spider-man

Game Corner [National Superhero Day]: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360)

Dr. K1 Comment

In 1995, Marvel Comics created “National Superhero Day” and, in the process, provided comics and superhero fans the world over with a great excuse to celebrate their favourite characters and publications.

Released: 15 September 2009
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Also Available For: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable (PSP), Xbox One

The Background:
Few videogame publishers are as closely associated with Marvel Comics than Activision, who have been spearheading adaptations of some of Marvel’s most popular characters since 2000. Of course, these weren’t all smash hits but some of their titles are counted as being among the best outings for the likes of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and the X-Men. In 2004, Activision teamed with Raven Software and achieved big success with X-Men Legends, a team-based brawler that mixed role-playing elements and co-op gameplay, and its sequel, so the two expanded to incorporate the larger Marvel universe with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Raven Software, 2006), a sadly delisted title that was met with generally favourable reviews. For the sequel, Activision turned to Vicarious Visions, who developed the game engine for the first game, and tweaked the gameplay to focus on team-based “Fusion” attacks to encourage players to experiment with different character combinations. Rather than tell an original story like the first game, or deliver on the many optional endings for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the sequel drew inspiration from the controversial “Civil War” story arc (Millar, et al, 2006 to 2007) that saw Marvel’s heroes divided over a governmental registration act, though the game was met with positive reviews. The action-packed gameplay and branching storyline were particularly praised, though some decried the stripped down roleplaying mechanics; the game was also delisted in 2020 and it would take just under ten years for another developer to produce a third entry.

The Plot:
After a series of devastating attacks on the United States, the American government passes the Superhero Registration Act (SRA), forcing all super-powered individuals to act under official regulation, to reduce the chaos that results from their battles. The superhero community is left divided; Tony Stark/Iron Man and his followers champion the Act while Steve Rogers/Captain America and his oppose it, but the two warring factions soon find themselves battling a new enemy that threatens global peace. 

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is a team-based brawler with limited roleplaying mechanics, exploration options, and puzzle elements. Players can (eventually) assemble a team of four from a roster of around twenty-five characters, many of which return from the last game alongside some newcomers, though your options are limited by story-mandated restrictions and the decision you make partway through to side with the Pro-Registration side or the Anti-Registration side. Regardless of which character you pick, your basic combat and control mechanics remain the same: tapping A executes a light attack while B throws a heavy attack; you can hold B to charge up a stronger strike and mix these together to form basic combos, such as a pop-up attack to break an opponent’s guard. X lets you activate doors and consoles, grab anything from crates to cars to toss at enemies, pull shields off foes and even grab enemies to pummel or throw them to their doom. Y lets you jump; press an attack button in mid-air and you’ll crash to the ground with a slam and press Y again for a double jump or to web-sling, fly, or dart along on a glider or ice bridge depending on who you’re playing as. The Left Bumper allows you to block incoming attacks or dodge out of the way by wiggling the left stick at the same time; there are also times when you’ll need to hit LB to deflect incoming projectiles. The Right Bumper allows you to heal yourself or your allies or revive a fallen comrade as long as you have a Heal Token in stock; these are found scattered across each location, usually spawning in during boss encounters or after defeating enemies, and you can hold up to two at a time.

Characters boast new superpowers and can combine abilities in devastating Fusion attacks.

Although up to four players can play Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 simultaneously; you can also play alone with some competent A.I. companions and freely switch to another character using the directional pad when playing solo. You can press in the right stick for a handy arrow to point you to your next objective or bring up the game map from the pause menu. Each character as a life and stamina bar; the former is filled when you collect red Health Orbs or level-up and the latter fills automatically, and each character also comes equipped with their own Super Powers, which you activate by holding the Right Trigger and pressing A, B, X, or Y. Many of these are shared across characters, but with a unique flare to each; Spider-Man can web enemies towards him, for example, while Matt Murdock/Daredevil homes in with his grapple cane, but both can lash at foes with their whip-like weapons. Most characters tend to have a ranged attack (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch’s flaming projectiles, Iron Man’s Repulsor blasts, Ororo Munroe/Storm’s lightning strikes, etc) and a clearing attack (Doctor Bruce Banner/The Hulk’s ground pound, Doctor Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic’s tornado spin, and Remy LeBeau/Gambit’s kinetically-charged card barrage, etc), but some also have abilities that buff either their attacks or their team (Doctor Jean Grey/Phoenix can automatically revive characters or add fire damage to her attacks, Danny Rand/Iron Fist’s “Healing Hand” technique heals him, and Captain America can temporarily reduce the damage he takes, for example). Not only can these be improved by earning experience points (XP) and levelling-up and spending “Ability Points” (AP) in the character menu, but you can now combine powers for powerful “Fusion” abilities. As you dish out damage, you’ll build up the Fusion Meter and you can store up to two Fusion Stars at once and combine powers by holding the Left Trigger and pressing either A, B, X, or Y to team up with one of your allies. This produces various effects depending on the combination but, again, many of them are very similar and only made unique by the way the characters team up. For example, you can perform the iconic “Fastball Special” by combining James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Mr. Fantastic with bruisers like the Hulk, Ben Grimm/The Thing, or Mac Gargan/Venom. Venom, Hulk, and the Thing can also do a dual stomping attack and you’ll be able to suck enemies in with tornados from the likes of Storm and Thor Odinson while adding elemental attacks to these twisters with the Human Torch and Phoenix.

Puzzles and objectives are simpler than ever and dialogue trees give the illusion of dramatic discord.

No matter the combination of characters, you’ll be prompted to tap A to increase the radius, target specific enemies, or hit successive foes to score extra points and unlock additional abilities and buffs for your characters. Tapping or holding X is also the most common way you’ll be solving the game’s puzzles; generally, you’re tasked with clearing out all nearby enemies and then activating a console or door with X, but sometimes you’ll need to push or pull amplifiers and giant batteries to power up (or down) generators or pass through barriers, rip off control panels, or destroy projectors. Other objectives include destroying anti-aircraft guns, defeating certain enemies, activating consoles in the correct order, and moving stone columns around to unlock doorways and paths, and some missions also contain optional objectives (such as destroying weapon stockpiles or teleporter pads) that net you additional rewards. Additionally, while you’re often told over your comms that you need to act quickly, only certain objectives actually carry a time limit (you’re given less than six minutes to defeat certain bosses, dispose of bombs, or escape collapsing facilities, for example) and you’re often given options to pick from in dialogue trees that will earn you buffs for being “aggressive”, “diplomatic”, or “defensive”. However, as near as I can tell, this doesn’t really alter the story or your character relationships like picking between Pro- and Anti-Reg, which will restrict the characters available to you and alter both the bosses and mission objectives you’re given (protecting or destroying a Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate (S.H.I.E.L.D.) convoy, for example, or raiding or defending a S.H.I.E.L.D. base). Other missions will see you joined by an additional fifth character (technically not a non-playable character as many, like Captain America and Nick Fury, are playable) who will provide support; however, you can’t select them during gameplay, and you’ll still be met with failure if all four of your team are knocked out.

