What Is a Canon Event in ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’?

The release of ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ allowed us to see the continuation of what is set to become a trilogy of ‘Spider-Verse’ movies. Still focusing on Miles Morales and his role in this entire ‘Spider-Verse’ storyline, ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ introduced new concepts that are very important to the plot. One such concept is the Canon Event. So, what are Canon Events in ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’?

A Canon Event is an event that is common to almost all of the Spider-People across the entire Spider-Verse. That means that all of them have to experience the Canon Event because these events connect a Spider-Person with the other Spider-People in the webs of the Spider-Verse.

The Canon Event concept in ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ is the most important part of the entire storyline as it made Miles Morales choose his own path instead of allowing the Canon Event to dictate whatever he needed to do in his life. This decision also got him on the bad side of Miguel O’Hara. So, with that said, let’s look at what Canon Events are.

Canon Events Explained

While some people didn’t like the fact that ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ took a while to introduce the actual issue and conflict in the movie, the thing is that it was important for the movie to set up the character backgrounds of the different people involved because they were important in the introduction of the bigger issue at hand. Of course, the biggest issue is the concept of the Canon Event.

‘Across the Spider-Verse’ may have fooled some people into thinking that the Spot, a goofy villain, was the movie’s true antagonist. But the truth is that Miles is simply trying to change fate and is looking to defy the odds involving the concept of the Canon Event. But what exactly is a Canon Event?

The concept of the Canon Event was first shown when Miles Morales followed Gwen Stacy to Earth-50101, which is the home of Spider-Man: India. That universe’s Spider-Man is Pavitr Prabhakar, who is deeply in love with his girlfriend, the Gwen Stacy version of that universe. She is the daughter of Captain Singh.

After Miles and the others failed to stop the Spot from absorbing the powers of the Alchemax collider of that universe, the surrounding area suffered damage as a result. That was when the Spider-People sprang to action to help those still in danger. Pavitr sensed that his girlfriend was in danger as the bus was about to fall. However, he also sensed that Captain Singh was in danger when the police officer tried to help a young girl from getting crushed by debris.

Gwen’s watch alerted her that a Canon Event was about to happen. That was why she tried to stop Miles from helping Pavitr, telling him it was too dangerous. Miles successfully saved Captain Singh to prevent his death from happening. And after that, several Spider-People appeared out of nowhere to try to contain a huge hole that appeared in the city, as Miles and the others were called back to the headquarters of the Spider-People.

Miles finally met the leader of the Spider-People, Miguel O’Hara. Unlike the other Spider-People, Miguel has a somewhat sour personality and is known as a no-nonsense kind of person. As such, he didn’t waste time with niceties to try to introduce the concept of Canon Events to Miles.

Miguel explained that Canon Events are common to the different Spider-People spread across the multiverse. These Spider-People are linked to one another through the Spider-Verse. And the things that link one Spider-Person to another are the Canon Events.

Canon Events are common experiences that every Spider-Person has to go through. That means that every single Spider-Person has a common Canon Event that he has to share with another Spider-Person. For example, Pavitr’s Canon Event was supposedly the death of Captain Singh, which is linked to the deaths of the different Captain Stacy variants across the Spider-Verse, just like how Captain Stacy in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ had to die.

Why Are Canon Events Important?

The reason why Canon Events are so important is the fact that these are the events that allow one Spider-Person’s universe to connect with another Spider-Person’s universe in the greater Spider-Verse.

So, suppose a certain Spider-person’s Canon Event gets disrupted. In that case, the universe of that Spider-Person will begin to implode because the common event that connects it to the Spider-Verse no longer happens. That was what happened in Pavitr’s Earth-50101. Miguel also said that he once saw the destruction of an entire universe when he disrupted a Canon Event when he saw a dimension where he could replace a dead version of himself to act as the father of the child of that universe’s Miguel O’Hara.

In short, Canon Events are vital to the survival of the different universes in the Spider-Verse due to how they are the ones that keep the universes intact in the web of the Spider-Verse. And Miguel had to tell Miles this fact because he was about to experience his Canon Event. After all, his father was about to become the captain of his police force.

The Canon Event is the biggest issue that needs to be resolved because Miles wants to return to his universe to stop the Canon Event from taking place when the Spot was set to kill Captain Morales. However, Miguel and the other Spider-People didn’t want Miles to stop the Canon Even from happening because this event needed to keep Miles’ Earth-1610 from imploding. It became a dilemma between a single person’s life and the lives of all of the people in an entire universe.

But Miles believes that being the good guy means being able to save everyone without being forced to choose between two options. And it was his wanting to stop the Canon Event from happening got him in trouble with all of the other Spider-People, especially Miguel O’Hara.

The fact that Miles tried to return to his home was why he ended up on Earth-42 instead, as it was revealed that the spider that bit him came from Earth-42. So, when the device that sent him home scanned him and determined that he was from Earth-42 instead of Earth-1610, he was sent to an entirely different universe where his father was already dead. His Uncle Aaron was still alive and was the one that raised the Miles of that universe to become a supervillain.

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