How Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Turns A Goofy Bad Guy Into A Legitimate Threat
This post contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse."
When an antagonist of the barely villain-of-the-week variety shows up at the beginning of "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," everyone, including Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), thoroughly underestimates him. Known as The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), this comic supervillain attempts to steal a convenience store ATM but is quickly intercepted by Miles after being nearly beaten up by the store manager. As Spot's arrival coincides with Miles' adjustment as the only Spider-Man in Brooklyn, it is easy to mistake this rather hilarious sequence as a tongue-in-cheek attempt at lightening the mood — while The Spot is pretty goofy, things quickly take a more sinister turn after his true motivations are revealed.
It is easy to deduce why The Spot is initially mistaken as comic relief against the backdrop of the solemn events that fuel the film, as his brand of villainy seems innocuous, even endearing at first. Sporting the mass of a man with a dozen black portals all over his body, The Spot tries and fails to fend off Miles' attacks, let alone land a punch during the chaotic chase sequence that occurs. Miles has a rough time beating up the bad guy too, as his blows pass right through the portals, leading to lighthearted antagonism between two dudes trying their best to do their jobs.
However, darker impulses reside beneath this veneer of goofiness, as The Spot manages to lure Miles to the site where the collider was destroyed a year back, revealing that this act morphed him into the being he is now. Once a gifted scientist working for Alchemax, The Spot is now a laughing stock for society, ostracized because of his newfound visage. And who does he blame for this personal tragedy? Miles Morales.
Paying homage to comicbook roots
"Across the Spider-Verse" does not actively erase The Spot's silly comic book roots, but cleverly incorporates them into an evolving story about a formidable supervillain who is also a scatterbrained dude unable to land a punch when it matters the most. Born as Jonathan Ohnn, The Spot was first introduced in Al Milgrom and Herb Trimpe's "Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #98," as a brilliant scientist working for Wilson Fisk on some power-cloning experiment. After this experiment goes wrong, Ohnn's body is contaminated with extradimensional energy, and he transforms into a dimension known as Spotworld, which allows him to travel between portals and morph through space and time.
However, the first meeting between Spot and the original Spider-Man is as hilarious and embarrassing as the one between him and Miles. Spot's attacks turn out to be too weak, and Peter Parker's blows end up getting swallowed by the portals on his body. In the end, Parker is able to outsmart Spot and convince him that super-villainy is simply not his forte. This is obviously not the end of his journey, as Spot ends up teaming up with M.O.D.O.K later but is eventually betrayed by him, and the poor dude is also attacked by the Carnage Symbiote at some point and ripped apart.
In the film, The Spot also indulges in silly shenanigans, such as tripping over his own foot and accidentally yeeting himself into Spotworld as he is about to charge towards Miles. This silly accident is, however, the birth of a new era, as Spot discovers the ability to travel freely through the Multiverse, which grants him the perfect opportunity to enact revenge on the kid he thinks is responsible for his fall from grace.
Destroying the Multiverse
The Spot's motivations to destroy entire universes stems from his need to be taken seriously. Tired of being the butt of the joke every time, The Spot wants to convince the world, and himself, that he is capable of whimsical creation and destruction just to prove a point. Thanks to a balanced mixture of comedic banter and serious exchanges, The Spot emerges as the greatest, most baffling threat against the future of the Spider-Verse, especially after he attacks Mumbattan and puts innocent lives at risk. This act inadvertently creates an anomaly when Miles ends up saving someone who is supposed to die as per canon scenarios, setting the stage for the Miles versus Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac) clash which drastically alters the paths that the respective figures are about to traverse.
Moreover, Spot's endgame is to hurt Miles, as he views himself as his unwitting creator, and believes that Miles' involvement in his transformation is the ultimate act of betrayal. Gross misunderstanding aside, it is Spot's need for societal acceptance and egotistic validation that fuels his motives, and such a skewed perception of reality can lead to truly dangerous outcomes.
Towards the end, The Spot shows Miles a vision of the future, where his father dies while saving a kid during an attack. Considering that The Spot is willing to kill indiscriminately to antagonize and get back at Miles, and use his scientific genius to nefarious ends, this villain needs to be taken seriously, just like he intends the world to. Whether he's truly goofy or not, The Spot wants to destroy the Spider-Verse, and only the best Spider-people can put a stop to such a dastardly, world-ending scheme.
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is currently playing in theaters.