Graphics and Sound:  
There’s been a decent graphical upgrade between Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and its sequel, namely in the sense that the game is far less dark than before and environments are a little more varied, though the same issues with things becoming repetitive and visually dull persist despite how many additional destructible elements have been added. The game starts in Latveria and sees you infiltrating both the castle town, with its many statues of dictator Doctor Victor Von Doom, and Dr. Doom’s main castle, a location that featured in the last game and is now far more linear and less confusing. This is true of all of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2’s locations; it’s very rare that’ll you’ll need to explore off the beaten track, mazes and repeating areas are pretty much non-existent, and everything is much more straightforward this time around, which is great in the sense that levels tended to drag on a bit and be frustrating in the first game but disappointing as you don’t have much to do in, say, Wakanda, except follow a straight path taking out enemies and gun placements and simply walking past the waterfalls, jungles, and tribal trappings in the background. Additionally, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is way less fantastical; there are no trips to Atlantis, Asgard, or Hell here and, instead, you have to make do with such inspiring locations as…downtown, the rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen, train tracks, and high-tech facilities. Some, like Phineas Mason/The Tinkerer’s lab, T’Challa/The Black Panther’s throne room, and the Negative Zone prison are actually visually very interesting but, for the most part, this is a far more grounded affair, and the game loses a lot of its madcap appeal as a result since the focus is on the more grounded struggles of the Civil War.

While the characters and cutscenes look good, the game is noticeably less visually interesting than its predecessor.

This disappointment is also felt in the game’s soundtrack, which once again opts for very generic, military-esque tunes and rock-inspired beats that serve only to make the mindless gameplay all the more tedious. The voice acting and cutscenes are a lot better this time around; there’s still an obvious graphical difference between pre-rendered cutscenes and in-game graphics, but there’s more focus on character interactions and debating the merits of the SRA. Characters will continue to offer commentary during gameplay, with Wade W. Wilson/Deadpool regularly breaking the fourth wall and characters alerting you when they’re on low health, plus you sometimes get bonuses and additional dialogue if you have certain characters speak to each other. Character models seem better this time around, though; the animations used to bring their powers to life feel more unique and tailored to each hero, though it is disappointing (though, at the same time, understandable) that the same Fusion animations are recycled for certain team-ups. Once again, you’ll be operating out of various hub worlds, like Stark Tower and the White Star base, where you can chat to other characters and find collectibles, and performing certain deeds during gameplay will net you extra costumes (though, sadly, each character only has one this time around). Unfortunately, though, you won’t be treated to as many bizarre and wacky Easter Eggs or endings as before; you only really get one game-changing choice to make here, meaning there are only two endings to see, which is a shame as I really enjoyed all the different consequences of your actions in the first game and how it led to more replay value, whereas here you’re limited to picking Pro- or Anti-Reg.

Enemies and Bosses:
A slew of disposable goons will be set against you throughout Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, from Dr. Doom’s soldiers and robots to S.H.I.E.L.D. forces and the nanite-controlled minions of “The Fold”, a rogue A.I. that springs up in the game’s final act to reunite the warring superheroes. Regardless of who you’re fighting, you’ll come across the same recycled enemy tropes again and again: gun-toting soldiers, grunts with shields, ones who block your attack or inflict elemental statuses on you (such as burning, electrocution, and poisoning), and larger mechs. Helicopters will need to be taken out by tossing their grenades back at them, enemies will fire missiles and rockets at you; some have swords, some need to be stunned with your charged attack, some are shielded, and some toss explosive barrels your way. You’ll also have to watch for flame-spitting turrets, laser guns imbedded in walls, loose wires, and flaming hazards that’ll need a dose of coolant (or Bobby Drake/Iceman’s ice powers) to get past. It all gets very repetitive very quickly; the basic enemies aren’t much of a threat to you with your various powers and abilities but can quickly whittle your health down as they start mixing and matched and increasing in number, with more enemies onscreen than the last game and many of them being called in to boost or interrupt the many mini and main boss battles that you’ll have to contend with throughout the story. Like the last game, a who’s-who of Marvel’s most obscure and memorable villains are encountered throughout the game’s three acts, many of which crop up again, often in tandem with other villains.

The Tinkerer, Lucia von Bardas, and the damn Titanium Man represent a dramatic difficulty spike.

The first supervillain you’ll face is Max Dillon/Electro, who teleports around a church in a burst of electricity, performs an electrical blast attack, and can recharge his powers at the capacitors dotted throughout the area. After that, you’ll come up against Bentley Wittman/The Wizard and Steven Hudak/The Scorcher, with the former capable of erecting a shield and the latter roasting you with flame blasts, but your first real boss battle is against the Tinkerer. The Tinkerer stomps about in a large, spider-like tank mech that fires homing missiles, stamps the ground and sets it aflame, and sweeps that area with a laser blast. He’s also supported by an endless swarm of robotic minions, but you can use these to build up your Fusion Meter to target the Tinkerer’s legs and turn his mech into scrap metal. The Shocker/Herman Schultz’s stunning pulses must then be endured to rescue Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel, then you’ll have your first of many encounters with the scythe-handed Eric Williams/Grim Reaper, one of the most recurring mini bosses who’s actually pretty tough thanks to his fast speed and quick, targeted slashes. Electro, the Scorcher, the Shocker, and the Wizard all reappear during the chaotic battle against cyborg Lucia von Bardas, which takes place on the deck of a ship. You’ll need to avoid her blasts and destroy the four cannons in each corner of the deck, which is easier said than done as Lucia defends three of them with flaming jets and you’ll have to contend with her supervillain bodyguards. Lucia also rains bombs from the sky, protects herself (and her minions) with energy shields, regularly hovers out of reach, and compounds the entire fight with a time limit. In the last part of the game’s first act, which takes part in Washington, D.C., you’ll have to do battle with Deadpool (who teleports about and riddles you with uzi bullets) and hit a bit of a brick wall when you go up against the mysterious Titanium Man. At first this isn’t so hard (he sends you flying, slows you with a pulse, and showers you with a laser spread) but things get much tougher in the second phase, where he turns invisible, is bolstered by minions and floating cannons, sends out loads of annoying vortexes, and there are no checkpoints during this battle, making it all the more frustrating.

