How the Multiverse Resurrected Miles Morales’ Mother
Written by on June 4, 2023
“Gonna Change My Way of Thinking” is a feature spotlighting notable examples of retcons that don’t fit into the framework of Abandoned an’ Forsaked, which is specifically about stories that outright “overturn” older stories. There are many examples of “retroactive continuity” that do not actively abandon the works of the past (especially cases where the overall continuity was rebooted). Some of them are minor, some of them are major. Today, we look at how a Multiverse-altering crossover event reunited Miles Morales with his mother.
I have a feature called Death is not the End, where I show how characters who “died” came back to life, but despite this instance specifically involving someone dying coming back to life, I think it is just too big of a retcon, in the sense that the resurrection really isn’t the point of the retcon, but rather, a side effect of the story, so while it is certainly an important part of the story, it is not the central aspect of the retcon, so I’m counting it here, instead. But hey, if you want to count it as a Death is not the End, go for it.
I don’t think it’s really spoiling Across the Spider-Verse too much to let you know that, like pretty much every Spider-Man-related film, Miles Morales’ family is in danger in the film. However, the movie is also a multiverse film, so obviously, characters could die in one universe while being alive in another one, and that’s something that we have seen numerous times over the years in the world of comic books, where major Multiverse shakeups can suddenly bring people back to life as a side effect, and that’s precisely what happened to Miles Morales, where a small act of kindness to a cosmic being resulted in not only Miles surviving the destruction of his original universe, but in his mother coming back to life, as well!
How did Miles Morales’ mother originally die?
It all began when the Ultimate Universe version of Betty Brant, also a reporter in the Ultimate Universe, began to investigate the new Spider-Man who had taken over after the seeming death of the Ultimate Universe version of Peter Parker (Earth-1610, I guess it is now called). However, Brant came to the wrong conclusion in her reporting, and erroneously assumed that Jefferson Davis, Miles’ father, was actually secretly Spider-Man, not his teenage son, Miles. Betty was then murdered by a mysterious new version of Venom (who had previously been a foe of the Ultimate Spider-Man), with Venom now believing Brant’s research, so Venom believes that Jefferson is Spider-Man, so Venom heads to the hospital where Jefferson’s wife, Rio Morales, works as a nurse, and in Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #22 (by Brian Michael Bendis, Sara Pichelli and Justin Ponsor), he starts trashing the place. Miles, of course, heads to the hospital, as well. His mother gets a hold of a gun and shoots at Venom, but it isn’t enough, and Miles essentially gives himself over to Venom to protect his mother. It is here that Rio reveals that she knows Miles is Spider-Man (it’s unclear when she figured it out)…
However, Miles then uses his special power (ironically called his “venom strike”) to disperse the symbiote from his body, just in time for the police to use that moment to open fire on the now unprotected villain, killing him with a barrage of bullets…
The problem with that many bullets in a small area, however, is that there is a very good possibility that one of the bullets can accidentally hit someone other than its intended target, and that’s precisely what happens here, as Rio Morales is struck by a bullet, and the wound is a fatal one. Before she dies, she not only confirms that she knows Miles is Spider-Man, but she also makes him promise that he won’t tell his father (talk about a mind-screwing event, right?)…
Naturally, Miles’ initial instinct is to give up being Spider-Man, and he quits for a full year (the series ended a few issues later). However, that does not last, and he returns to being Spider-Man. During a crossover event when Galactus tries to devour the Ultimate Earth, Miles reveals his secret identity to his father and it doesn’t go well. Eventually, though, Jefferson comes around, and the two reconcile. Sadly, this happened right before the Ultimate Universe was destroyed!
What did Miles Morales do during Secret Wars?
During the 2015 event, Secret Wars, the Ultimate Earth and the Marvel Universe Earth (Earth-616) were both destroyed, as the Multiverse was destroyed. However, through a plan involving co-opting the power of the Beyonders via the Molecule Man, Doctor Doom was able to restore a great deal of the Multiverse on a giant “Battleworld,” where different realities all shared the planet. However, a few superheroes and villains survived the destruction of the original Multiiverse on “arks,” and as we saw in Secret Wars #3 (by Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribic and Ive Svorcina), Miles was one of those surviving heroes (Miles and the Marvel Universe Peter had met each other at some point in the crossover miniseries, Spider-Men)…
Eventually, while the other surviving heroes like Black Panther and Reed Richards did some big ol’ cosmic stuff, Peter and Miles looked for Molecule Man, whose power was still supplying Doom with the power to do all of this and thus, theoretically, had the power to FIX all of this (well, they were looking for whoever was powering Doom. They didn’t know it was the Molecule Man). When they met him, he asked them if they had any food. Surprisingly, Miles had a hamburger on him…
The amusing thing, of course, was that the heroes who survived the destruction of the Multiverse had been in suspended animation for EIGHT YEARS, so that hamburger was quite old, but hey, Molecule Man was happy about it…
How did Miles Morales’ mother come back to life?
At the end of the event, Molecule Man essentially decides to give Reed Richards his powers so that he can fix everything. However, before everything goes back to normal, he thanks Miles for the hamburger, and tells him that he owes him one…
Ultimate End #5 (by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, Scott Hanna and Justin Ponsor) saw the remnants of the Ultimate Universe come to their seemingly final rest (of course, this is comics, the Ultimate Univere would later return)…
but when it comes to an end, and everything restarted, Miles and his family and friends are now part of the official Marvel Universe, courtesy of the Molecule Man, and to boot, Rio is now alive!
She doesn’t remember his secret identity, though (his father does), but she eventually learns it again (that’s a whole other story).
Okay, folks, feel free to suggest more examples of this sort of thing! Obscure ones, famous ones, whatever! Send your suggestions to brianc@cbr.com!
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