have been his universe’s Spider-Man because without his presence, the Peter Parker in his world would still be alive. It’s a pretty shocking moment. But when Miguel snaps that Miles doesn’t belong with the other Spider-People, it sinks in to what Miles’ mother told him earlier – that he should never let anyone tell him he doesn’t belong.
Image: Sony Pictures
But herein lies the contradiction: If Miles isn’t his universe’s intended Spider-Person, then why is his father on the chopping block? It could be that the radioactive spider forced Miles into the role, but if he’s enough of a Spider-Man that his canon runs normally and he’s filling the usual Spider role, then why should his existence be such an issue? for Miguel? Like miles is an anomaly outside of normal Spider canon, why can’t he just go ahead and save his father and fix his connection to the rest of the Spider-People? Wouldn’t that make everyone happy, albeit lonely? Miguel thinks breaking the canon would destroy Miles’ universe – would the entire multiverse collapse as a result?
This contradiction – whether Miles is a canon Spider-Man, or he isn’t – is one of the bigger plot questions About the Spider-Verse leave unresolved. To be fair, by the end of the movie, the characters have more pressing issues than the details of the Miles Paradox.
The Miles Paradox is not a plot hole. After all, this movie is part one of two, and there are one lot of things for Beyond the Spider-Verse to enter in 2024. Thematically, the contradiction between Miguel’s core truths about Miles challenges the idea of fate, determinism, and free will built into the entire connected multiversal web. In terms of plot, the conflict could offer a solution to the Miles riddle. Or it could make things much, much worse. Be that as it may, considering how much rich detail has gone into the Spider-Verse movies at every level, it’s very likely that this paradox is intentional and will play into whatever happens in Beyond the Spider-Verse.