While Bishop and Deathstrike can be aggravating, the Yellowjacket boss fight was actually pretty fun.

After this, you’ll be forced to pick a side and this alters the characters you pick and fight against; I went with Anti-Registration (because, frankly, the was the right choice all along) so I’ll primarily talk about those bosses. First up is a scuffle with Natalia Romanova/The Black Widow, who keeps you at bay with her pistols, cartwheel kicks, and grenades, and your first battle with Colonel James Rhodes/War Machine, who’s basically a mirror of Iron Man and attacks with a rocket-powered punch and missiles, though both are pretty easy fights here, especially compared to the one against Lucas Bishop. Your energy attacks will actually heal the grenade-toting Bishop, so try to focus on physical attacks, but you’ll deal the greatest damage against him if you attack and destroy the terminals he plugs himself into. This actually gets pretty tricky as you have to hit three power terminals to cause feedback, then hit four nodes on other terminals to stop him regaining health, and finally hit all six nodes when he draws energy from the middle of the terminals, all while avoiding his rushes and shockwave attacks. In comparison, Melissa Gold/Songbird is a bit of a joke since all you have to worry about are her pink sonic waves, but the difficulty ramps up again when you butt heads with Yuriko Oyama/Lady Deathstrike, who attacks with her Adamantium claws like a whirling dervish. Though the Thing saves your ass, you’ll have to contend with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s soldiers and robots in the second phase; Deathstrike will repair these mechs, so it pays to quickly take them out, but that’s not easy thanks to her speed and aggression. Thankfully, this is followed by a fun and visually interesting fight against Doctor Henry “Hank” Pym/Yellowjacket, who pounds and slaps at you in his gigantic form; you need to attack his massive fists to build up your Fusion Meter and stun him, only then can you unleash a Fusion attack to deal big damage to him, though you’ll have to watch for his double-fist slam and the minions who swarm the rooftops. When in the unstable chemical plant, you’ll have a quick run-ins with Bullseye (who I had no issues with despite his triple-shot projectile), Simon Williams/Wonder Man (who’s also not too hard despite teleporting about the place and sporting powerful melee attacks), and even an unexpected alliance between Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk and Mark Raxton/Molten Man that sees you avoiding the former’s jumping slams and the latter’s flame bursts.

You’ll face different bosses depending on which side you choose, which also impacts the game’s difficulty.

You’ll also contend with a more formidable version of War Machine and have a brief fight with Iron Man (who’s basically the same as War Machine but with fancier laser attacks) before he tags in Mr. Fantastic (who’s actually a bit of a pain thanks to his stretchy limbs bursting up from the floor and his tornado spin). Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic prove quite the double team when you battle them together; even with Captain America on hand to help and with victory coming by defeating Iron Man alone, this can be a tough fight as Mr. Fantastic sometimes glitches and perpetually spins in place and Iron Man flies around the arena sending energy projectiles your way. Finally, you’ll need to help Nick Fury dispose of some bombs while fending off a joint attack from Doctor Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin and Venom; the former flies around dropping grenades or tosses pumpkin bombs in your face while the latter attacks with their tendrils and even webs up the bomb disposal vent and commandeers the Goblin’s glider! On the Pro-Reg side, you’ll have to quell Eli Bradley/Patriot after your betrayal, fend off Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman rather than Black Widow and Hercules instead of Wonder Man, as well as tangle with Nathanial Summers/Cable, who proves highly resistant to damage, constantly teleports about the place, and forces you to rely on your standard attacks and super powers since there are no minions to help build up your Fusion Meter. Ritchie Gilmore/Prodigy, Angelica Jones/Firestar, Tandy Bowen/Dagger, Piotr Rasputin/Colossus, and Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man also crop up, with the latter being quite the obstacle if you don’t have the right teammates, while Tom Foster/Goliath takes Yellowjacket’s place. Instead of fighting War Machine, Mr. Fantastic, and Iron Man, you’ll take on Iron Fist, Luke Cage/Power Man, and Captain America, with this latter fight complicated by plumes of fire and the Cage and Cap being able to pull off Fusion attacks!

After battling numerous foes, you’ll need all your powers to defeat the nanite-infused Nick Fury.

Before you enter the Negative Zone prison,  Commander Maria Hill hands over a key card without issue and Robbie Baldwin/Penance is subdued and recruited after a brief fight. Terrance Sorenson/Equinox proved much tougher thanks to the nearby turrets and his health-draining elemental attacks, and you’ll battle the nanite-infected Grim Reaper, Bullseye, and Molten Man to rescue Luke Cage and Firestar. To escape the prison with the nanite samples, you’ll take on the combined might of David Cannon/Whirlwind, Karla Sofen/Moonstone, and Rachel Leighton/Diamondback; though Captain America and Iron Man help out, this can be a frustrating fight as Whirlwind is constantly spinning about and minions are always spawning in but focusing on one mini boss can help mitigate the danger. While in Wakanda, you’ll fight off Alexander Summers/Havok (whose concussive powers are bolstered by nearby vibrational pillars), the combined threat of Hulk-clone Rick Jones/A-Bomb and Vance Astrovik/Justice (who shields his nanite ally), and once again deal with the duo of Green Goblin and Venom, this time in the Black Panther’s throne room and with a wider, more versatile space for them to avoid your attacks (though having a flame-orientated character or buffs will help against Venom). Wonder Man and Spider-Woman guard the entrance to the Fold’s Iceland base, with both proving tougher than before, while She-Hulk, Firestar, Colossus, and Whirlwind await inside guarding amplifiers. You’ll also battle the Tinkerer again here; this time, he’s almost constantly shielded by the Fold’s enhanced elites, who you’ll need to destroy in order to deal damage to the mad inventor, though the sheer influx of enemies can make this a gruelling prospect. Finally, after battling on a rising elevator and reaching the top of the Fold’s amplifier tower, you’ll fight the nanite-infected Nick Fury. Using a coloured holographic projection, Fury emulates the powers of other characters and bosses to constantly keep you on your toes; he strikes with lightning, sends out energy pulses, rapidly moves and teleports all over the place, creates duplicates, absorbs and projects energy, blasts out a stream of light, and causes the ground to erupt in flames. Although a frustrating and long-winded bout, this was actually easier than some other bosses; switch characters to whoever’s closest, unleash your rapidly-filling Fusion Meter, and remember to deflect his projectiles when prompted and you should emerge victorious without having to expend a single revive, which is more than I can say for the damn Titanium Man!

