#3pac

Let's start with Miguel. Or really, with Nueva York. Beautiful, futuristic utopia, endless green grass and distant white skyscrapers against the blue sky, and for all of that there is not a single note of life within it. It's empty, just a hollow monument to "good", like Miguel himself. And like Miguel, its underbelly is dark and chaotic and unknowable - sunless tunnels cluttered with motorways and nothing else, the grinding gears of some unbearably massive machine that doubtless keeps the whole city running in its blind pretense of life, the gears of which visually threaten to crush Miles. Because Miguel O'Hara is a fucked up guy who is not only willing to be so violent against a 15-year-old child, but NEEDS to be. In true vampiric fashion (disclaimer: he's not a vampire) Miguel has an obsession beyond obsession, a predatory drive which must be fulfilled - but not for blood. For vengeance. Because he's already killed an entire universe of human beings. He's stolen a family he was never supposed to have, and then killed them all through his selfishness. And he has to make that someone else's fault. He has to be the Good Guy to live with himself, but inside he is the most detestable of monsters.

(Miguel and Uncle Aaron have a lot in common (inverted) especially with their emotional impact on Miles. He thought he could look up to both of them - but Uncle Aaron failed in regret, and Miguel seeks to amend his failures through more damage. Important that Miguel's theme is distorted synth, the same distortion which they used to create the Prowler theme)

Meanwhile Uncle Aaron acted the monster, but as Miles puts it he was a genuinely good guy underneath. He had no interest in being the kind of black man that Jeff is - slotting into white society, that is - and inevitably that got him pulled into being the Prowler. Everything's contained in what he said to Miles in his last moments. Every single Uncle Ben says the classic line, "With great power comes great responsibility", etc etc, telling Peter Parker to knock off the ego and be the kind of hero the city needs. But Miles is already that person. Uncle Aaron says "You're the best of us. You're on your way up. Just keep going."

Before he became Spiderman, Miles actively did not want to go to Visions Academy because he WANTS his ghetto friends, he WANTS his low-income Black Spanish life. He was perfectly happy to waste his intelligence and talent because he never figured he'd get anywhere to begin with. But now he's got a greater purpose in helping people, in being the best he can because no one else has the power to be Spiderman. When Uncle Aaron says "You're the best of us", he doesn't just mean their family. Miles managed to escape the pull of gang violence and the twisted honor-and-glory appeal of thug life and the oily black tendrils of poverty entwined around his legs. He shook off everything that we now know was supposed to be his destiny, and he has never looked back.

But in doing so he doomed Miles G to that very fate. The first movie didn't touch much on that aspect of urban blackness, likely because white audiences would not care. But now you love Miles! You ain't got a choice now! They tricked you, man!

42 Miles, or Miles G. Morales as he's credited, has experienced a greater loss with nothing to hold on to besides the structure of gang violence within a falling, burning city. His father is dead, both stripping him of that moral figure and discounting all the ideas that Jeff tried to instill into his son - because those are the beliefs that got him killed. If you don't wanna get killed, you better get some power and some respect, and never let go of either. Uncle Aaron, still the original Prowler, steps in as Miles G's father figure, making sure Rio's financially okay and not too stressed, reassuring her that "We're family". Family is everything, it's the only bond they have, and Miles G would do anything for his mother. Anything at all. The voice actor leans more into the Puerto Rican accent, rolling the R's and accentuating S's, whereas our Miles talks more black even when he's speaking Spanish - his father's absence, and his love for his mother above all else.

He's the man of the house now. He's gotta provide, and he's gotta take care of his mother. 15 years old, Miles G has design schematics for the current Prowler gloves posted on the wall of his room - it's a far more active part of his normal life than with our Miles, who keeps his Spidermanning entirely separate (for now). It's bleeding into his everyday, infecting his soul with every heist, collection, and murder that he carries out. It's not Uncle Aaron's fault. He loves his nephew, and without his father around, he wants the kid to have respect, to not have to work his way up from nothing, so he passes him the mantle. Uncle Aaron was undoubtedly drawn into that life by something similar. That's how the cycle self-perpetuates. The result is a 15-year-old kid with the eyes of a combat veteran.

Here is a kid who does not hesitate, who does not forget or make mistakes, who jumped into this life headfirst because he knows there is no other choice. For him there is no way out, and he is far from the only one.

Ain't no love in the heart of the city. Red light pouring in from the fires outside and the soul-death inside, the bloody inevitability, the need to protect themselves and their own because no one else will. This violence is the only pathway. Violent death will come whether or not you follow it. And staring into his own face and yet much older eyes, our Miles is just beginning to realize exactly what he's escaped and what Liv's collider portal doomed this kid and this world to, all because of a tiny little spider. And he has switched fates, as in the first film his Spidey-Sense started out as green and purple, then turned red and blue as he vibed with Peter. Over the course of a few seconds, we witnessed his destiny change. The colors of this interplay between worlds are green and purple, green and purple, the Prowler's colors.

