Spot's Portal Powers Explained: How Across the Spider-Verse's Villain Works in the Movies and the Comics

Spot's powers look chaotic on screen, and after digging into both the movie and the original comics, I can explain exactly how his dark matter portals work and why he becomes such a dangerous multiversal threat.

If you are a fan of Across the Spider-Verse, this matters because Spot is set up as Miles Morales's central nemesis going forward, and his powers only get stranger and more unstable from here, which I think sets up a much bigger threat in the sequel.

Movie Spot began as Alchemax scientist Jonathan Ohnn working under Olivia Octavius

In the film, Spot used to be a scientist at Alchemax named Jonathan Ohnn who worked closely with Olivia Octavius to complete Kingpin's multidimensional super collider. The role Liv gave Jonathan on the project involved him studying a strange black goo kept in a jar. Every time the super collider is turned on in either movie, a blob of dark matter grows in the middle of it, and that blob is the actual portal to the Spider-Verse that Kingpin and Doc Ock wanted opened so they could find variants of Kingpin's family across the multiverse. We first see this dark matter portal in action when the Green Goblin of Earth-1610 shoves Chris Pine's Peter Parker face first into it, letting him glimpse the webs of the Spider-Verse while the collider locks onto Peter's spider DNA and pulls Spider-Man India, Spider-Man Noir, and the rest of the spider gang into Miles's universe.

The super collider explosion is what physically transformed Jonathan Ohnn into Spot

When the super collider exploded at the end of Into the Spider-Verse, a container holding a sample of that dark matter cracked open and released the goo all over Jonathan's body, dramatically transforming him into the chaotic being known as Spot. Those dark matter spots appear to have corrupted Jonathan's mind and amplified his negative emotions, feeding off his emotional state the way the Venom symbiote feeds off Spider-Man, or the way the Darkhold affects a Maximoff in other Marvel media. Another side effect of that power of darkness is that it makes its wielder feel an overwhelming sense of emptiness, and Spot tells Miles he is trying to fill that emptiness with more holes. Wanda Maximoff described a very similar feeling in WandaVision: "I only remember feeling completely alone, just endless nothingness."

Spot's dark matter portals respond directly to his fear and anger

Because of the emotional sensitivity of his powers, Spot's portals are extremely responsive to his fear and his anger, which is on full display when he first crosses paths with Miles during the ATM heist at the start of the film. Later, when Spot tells Miles at the ruins of Kingpin's collider how they essentially created each other, he gets so angry that he loses all of his dark matter spots. That forces him to build a mini super collider just to collect more spots and become the ultimate nemesis for Miles. The more dark matter he absorbs, the more mentally unstable and unreasonable he becomes, turning him into an unhinged, massive multiversal threat similar to how Wanda was portrayed in Multiverse of Madness.

Whitney breaks down the very different comic book origin of the original Spot

According to Whitney, the comic book Spot has a completely different origin than the movie version. In the comics, Dr. Jonathan Ohnn's life is not changed by a bagel to the head, as movie Miles jokes, but by an accident of his own making. In 1982's Spectacular Spider-Man Vol. 1 issue 98, Dr. Ohnn was a scientist working in Kingpin's laboratory trying to artificially mimic the vigilante Cloak's dark dimensional powers, hoping it might heal Wilson Fisk's wife, Vanessa. Ohnn's goal was to reproduce Cloak's high radiation level and replicate his exact powers. He succeeded in matching the radiation, but his equipment caused a city-wide power outage and altered the radiation's wavelength, opening a large black circular portal in the lab. Whitney explains that Ohnn realized he might never get another chance to explore the reaction, so he climbed into the portal himself, permanently altering his abilities and appearance.