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As mentioned, combat yields XP that levels you and your team up; all characters level-up regardless of whether you use them or not, but levelling-up alone isn’t enough to power-up your team. You need to spend AP boosting their four superpowers and all four will only be unlocked by levelling-up; thankfully, AP is easily earned by beating enemies, rapidly tapping A during Fusion attacks, and smashing crates and other onscreen destructibles. Each character also has “Passive” abilities that can be upgraded in the character menu; many of these are locked to a specific side, so you’ll never have full access to all abilities in a single playthrough, and they provide buffs such as raising your chances of landing a critical hit, allowing more frequent use of your powers, regenerating health, reducing damage, and increasing the stamina you gain. Defeating mini bosses and bosses also rewards you with medals that provide additional “Boosts”; you can manually or automatically equip up to three of these at a time to increase your health, teamwork, resistance to or ability to inflict elemental attacks, and other similar bonuses. It also pays to utilise your comic book knowledge; if you make a team comprised entirely of X-Men or the Fantastic Four, for example, you’ll get an additional boost to aid you. Finally, extra rewards are on offer for performing three “Heroic Deeds” per character; these range from defeating fifty enemies, performing specific Fusion attacks, or using certain superpowers and will unlock a new costume or ability for each character, as well as being a fun aside.

Additional Features:
There are fifty Achievements to snag in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, with sixteen being tied to the story mode alone, though you’ll need to do two playthroughs and experience both the Pro- and Anti-Reg missions to earn them all. You’ll also earn Achievements for completing missions in co-op mode, clearing the game on “Legendary” difficulty, performing ten Fusions with a friend, earning high scores from Fusions, unlocking costumes, collecting boosts, and finding the various dossiers and audio logs scattered throughout the game. You’ll unlock additional characters not just through the story mode, but also by collecting Asgardian Ruins, pieces of the M’kraan Crystal, and Gamma Regulators; some characters’ alternate costumes also act as skins, such as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross/Red Hulk and Eddie Brock/Venom. You’ll also find simulator discs scattered about that once again let you take on special simulator missions from the game’s hub worlds, can put your Marvel knowledge to the test in various trivia games for more XP, and will be given the option of starting a new game, with all your unlocks and stats, but at the cost of your existing save file. There is no option to replay previous missions as far as I can tell so you’ll need to start over if you missed anything. I’d also advise making use of the manual save function as often as possible, especially before you pick a side so you don’t have to start right from the beginning to see the other side of the story. If you were lucky enough to own this game before it got delisted, you can also expand the roster with some downloadable characters, like Cletus Kasady/Carnage and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, though this feature is obviously unavailable these days; additionally, other versions of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 include console-specific characters, like Eric Brooks/Blade.

The Summary:
I was always hesitant about getting into Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, simply because of my hatred for the diabolical Civil War storyline. Even with that bias to one side, I wasn’t impressed that the sequel stripped back the story and scope of the franchise so much; the first game arguably tried to do a bit too much and touch base with a bunch of different locations and characters in the Marvel universe, but at least it embraced the bonkers spirit of the source material and wasn’t as blinkered as the sequel. I really missed the unpredictability at the first game; here, the only replay value is in picking a different side, especially as all characters are available to you in the finale, so all you’re really left with is the new-fangled Fusion mechanic. Sadly, this isn’t as good as the game makes it out to be; once you’ve seen a handful of them, you’ve basically seen them all and they weren’t as impressive as I had hoped. I also wasn’t a big fan of some of the character choices and the lack of extra skins, though overall I think I preferred the gameplay and combat; it’s still mindless and tedious and gets old really quickly, but at least the different superpowers felt a little more dynamic this time. While I have no complaints about the game’s linearity since it made it faster to play, it is a shame that exploration has been cut way back this time around and that many of the level-up and customisation mechanics have been stripped down. Once again, the game’s biggest issue is cramming so much into it; it’s great for a Marvel fan but it does impact the enjoyment and memorability of the mini bosses since a lot of them are just the same thing over and over with the same tactics used to overcome them. Overall, I feel Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is no better or worse than the first game: I miss the different gameplay mechanics and visual variety of the first game, but the sequel feels a bit more refined and focused; I don’t like how grounded and restricted it is, but the graphics and ability options are a step up. I think the best thing to do (if you can afford it) is have both and play them back to back for a complete experience but if I honestly had to pick which one was better, I’d go with the first one since I’m much more inclined to play it and see what wacky endings I can earn rather than seeing the SRA repealed or lessened by the end of this game.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever played Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2? If so, how do you think it compares to the first game? Which side did you pick and who made it into your team? What did you think to the new Fusion mechanic and the changes to the roster? Were you disappointed that the boss battles were still mostly tedious exercises and that the scope was scaled so far back? Did you ever complete all the Heroic Deeds and simulator missions? How are you celebrating National Superhero Day today? Whatever your thoughts, leave a comment below or on my social media, and be sure to check out my other superhero and comic book content across the site!

Movie Night: Madame Web

Dr. K1 Comment

Released: 14 February 2024
Director: S. J. Clarkson
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Budget: $80 million
Stars: Dakota Johnson, Tahar Rahim, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, and Adam Scott

The Plot:
After a near-death experience,.paramedic Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (Johnson) begins seeing glimpses of the future revolving around Ezekiel Sims (Rahim), a superpowered businessman determined to kill three teenagers before they can kill him in the future as Spider-Women, compelling Cassie to begrudgingly discover the truth of her past and protect the girls.

The Background:
After Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy (2000 to 2007) proved a phenomenal success, Marc Webb’s reboot films proved sadly mediocre and led to an unprecedented agreement between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios that allowed the iconic wall-crawler to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Sony to release tangentially-connected spin-offs featuring Spidey’s villains and side characters. Encouraged by the financial (if not critical) reception of their Venom (Various, 2018 to present) movies (and seemingly undeterred after the car-crash reception of Morbius (Espinosa, 2022)), Sony not only signed off on a solo project for Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven the Hunter, but also the enigmatic clairvoyant Cassandra Webb/Madame Web. Created by Dennis O’Neil and John Romita Jr., Madame Web first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #210 and significantly influenced Spider-Man’s battles against multiversal forces, but is perhaps best known for her inclusion in the Spider-Man animated series (1994 to 1998), where she was voiced by Joan Lee (wife of the legendary Stan Lee). Writing began on a Madame Web feature while Morbius was still in production and saw numerous rewrites, even after director S. J. Clarkson signed on and retooled it into Sony’s first female-centric Marvel film. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura expressed difficulties in adapting Madame Web’s clairvoyance to the screen and emphasising secrecy surrounding the project given her relative obscurity, a fact explicitly addressed by the inclusion of other, more recognisable Spider-Women. The cast appear to have been mislead as to the status of the film in the wider MCU; this may explain the bizarre marketing campaign that saw star Dakota Johnson seemingly openly criticise the film, though she wasn’t the only one. After numerous delays, Madame Web released to scathing reviews; the film made just shy of $100 million at the box office and critics attacked the poor dialogue and script, lacklustre special effects and pacing, and the blatant false advertising regarding three of the lead characters.