And red, as Miguel tried to ensure that fate (execution) is carried out. Miguel blames Miles as the "original anomaly", yet he conveniently ignores the spider, or Doc Ock who brought it over and started this whole mess, or Kingpin who funded her. Miguel is willing to physically attack a black child for his own misplaced regret and self-loathing. Beyond that, I genuinely believe that if he had reached Miles in the Go-Home machine, he would have killed him. The madness in those ripping claws is not something stopped by the sudden softness of flesh. It's only Spider-Byte who stops him - she (black female tech-heavy Spiderman, vibed with Miles instantly on those principles and others) could have shut down the machine and trapped Miles. But he looked at her, and she saw that he was a terrified child, and she knew that Miguel is incapable of mercy or critical thought, and maybe she wanted to believe in him. So she hesitated, most important savior Time.

Before we move on too far, back to Miguel and Miles. Miguel's fangs secrete a paralyzing venom - probably he was trying to incapacitate Best Vulture using that, although with the bestial transformation of his silhouette perhaps he didn't care if he ripped Vulture's throat out by accident. Regardless, he only seems to use this as the definitive way to End Fights. Miles has a similar ability in his venom blast or whatever he calls it. I swear the word "static" was in there somewhere. The difference is, Miles uses it as a defensive mechanism, not offensive (Armadillo guy aside). He uses it to get out of bad situations and continue the fight, to break down barriers and temporarily stun his opponents so he can break free and recover. We see him preparing to do this at the end of this movie, too.

Again, Miguel needs to view himself as the superior protector of all universes in order to pretend like his mistake is in any way acceptable. Beyond that, he blames Miles for it, so that he does not have to forgive himself/Miles, he can just eliminate the problem and pretend it's all over. Miguel the controller uses his ability as the be-all end-all, whereas Miles uses it as just one method among many in his arsenal.

Now. The only named black Spider who doesn't vibe with Miles is Jess Drew, but that's explicable by the following reasons. First of all, she's pregnant - Miguel destroyed his stolen kids by breaking canon, and neither Peter B nor Jess want to risk their own new families by going against Miguel's canon laws. Secondly, she's a black woman who is basically Miguel's right hand (within the fact that he cannot and will not ever trust anyone else with this "responsibility" he claims for himself), and there's not much to be gained from abandoning that, especially in context of the first point.

You know who does vibe with Miles?

HOBIE

MOTHERFUCKING 

BROWN

Hobie fucking loves Miles right from the start. He's only in the Spider-Society because he knows Miguel's insane and his actions and orders are inhumane and all kinds of fucked up. But Hobie's basically alone in that knowledge, as even Gwen still wants to believe that it could be a good thing, and so he's just infiltrating, learning more and stealing shit to recreate Miguel's technology without Miguel's restrictions. And when Miles comes along and starts speaking out against that shit, he loves it. He encourages it. And he uses Miles' distraction to slip off and put his own plan into action.

From the second he meets Miles he's looking out for the kid. Part of that's because he's true punk (incredible to see, especially with him being black and this movie being so commercialized by its marketing/sales teams) but part of it is that he recognizes Miles. Hobie probably also has a static venom ability, since he's the one who tells Miles that it works better using the whole hand (and reminds him, later, while everyone else is telling him to calm down or hang in there and only Hobie is still on his side telling him silently to fight back). It's possible even that since he used his guitar to break the forcefield barrier, and since it is not plugged in to anything but still makes electric guitar noises, that the guitar acts as a sort of amplifier for that power.

He never tells Miles what to think, he just encourages him TO think. And he's always there with his own laconic opinion to point out how fascist Miguel's little Spider Utopia is to anyone not a Spider - and anyone who disagrees with Miguel the Controller. More personally he indirectly asks if Miles has a safe home to go back to, and he STAYS THERE when Miguel's being a dick to a 15-year-old kid.

There's more to recognition than that, though. See, Hobie Brown also escaped the fate of becoming the Prowler. The original Prowler, since inception and for most of the comics' runs, has been a black man named Hobart Brown. Hobie as Spider-Punk is and always has been a subversion of the black male stereotypes that led to the creation of the Prowler (very normal and not racist name there by the way), and without losing any of his Blackness or masculinity or Black masculinity. Hobie and Miles have more in common than any other Spiders, because they've both beaten that expected fate of black men to fall eagerly into violence and gang warfare and criminal careers. And Miguel wants Miles to feel unworthy of that escape - he wants Miles to believe that he does not belong in a chosen betterment; that all he was ever meant for is poverty and wasted talent and endless violence.

But Miles won't let that happen! "I'ma do my own thing," and he's got that confidence in himself now. And Hobie's got his back cause things are finally moving, he's not alone in trying to dismantle Miguel's fucked up utopia with the gears of that great machine beneath grinding up anomalies and black children to keep it all running so flawlessly on the surface. Miguel lives in "Nueva York", he's never had to subvert much, the darkness within him is not that which he keeps at bay via that injection, it is the monstrosity which he lets fester and flourish under the name of "dedication". Miles comes in and disrupts that perfect lie in about ten minutes, he's already boiling and he won't accept a fate he does not want when he's already escaped it once before.

Hobie's been hanging around for some time, making himself appear lazy and carelessly destructive to hide his far greater intentions. As long as Miguel "just can't" with him, he's being underestimated, and as long as that is the case he is free to undermine and plot and replicate as much as possible. That's black intelligence. "Man like Miles!"