In 2023's Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, a crucial portion of the plot revolves around the concept of Canon Events.
According to Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of 2099 in the film, these are particular events or patterns that occur to every variant of a given person, uniting them through the multiverse. Meaning, to put it simply, there are moments that will or should "always" happen to every version of someone (here, a Spider-Person) no matter which universe they exist in.
In the case of Spidey, things cited as Canon Events include:
- gaining powers from a spider bite
- the death of an uncle, leading to a lesson about power and responsibility
- the death of Gwen Stacy (or in Spider-Gwen's case, the reverse where she becomes a Spider and Peter Parker dies)
- an encounter with a symbiote
...among other examples.
According to Miguel, these events are what define a Spider-Person across the multiverse.
Personally, I found the idea fascinating. I brought up something like this with my post on Kitana's various adaptations. There are certain beats which define a character that need to be addressed or considered when adapting them to other media or rebooting them. The building blocks that make a character who they are and allow them to remain that character in essence if not literally, even when re-imagined from one medium to another.
Spider-Verse simply gave it a name and made it an in-story issue.
It's a clever nod to the fourth wall, and from a writing/audience stand-point, it's interesting to see what elements of a character become essential and what can or has been changed between the various incarnations. Part of the fun of a multiverse or Elseworlds story is seeing all the ways these variants remain the same or diverge.
Within the movie, it led to conflict among the heroes, as Miguel has a rather ironclad perspective on Canon Events and believes they absolutely must happen and be preserved for better or worse (whether he's right or wrong about that is a topic for another time).
As I often do when engaging with superhero media, I got to thinking about Wonder Woman and how it might apply to her—in this particular instance: what are or would be considered Wonder Woman's Canon Events?