The Review:
So, if I had a whole bunch of negativity towards making standalone, Spider-Man-less films about the likes of Eddie Brock/Venom and Doctor Michael Morbius, you can be damn sure that I was baffled to the point of insanity by the decision to make a solo Madame Web movie. Not only is she an extremely obscure Spider-Man character, but her depiction is generally as a wizened, blind mentor who manipulates Spider-Man like a chess piece as part of Marvel’s on-again/off-again insistence on convoluting Spidey’s origins and mythos with semi-paranormal cosmic ideas of Spider Totems and “Webs of Fate”. It’s ironic, really, as the concept could have worked a little better if Madame Web had been depicted as a Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X-type figure, mentoring and recruiting Spider-Women to oppose the Inheritors, despite my dislike for them, because at least then the focus would be on the spider-powered women and not this thoroughly unlikeable paramedic who, despite choosing a carer where she’s sworn to protect lives and being depicted as a workaholic who rushes to do that very thing, is reluctant to help the three girls targeted by Ezekiel Sims. Much of Cassie’s reluctance stems from her lingering feelings of abandonment, confusion about her true self and past, and what’s framed as an unconventional upbringing since her mother, Constance (Kerry Bishé), died during childbirth and Cassie was raised in the foster system, left with only mementos of her mother, Constance’s research into the near-mythical spiders of the Peruvian jungles, and the mistaken, childish belief that Constance cared more about her arachnids than raising her daughter. Consequently, Cassie has a bit of an abrasive edge to her; while she tirelessly works to save lives alongside her friend and partner, Ben Parker (Scott), she’s uncomfortable with receiving gratitude for this, has no idea how to act around children, and would much rather spend time in her apartment with a local stray cat than socialise with her colleagues or even Ben’s pregnant sister-in-law, Mary Parker (Emma Roberts). Her anxiety and social awkwardness is only exacerbated after she nearly drowns and is sporadically bombarded by visions of the past and near future, all framed by a mysterious web-like pattern, though she initially dismisses these visions and it takes her a ridiculously long amount of time to realise that they’re not only true, but that the fates she is witnessing can be changed.

Three girls destined for greatness must rely on Cassi’s sporadic clairvoyance to survive.

Central to her visions are four individuals – a violent killer clad in a somewhat-familiar spider-themed costume and possessing superhuman strength and spider-like abilities, and three twenty-somethings teenagers that Cassie sees horribly murdered by this assassin time and again. As fate would have it, their destinies are all intertwined and lead Cassie to encounter the three girls individually to establish some surface-level characteristics for the three that are partially developed as the film chugs along. Julia Cornwall (Sweeney) is the quiet, shy girl who’s struggling with her parents’ divorce, Anya Corazon (Merced) is both book smart (she literally wears a t-shirt proclaiming her love of “math”) and dealing with fending for herself after her father’s deportation, and skater Mattie Franklin (O’Connor) is the streetwise rude girl with a chip on her shoulder since she comes from money. The three couldn’t be more different but quickly form a genuinely enjoyable sisterhood after they’re saved by Cassie; while initially distrusting of her, they eventually come to believe in her janky clairvoyance after she saves them from Ezekiel multiple times. However, Cassie is seemingly impulsively compelled to do this, and it takes her a while to realise the responsibility she has towards the girls; she routinely abandons them, chastises them, and even jets off to Peru to investigate her origins and undergo a spiritual journey that finally teaches her that she has an obligation to protect the three with her abilities. The three girls do their best with the materials, appearing fun and likeable and adding some pathos to their characters through their shared feelings of abandonment, but the script is rarely in their favour. The same is true for Cassie, who constantly narrates her life like an idiot and acts very irrationally for a paramedic, though eventually she settles into the role of a reluctant surrogate mother and protector to the girls.

Ezekiel targets the girls to save his own life, but is a pretty weak and one-note villain.

The girls are targeted by Ezekiel since he’s been plagued by visions of his death at their hands at some point in his future. Previously working alongside Constance, Ezekiel betrayed and killed her to get his hands on a mysterious spider that granted him his amazing powers, but also cursed him with the knowledge of his impending death. In the interim, he built a vast, indistinct corporate empire and has become obsessed with finding and killing the three Spider-Women who’ve haunted his nightmares, aided by his “girl in the chair”, Amaria (Zosia Mamet), who hacks into the police database and CCTV cameras all over the city to track the girls down. It’s not made clear why the Spider-Women would hunt down and kill Ezekiel in the future, or what he’s done that makes him such a diabolic villain except one confirmed kill, but boy does he like to mumble and grumble about how badly he wants them dead and his desire to ensure he lives on! As if having all the wealth and technology he needs at his disposal isn’t enough, Ezekiel also possesses spider-like powers; he can walk and climb on walls, leap vast distances, possesses superhuman strength and reflexes, and can poison his victims with a touch, eventually causing cardiac arrest. He also seems to display some degree of clairvoyance and psychic power to rival that of Cassie, communicating to her on the astral plane at one point, and dresses in an admittedly cool looking outfit when out on the prowl. How he changes in and out of this isn’t made clear either, however, as he’s often seen wearing the form-fitting suit in one scene and then fully in his business attire in the next with no explanation, and he’s routinely humiliated by Cassie since she can anticipate his actions ahead of time. While Cassie doesn’t demonstrate the same superhuman powers, the three girls do in the frantically-edited visions of the future, though it’s unclear how, when, or why they gained superhuman powers. Ezekiel does, however, share his powers with the mysterious Las Arañas, a secret Peruvian tribe who dress in makeshift jungle attire that’s very similar to Spider-Man’s and try to save Constance when she’s wounded, delivering Cassie and then later making her realise that her mother ventured into the jungle to save her, not because she didn’t care about her. Frankly, I find this whole aspect to be borderline insulting; I hate the idea of a tribe of Spider-People and of a spider species that can grant these powers as it diminishes Spider-Man’s uniqueness, though the depiction of the spider-powered people clambering and leaping about the place is pretty good and surprisingly horrific, especially when Ezekiel is tossing bodies around in Cassie’s visions.

