What Makes A Superhero? Rio Morales Sums Up The Spiderman Mindset

In a post-campaign phone call of the Spider-Man Miles Morales PS5 game, Rio Morales inadvertently defines the heroic mindsets of Peter Parker and Miles Morales, showing us just what makes a superhero.

Spiderman: Miles Morales explores the conflict between Miles and a technologically-powerful villain known as: ‘The Tinkerer.’

Revealed early on to be his old friend: Phin Mason; the two battle over her attempts to destroy the Roxxon energy corporation for their murder of her brother, with her plan inadvertently threatening to destroy Harlem.

In the game’s climax, Phin realizes the scale of her mistakes and sacrifices herself to allow Miles to safely release an enormous amount of bio-electrical energy above New York, comfortingly telling him to ‘Let go.’

She Always Knows What To Say

After the main-campaign, Miles visits Trinity Church, where he and Phin once enjoyed an international concert together, leaving behind their-shared ‘Spacebound’ researchers award and saying his final goodbye.

Afterwards, understandably emotional, he calls his mother and explains how conflicted he feels.

Miles is a teenager, trying to reconcile his feelings of the friend he knew, the enemy she became, and the good she did in her final moments; a Spiderman emotional dilemma across multiple iterations, such as Dr. Octopus in Spiderman 2.

Rio eases his pain when she says: ‘You don’t need to make a judgment on Phin’s life, m’hijo. Or her death. Just remember who she was and why you loved her’. This quote epitomizes the Spiderman mindset across multiple forms of media.

Be it Harry Osborn, Otto Octavius, or Phin Mason, neither Peter Parker nor Miles Morales judges them arrogantly. They stop them, yet never forget who they were and what they meant to them. As Miles himself immediately responds: ‘You always know what to say.’

An Empathetic Hero

In Spiderman 2, when the fusion experiment goes wrong for the second time, Peter Parker reveals his identity to Otto, saying: ‘Dr. Octavius. We have to shut it down. Please tell me how’.

He risks everything, knowing that even if he/they now succeed in stopping it, a powerful supervillain will know who he is.

The last time that happened with Norman Osborn in the first movie, the love of his life: Mary Jane, was used as a hostage, nearly leading to her death and the deaths of innocents.

For the vast majority of people in real-life and even many other heroes in the genre, this would be a moment to turn paranoid and become overly cynical about human nature; yet Peter doesn’t do that. He takes the risk, believing in the man Dr. Octavius was and can be, guiding him through advice and empathy.

Sharing the words of Aunt May: “Sometimes, to do what’s right, we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams”. In a beautifully acted moment by Alfred Molina, the desperate rage falls away in the blink of an eye; yet it feels completely natural and earned.

Peter’s words are firm but kind, challenging Otto’s ego in a way only the Webhead could. Spiderman’s rogues’ gallery is one of the most impressive across all media, with the dynamics frequently being emotionally complex for one reason above any other: Personal investment.

Spiderman, in all forms, must often overcome intensely emotional challenges, creating intriguing hero-villain dynamics.

In Spiderman: Homecoming, Toomes spares his life for saving his daughter, on the condition he never interferes with his business again.

In the first Spiderman film of the Raimi trilogy, Norman sees Peter as a far worthier son, while Harry, across the trilogy, views him as the brother he never had.

Behind the goblin masks, fishbowl helmets, and wingsuits: Peter Parker finds humanity in the broken.

He is an empathic hero, and when handled correctly, very few superhero stories can rival those dynamics.

The one quality that truly compliments what makes a superhero.

Doing The Right Thing

More often than not, the people who bear the mantle of Spiderman face temptation. For Miles, this comes from Phin and his uncle Aaron, friend, and familial connections, respectively, who each offer him an alternative to responsibility.

Doing the right thing is the feather in the cap of just what makes a superhero.

Miles’s uncle wants him to sit out the conflict between the Tinkerer and Roxxon, to have them ‘kill each other,’ yet Miles refuses. Not least because of the threat to the wider-city, Miles definitively states that he would fight for any of them, saying: “I can’t turn my back when people need me.”

His uncle pleads for Miles to be selfish, to avoid risk, yet this is something he would never do. His offer of safety through apathetic complacency is rejected; definitively.

The most difficult challenge comes from Phin, whose ideological and personal crusade against Roxxon is emotionally compelling.

Having murdered her brother, lied to the public about the dangers of their miracle-energy ‘Nuform,’ and generally behaving in a quasi-authoritarian manner, her rage is fully justified, and Miles wants to help.

Her temptation is for Miles to give in to his lowest emotional self while he fights desperately to make her better than that.

However, while he pursues criminal evidence that would bring Roxxon down as an entity, Phin’s anger leads her to empower a new criminal gang known as: ‘The Underground,’ and her plan to destroy Roxxon threatens thousands of lives.

Unable to see her mistakes, only Miles’s consistent attempts to reach out, through blood, sweat, and fury, save her at the eleventh hour.

Witnessing the Nuform reactor going critical and reminded of her own brother’s death, she sees past her ego.

In her last moments, she understands what Miles has been trying to show her and atones for her sins: A classic display of Spiderman’s empathy unlocking the best in their foes.

The Tragic Irony Of The Spiderman Mythos

There’s what makes a superhero and then the irony of their polar opposites.

Throughout every on-screen adaptation, a recurring trend can be seen in its antagonistic characters. The mythos’s tragic irony is that many of the people he faces could do so much more than him; if only they were willing and had some of Peter’s best qualities.

While an incredible force for good: Inspiring millions, so many of his villains have even more significant potential.

Norman and Harry Osborn are worth billions, with the drive and intelligence to use that money more efficiently and effectively than philanthropists with ten times their wealth. Yet, they so often fall victim to ego and vengeance.

In the MCU, Quentin Beck mocks Tony’s handling of his B.A.R.F. technology as a ‘Self-therapy machine,’ yet that application alone could have helped millions with various mental-health struggles.

A compliant Max Dillon (Electro) could have been the key to solving the energy crisis. Peter’s empathy for others is legendary, and just a small amount of it in his villains would lead to their respective Earths being revolutionized.

Otto Octavius is perhaps the most frustrating and tragic example, with a mind brilliant enough in Spiderman 2 to advance nuclear-fusion research decades forward; if only he had Peter’s humility when it came to failures.

In Spiderman PS4, Otto’s arms alone would send the world of prosthetics into a meltdown; yet his brief run as a villain hints towards even more remarkable potential.

In one of his lairs, the player can discover evidence of his ability to; among other things: Cure certain forms of Cancer, develop chemical compounds capable of removing fused metal from living people, and massively increase the bio-energy efficiency of Electro.

All of these are side-focuses for him; deals made for his broader scheme of bringing down Norman Osborn, yet imagine if they were his main focus.

As Peter himself says: “You were everything I wanted to be!” In many ways, Phin Mason was that for Miles Morales.

A gifted engineer and scientist with a strong social conscience, crippled by their ego and rage for a doomed moral crusade.

The Hero Mindset

The defining aspect of their hero mindset is what makes a superhero.

It is seeing past what people can become or be twisted into, to remember and fight for the best of them.

Their empathy doesn’t always stop them and often costs them blood, sweat, and tears in the process, yet they never give up.

Rio Morales may have given strong words of wisdom to her son.

Ultimately, however, she was preaching to the choir: Miles Morales and Peter Parker embody a non-judgmental mindset of remembrance and perseverance and likely always will.

That’s why they are heroes.

That’s what makes a superhero.

That’s why they are Spiderman.