Comic Spot embraces his new identity almost immediately, unlike the movie version

After climbing through the portal, Dr. Ohnn wakes up in a black and white polka dot dimension and initially assumes he is inside Cloak's dark dimension, before realizing his experiment combined with the blackout opened a portal to a realm of darkness and light. The dimension is weightless, and Ohnn has to swim through it to reach a familiar looking portal back to his own reality, able to instantly recognize the difference between his various portals. Unlike the movie's Spot, the comic version embraces his new polka dot appearance right away rather than being devastated by it, quickly turning his focus toward how he can use his new spots to defeat superheroes, specifically targeting Spider-Man out of a grudge. Whitney notes the fun fact that Dr. Ohnn renames himself the Spot as a pun on "Johnny on the spot," meaning a readily available person, which fits a character covered in ready-to-use holes.

Comic Spot's powers evolve from portal tricks into a genuine multiversal threat

Whitney walks through how Spot discovers he can remove spots from his body, suspend them midair, and change their shapes and sizes, and in later comics even turn his portals into solid orbs he can perch on mid-battle. Most importantly, he learns he can step into one spot and emerge instantly from another, even if the exit is in a different reality than his entry point. Knowing how powerful his abilities are, he decides to hide them from Kingpin. He strategically places portals around town for the element of surprise, but when he finally meets Spider-Man, Spider-Man just makes fun of him, similar to how Miles treats him in Across the Spider-Verse. Despite lacking physical strength, Spot's ability to pop in and out of the polka dot dimension lets him dodge and disappear so quickly that heroes cannot pin him down long enough to counterattack, and he can drag opponents into the in-between realm and force them out of a different portal than the one they entered, essentially at his mercy to find the right escape route.

Spot has beaten Captain Marvel and sliced off Bucky's arm in the comics

According to Whitney, Spot grows much stronger with experience over his villain career, at one point besting both Jessica Jones and Captain Marvel by getting the jump on Carol Danvers. His disappearing tricks are especially effective against multiple opponents, since he can punch adversaries through space and time using his spots. He has taken on an entire room of assassins at once, and in one instance reached through a portal and sliced off Bucky's vibranium arm entirely. Rocket Raccoon, rather than becoming his ally over the shared interest in stealing prosthetic limbs, instead likes to mess with him by firing a gun into one of his spots and watching the bullets spray out of another.

Comic Spot can consolidate his spots to hide his identity and dodge attacks

When Spot realizes Kingpin is close to discovering his secret identity, he learns to consolidate all of his spots into one large spot on his stomach so Dr. Ohnn can look normal again, something the movie version cannot do. He can also group several spots together to reduce the white space on his body, making it harder for heroes to land a hit. When Spider-Man's fist connects with the back of his head, it simply disappears into a portal without hurting him at all. Combining his holes into bigger portals lets him swallow an entire web net Spider-Man throws at him, and he has used a portal like a vacuum to suck opponents into the polka dot dimension out of thin air. After being experimented on by the villain Coyote, Spot even gains the ability to grow and sprout multiple limbs from his portals.

Spot has died and come back to life at least three times in the comics

Whitney points out that one of the most fascinating things about Spot is his inability to stay dead. He has been murdered at least three times and always manages to come back off page. Tombstone snaps his neck, but he is later resurrected by the Hand. Wolverine stabs him through the gut shortly after, and he is somehow brought back again to join MODOK's villain supergroup, where he was reportedly the least popular member. When he tries to double cross MODOK, the Mandarin locks him inside his own polka dot dimension, where isolation drives him to focus on escaping, first projecting faint images of himself back into the main reality before eventually breaking through by concentrating on reuniting with his son, Wyatt. Most recently, in issue three of 2022's Carnage volume 3, Carnage dismembers and beheads Spot completely, but even with his head disconnected from his body, Spot vows he will eventually return to life using the spotted dimension. He is currently dead in the comics as of that story.

My hope for a Spot comeback and a more confident villain in the sequel

Given the character's resurgence in the Sony Spider-Verse films, my guess is that a comeback is likely for Spot the way it seems to be for most Marvel characters eventually. I really hope the sequel leans into the same kind of weird, freakish, powerful versions of Spot seen in the comics, because once he gains confidence the way his comic counterpart does, he becomes nearly unstoppable, willing to break away from Kingpin entirely and become his own multiversal supervillain.

Do you think the sequel will bring Spot back with the same confident, unhinged power level he reaches in the comics?