The Nitty-Gritty:
There’s a shared feeling of abandonment between the four female leads; all of them feel like outsiders to some degree, isolated from others and even their families since they either don’t have a parental figure, or their parents don’t seem to care about them. While their individual personalities initially clash because of their different backgrounds and current social standing, they quickly bond once they realise how much they have in common, with the three girls, especially, forming a makeshift sisterhood due to their current circumstances. Although Julia is Cassie’s most vocal supporter, they initially believe she’s either crazy or just another adult they can’t rely on and decide to go against Cassie’s warnings and fend for themselves, an action that very nearly sees them all killed by Ezekiel before Cassie intervenes. She chastises them, angry at their irresponsible and reckless actions, but struggles to give them the answers they want and to properly care for them since he’s apparently so maladjusted that she can barely stand to be around her handful of friends, much less look after three scared teenagers. Thus, she turns to Ben to shelter the girls while she tries to find answers in Peru; this turns out to be a good decision since Ben is a much more emotionally stable individual. He deeply cares for his sister and is extremely excited about being an uncle, but is also devoted to his friend and partner, to the point where he resuscitates Cassie after she drowns, begs her to socialise with his family and their colleagues, and agrees to look after the girls even though he has no idea what kind of danger they’re in. As good as Adam Scott was in the role (I particularly liked the banter he shared with Cassie, which hinted at a former attraction, and his struggles to keep up with the girls), the only reason he’s here is for fan service: yes, he’s playing the future Uncle Ben and, through him, we even see the birth of his nephew (who ridiculously goes without a name) and get hints towards his future, despite Madame Web taking place in its own separate continuity from previous Spider-Man movies. There’s also something really weird about Julia, Anya, and Mattie all being older than Peter and the frustration of the three running around in normal street clothes instead of the awesome Spider-Women suits we barely get a glimpse of in their future.

In the absence of the Spider-Women, we’re left relying on Cassie’s visions and Ezekiel’s threat.

Yes, Madame Web is another great example of Sony lying to us; the trailers and posters showcased Julia, Anya, and Mattie as fully-empowered Spider-Women but this isn’t the case at all. I guessed that we wouldn’t see them suit up until the very end, but the truth is far worse; they only wear their costumes in fleeting visions, with no explanation of how they get their powers, and the film has the gall to setup a potential sequel that actually addresses these issues, but to me it’s a dropped ball that completely derails the movie. The bulk of Madame Web is focused on Cassie’s struggles to reconcile her past and understand her newfound powers; there are numerous scenes of her witnessing snapshots of the future, meaning we get a lot of time loops and confused looks from Cassie that border on the maniacal as she tries to understand what’s happening. Primarily, though, these visions are used as fake outs; almost every time, the scene will show Ezekiel coming in, wrecking fools, and killing his targets in an almost effortless manner, only to suddenly snap back to Cassie and show her taking action to avoid this fate. It’s all very reminiscent of the Final Destination films (Various, 2000 to present), which is fitting but kind of lowers a lot of the stakes since you can just assume every violent scene or action sequence is just a vision. When Ezekiel does get a chance to fight, he’s effectively peerless; none of the protagonists have the strength or ability to go toe-to-toe with him, meaning Cassie drives a lot of cars into him and catches him off-guard with her clairvoyant powers, leaving him perplexed and looking stupid. When the Las Arañas appear, it’s all shot with an unsettling, nightmarish shaky-cam filter that makes their appearances and abilities not only difficult to pin down, but also appear needlessly cartoonish.  There are some decent effects at times, such as when Cassie takes her spiritual journey and interacts with the Web of Fate and the lingering memory of her mother, and things are surprisingly grounded for a Sony Spider-Man-adjacent movie, with Ezekiel being unable to swing from webs and more reliant on his physical abilities. This, in conjunction with his intimidating costume, does paint him as a formidable figure; he’s almost like a slasher villain at times, draining the life from his victims, breaking their limbs, and pouncing like an animal, but this persona is awkwardly juxtaposed with his pandering civilian identity, where he may as well twirl an old-timey moustache as he spouts generic villain dialogue with little charisma or conviction.

Cassie accepts her fate to defeat Ezekiel and mentor the future Spider-Women.

So, all these recent revelations help Cassie make sense of her mother’s notebooks; while she previously resented Constance’s apparent fixation on her spider research, she realises that her destiny has been intertwined with Ezekiel’s since before her birth and takes herself to Peru to find answers. There, a Las Arañas, Santiago (José María Yazpik), helps her to realise that her mother was trying to cure her of some disease and that she has a greater destiny, one that will bestow her with “great power” once she accepts the “responsibility” that comes from her abilities. Before, she saved and sheltered the girls simply because it was the right thing to do; she had little interest in watching over them or bonding with them, or of their greater destinies as Spider-Women, but her spiritual journey motivates her to actively shield them from Ezekiel’s wrath, and gives her greater control over her future sight. After rescuing them and allowing Ben and Mary to get to safety, Cassie takes the girls to a fireworks warehouse and they finally set aside their differences to set a trap for Ezekiel, planting flares all over the place to cause a series of explosions. This actually causes quite a few issues for the protagonists, however, as the explosions destroy the helicopter Cassie called in to rescue them and eventually sees Julia, Anya, and Mattie separated and facing fatal falls. Luckily, Cassie masters her powers enough to…somehow…spiritually duplicate herself long enough to help the three to safety, incurring Ezekiel’s anger. Despite him being haunted by very specific visions of his death at the hands of the three Spider-Women, Cassie changes his fate and claims that she was always the one who was destined to end him (which doesn’t seem true, but okay) and lures him onto unstable ground, eventually causing him to plummet to his death and be crushed by debris. Cassie also takes a plunge but, luckily, she taught the girls CPR earlier and they’re able to revive her, though she’s not only inexplicably left paralysed with no explanation but also winds up blinded by a stray firework. Still, she’s not bothered by this; in fact, the film ends with her happier than ever since she can now, presumably, use the full extent of her psychic powers and clairvoyance to see and understand the future and is prepared not just to take on the three as their foster mother, but to mentor them into the Spider-Women they are destined to become…effectively ending the film where it really should’ve started! Like, why not have Cassie already be infirm but fully empowered and training, say, Julia, showing their origins through flashbacks and exposition, and have Julia be the point woman in recruiting Mattie and Anya when Ezekiel, an Inheritor assassin, targets them? It could’ve been Sony’s answer to the X-Men, in a way, and even take place in the same universe as their other pointless spin-offs, and might’ve been more enjoyable because then we would’ve gotten to see the gorgeous Sydney Sweeney in their slick, form-fitting Spider-Woman costume for a lot more of the runtime!

