u/EmaPikachu

We did this for a school project (film analysis, us both being Spiderman fanatics… yeah.) and wanted to share, also to get further inputs or feedback, content- and animation-analysis-wise. Also English is neither of our first languages and we‘re writing this super tired after taking hours on the analysis.

Also REALLY IMPORTANT we‘re not looking for backlash on being pro-Miguel 😋
My hg got tasked to rewrite it a fourth time so we can post it on reddit so this is a reddit-post-formatted-version.

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I've been working on a film analysis of Across the Spider-Verse and went down a serious rabbit hole about Miguel O'Hara. The deeper I looked, the more convinced I got that he's not the antagonist at all, the movie just frames him as one, and the key to the whole character is hiding in his name. Long post, but stay for the Archangel part, that's where it gets good.

1. The framing is doing all the heavy lifting
Think about how Miguel is presented versus what he does. Presentation: darkest color palette of any Spider-person, introduced high above with his back turned, shot from low angles like a monument, horror-movie music every time he appears, claws, fangs, a skull-shaped spider on his chest, and he hunts Miles on all fours like a predator instead of swinging elegantly like literally every other Spider-person (Gwen even calls him a "blue panther"). He's the only Spider-Man who isn't funny, Peter B. points it out to his face.
Even the animation singles him out: everyone else is soft and cartoony, Miguel is rendered with harsh, jagged lines from his cold Syd-Mead-style 2099 universe. He looks wrong among his own people. All of that is presentation. None of it is action.

2. His actual actions are the most heroic in the movie
Watch the scenes without the scary music in mind. He explains canon events to Miles calmly, almost gently, hands on his hips, non-threatening, on Miles' eye level. "Everyone wants to live the life they wish they had. Believe me, l've tried." The man is speaking from trauma, he replaced a dead version of himself in another universe, got to be a father to a version of his daughter, and watched that entire universe disintegrate because of it. He only cages Miles when it's obvious he'll bolt and cause even more damage than he already did in Pavitr's dimension. In the train fight he visibly holds back (he's surrounded by Spider-people 24/7, he knows exactly how much force a Spider-person can take) and spends the whole fight desperately trying to make eye contact while Miles avoids it. He doesn't want to win.
He wants Miles to listen.

He's also Kingpin's dark mirror from the first movie: same tragedy (a dead child), opposite conclusion. Kingpin would sacrifice the multiverse to get his family back. Miguel sacrificed his own happiness to make sure nobody else ever loses theirs. And unlike Miles, he actually lives by "with great power comes great responsibility", to the point of self-destruction.

3. The Archangel Michael thing (the part that broke my brain)
Miguel is the Spanish/Portuguese form of Michael. In the Bible, that's the Archangel Michael the name literally means "Who is like God?". In the Book of Daniel and in Revelation, Michael is the leader of the heavenly armies, the great protector who commands the angelic host and casts out evil.
Now map that onto the movie:
Michael leads an army of angels → Miguel leads an army of hundreds of Spider-people who trust him completely and follow him without question. (Ask yourself: would hundreds of Spider-Men (the most moral characters in fiction) follow an actual villain?)
Michael defends the divine order → Miguel defends the canon, the cosmic order that keeps every universe alive.
Michael is a warrior-protector, not a soft cherub. Biblically accurate angels are terrifying, the first thing they say to humans is "be not afraid," because their appearance inspires dread. They are frightening on purpose, so they can drive out evil.
That is exactly Miguel: the iconography of a demon (claws, fangs, glowing red eyes) but the function of a guardian angel. His scary appearance isn't evidence of evil, it's the tool of his protective role.
And the movie knows it. Look at the shot at 1:49:47, right after "We're supposed to be the good guys." / "We are." Miguel in total darkness, red eyes glowing, framed from below, monumental, looking down in judgment. That's not villain framing. That's divine wrath framing. Renaissance-painting, angel-of-judgment imagery.
You can even push it further: Michael's counterpart is the fallen angel. Miguel fell once, he broke canon himself, tasted the life he wanted, and lost everything for it. He's a fallen angel who climbed back up and now guards the gate so nobody else falls the way he did.
Meanwhile the actual designated villain, The Spot, gets maybe ten minutes of screentime.

TL;DR
The movie uses every cinematic trick, framing, color, music, animation style, POV bias (we see everything through Miles, whose lovable dad gets tons of warm scenes while Miguel's dead daughter gets one flashback) to make you hate a guardian angel. His name, his army, his role and his "terrifying protector" imagery are all Archangel Michael. He's the parent who's willing to be the bad guy in his kid's eyes to keep everyone safe.
So: villain, antagonist, or the only adult in the room getting punished by the narrative for it?
Genuinely curious about takes I haven't considered, especially if you think the archangel reading is a stretch.