The Summary:
I went into Madame Web expecting it to be bad based on the trailer, the disaster that was Morbius, and my dislike for the concept in general. I tried to have an open mind, however; the cast, for example, intrigued me, as did the costume design, and to be fair there is the ghost of a semi-decent idea here, it just would’ve worked better as a side plot in a Spider-Man film or reworked to have Julia Carpenter/Spider-Woman at the forefront, with Cassie as a mentor figure. Any goodwill the film might’ve gotten from its Spider-Woman costumes is flushed down the toilet since we barely get a good look at these and the girls don’t even become Spider-Women in the movie; Ezekiel’s costume and action scenes somewhat make up for this, but he’s such an ineffectual and confusing villain that it’s hard to care when he’s onscreen. The relationship between the protagonists was somewhat enjoyable; I liked how the girls bonded, their shared feelings of abandonment, and them coming together as a surrogate family, but it’s executed so poorly and, although the girls do try, they’re all hampered by a really awful script. Dakota Johnson suffers from this the most, I think; she was some weird, awkward silences and quirks and is forced to spit out some really awful dialogue and nonsensical exposition. Add to that the fact that Cassie is a weird and pretty unlikeable character, abandoning and yelling at the girls even though she’s supposed to be a paramedic and you have a main character who’s hard to relate to, a villain as flat as a piece of paper, and three boisterous young girls who are completely wasted in this travesty of a film. It’s more than a step back for the genre; Madame Web harkens back to a time when superhero movies were not only afraid to use codenames and costumes, but outright ashamed of them, delivering cookie cutter dramas that falter at the first hurdle. It’s a sad state of affairs and I have lost all hope for Sony’s future Spidey-adjacent movies, and my expectations were already at the bottom of the barrel to begin with!

My Rating:

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Terrible

Did you enjoy Madame Web? If so…what’s the matter with you? What did you think to the performances and the dynamic between the four protagonists? Were you disappointed that the girls didn’t actually become Spider-Women in the film? What did you think to Ezekiel, his characterisation, and the nonsense about the Las Arañas? Do you think a Madame Web movie could ever work, or would you rather see a Spider-Woman take the forefront? Which Spider-Woman is your favourite? I’d love to know your opinion of Madame Web, so leave a comment below or on my social media and be sure to check out my other Spider-Man and Marvel content.

Back Issues: The Amazing Spider-Man #210

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Story Title: “The Prophecy of Madame Web!”
Published: 12 August 1980 (cover-dated November 1980)
Writer: Dennis O’Neil
Artist: John Romita Jr.

The Background:
After a blockbuster success with the Fantastic Four, Marvel editor and head writer Stan Lee spearheaded one of Marvel’s best selling publications with teenage superhero Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Spidey’s popularity soon saw him headlining other comics, such as Marvel Team-Up, amassing one of the industry’s most colourful and memorable rogues galleries, and his supporting cast ballooning as Parker aged and his life became more complicated. In November 1980, The Amazing Spider-Man readers were introduced to blind, crippled psychic Cassandra Webb/Madame Web, an enigmatic figure who both tasked Spider-Man with opposing certain villains and used her clairvoyance to direct his destiny. Madame Web played a significant role once Spider-Man was threatened by outside and multiversal forces, ultimately dying at the hands of a vengeful Vladimir Kravinoff/Grim Hunter, with her last act being to pass her powers to Julia Carpenter/Spider-Man. Madame Web’s most significant portrayal, however, was in the Spider-Man animated series (1994 to 1998), where she was voiced by Stan Lee’s wife, Joan, and acted as a mysterious mentor to Spider-Man (Christopher Daniel Barnes), often frustrating him with her manipulative ways. Years later, Sony Pictures inexplicably decided the best way to capitalise on their limited library of Spider-Man characters was to produce a Madame Web live-action movie, teaming this obscure side character with a handful of Spider-Women in an attempt to subvert audience expectations.

The Review:
We begin in the basement storage room of the New York Globe, a rival newspaper to the Daily Bugle, where Robert Dockery, circulation manager for the newspaper, directs a gang of masked hoodlums whom he’s hired in a bid to seize complete control of the publication. This plot point is then put on hold as the story joins Peter Parker, who’s strolling through Chinatown alongside Debra “Debbie” Whitman, an obscure love interest of Peter’s even for me whom he met while studying at Empire State University. Peter’s surprised to learn that the normally level-headed and pragmatic Debra has booked an appointment with a fortune teller, the titular Madame Web, though Debra insists that she’s simply exploring the fascinating subject of psychic phenomena rather than being scammed by a faux clairvoyant. Although Peter enjoys teasing her over this, he’s unable to join her to see Madame Web in action as, wouldn’t you know it, he’s late for a meeting at the New York Globe. Rather than web-sling over there, Peter takes the more traditional route but is forced to switch to Spider-Man when he’s denied access to the editorial department due to a managerial mandate. This is all part of Dockery’s plot, of course. He’s taking a meeting with his senior staff and introducing them to Katrinka Janice “K.J.” Clayton, publisher of the New York Globe, a provocative woman who, until now, has been a silent partner of the newspaper. Just as she announces Dockery’s ascension to power, those masked hoodlums burst in, accost the staff members, and take Clayton hostage.  

When a publishing mogul is seemingly kidnapped, Spidey turns to a mysterious psychic for help.

Luckily, Spider-Man was climbing up the outside of the building, so he bursts in to break up the party, easily dodging their machine gun fire with his superhuman speed and reflexes and fighting off the armed thugs even when they dog-pile him. They do, however, delay him long enough for Clayton to be kidnapped and, thanks to Dockery “clumsily” getting in his way, Spidey is a step too slow to pursue them and is unable to catch up due to a lack of windows. With no other options, Spidey decides to indulge Debra’s fantasy and pay Madame Web a visit to see if the elderly medium can help him track Clayton down. Spidey web-slings over the Madame Web’s apartment and is stunned to find she’s an elderly blind lady who’s hooked up to an elaborate web-based life support machine, created by her late husband, that sustains her so she can aid others with her gifts. She describes herself as a “soothsayer, a psychic, a witch” and claims to be capable not just of “second-sight” but fostering the psychic powers of others. Impressed by her presentation and boastful claims, Spider-Man asks for her insight into Clayton and, though she stresses that her abilities aren’t 100% guaranteed due to the nature of the paranormal, she immediately picks up that Clayton is the victim of a malicious deceit, perpetrated by Web’s own student, Belinda Bell, to be held hostage for financial gain. At Spidey’s urging, Madame Web intuits that Belinda and Clayton will perish in a horrific train crash if he doesn’t find Bell, who is his only hope of tracking down Clayton. The next scene shows that the deceit runs even deeper as Belinda was paid to impersonate Clayton and, for her assistance, she finds herself tied up in a toy store (of all places) and at the mercy of Dockery’s ruthless mercenaries. 

Thanks to Madame Web, Spidey saves Clayton, though her true nature remains a mystery.

Across town at the New York Gloe, Dockery confronts the real Clayton (actually a much older woman) and openly threatens her, mocking the vanity that so easily allowed him to have her impersonated to hand control of the newspaper over to him. Confident in his victory, Dockery calls his thugs and orders Belinda’s execution, but Spider-Man arrives to save her, having deduced that Madame Web’s vision of crashing trains actually meant the toy store that Dockery owns which…is a bit of a leap but sure, okay. Once again, Spider-Man easily dispatches of the goons, burying them beneath shelving units and stock, and freeing Belinda. Angered by the betrayal and grateful for the rescue, Belinda warns Spider-Man of Dockery’s intentions towards Clayton so he races over to the New York Globe, arriving just in time to find her office engulfed in flames thanks to Dockery dousing gasoline everywhere and starting a raging inferno. Spider-Man brings Clayton to safety, setting her down outside the building just as Dockery makes a run for it, only to find his car up-ended by the web-slinger. Defeated, Dockery folds like paper and Peter later reads that he’s run similar scams before, although Dockery’s imprisonment means that Peter is now out of work (I’m not sure exactly why, surely the New York Globe is still publishing and employing staff, but then I’m unfamiliar with this period in Peter’s life so maybe his job was somehow linked to Dockery?) Before he can descend into complete despair, Peter suddenly gets a phone call from Madame Web, who learned of his dual identity through her powers; she both promises to keep his secret and reassures him that his financial woes will soon be resolved. While this sounds positive on paper, the final panel of the issue reveals that his cantankerous former boss, J. Jonah Jameson, is literally chomping at the bit to re-employ the troubled young hero! 

The Summary:
“The Prophecy of Madame Web!” was an inauspicious debut for the mysterious psychic; Madame Web herself was more of a secondary (or even tertiary) character to the main plot, which was surprisingly low-key for a Spider-Man story, involving no colourful supervillains and being a simple story of a greedy man going to extreme lengths for more power. In other Spider-Man stories, Dockery would’ve employed the services of a low-tier Spider-Man villain, someone like MacDonald “Mac” Gargan/The Scorpion, Herman Schultz/The Shocker, or even Dmitri Smerdyakov/The Chameleon either to take Belinda’s role of impersonating K.J. Clayton or masquerading as Dockery himself. Indeed, I do wonder if maybe the story would’ve been more enjoyable with a supervillain in place of Dockery’s nameless, faceless goons, who offer no physical challenge to Spider-Man and don’t even respond to his witty remarks and cheap quips. Without a colourful villain, the fights aren’t as interesting and the stakes are quite low in terms of Spidey’s safety; there’s no question he can out-punch these mercenaries, so the drama revolves around ensuring Belinda and Clayton are safe instead. This would be fine but, again, there isn’t much emphasis on them being in danger; Belinda is tied up and taunted as the mercs wait for the order to kill her, rather than just being shot right away, and Dockery goes to the effort of setting Clayton’s office on fire to stage her death as an accident rather than just shoving her out a window or gunning her down. I don’t mind a more grounded, low-stakes Spidey story – in many ways, it’s a change of pace – but the narrative here is littered with contrivances and conveniences that make it decidedly run-of-the-mill compared to other Spidey tales. 

Madame Web’s look and powers impress, but the plot is middling and forgettable.

Madame Web makes for a visually interesting character; decked out in a slick black/red dress with a spider motif, blindfolded, and hooked up to a web-like life support system, she’s got a memorable design, for sure. Although Peter dismissed her as a fraud (which is a bit odd considering Peter has chummed with the X-Men before, a team known for their psychics), she proves to be completely legitimate, though her clairvoyance is paradoxically accurate and unreliable, meaning she can only vaguely point Spidey in the right direction and stress fatal consequences should he fail. Thankfully, Spider-Man uses his head (off panel, of course) and, rather than searching every trainyard in the city, realises that Dockery owns a toy shop, which turns out to be the right location. Truthfully, though, I didn’t really like this; it felt rushed and forced and again lowered the stakes as it meant we wouldn’t be seeing Belinda or Clayton threatened by oncoming trains. The twist of Madame Web learning Spidey’s secret identity was interesting as very few characters were in on this back then and taints her mysterious aura with a potential menace as her intentions might not be as benevolent as they seem, but she’s ultimately a non-factor in this story. I have no issues believing that Spider-Man could’ve figured out where Belinda was without Madame Web’s help, making her largely superfluous. I almost wonder if it might’ve been better to have Madame Web be the linchpin of the story; perhaps she’s a true medium who’s targeted by gangsters or hosts a psychic television show and is kidnapped by a villain for a ransom, or just something a little more engaging that Spider-Man giving up pursuing the hoodlums and randomly deciding to ask for her help.  

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you read “The Prophecy of Madame Web!”? If so, what did you think to it? Were you impressed by her debut, or did it fall as flat for you as it did for me? Did you like that it was a more grounded story, or would you have preferred to see Spidey tangle with a supervillain? What are some of your favourite Madame Web stories or moments? Are you excited to see her live-action debut? Whatever your thoughts on Madame Web, drop a comment below or on my social media and be sure to check out my other Spider-Man content across the site. 

Back Issues [Venom Day]: Ultimate Venom

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To celebrate the release of Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Serkis, 2021), Sony Pictures declared September 27 “Venom Day”, a fitting date to shine the spotlight on one of my favourite anti-heroes, who made their first full debut in May 1998 and have gone on to become one of Marvel’s most iconic characters.

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis – Artist: Mark Bagley

Story Title: “Origins”
Published: February 2003

Story Title: “Today”
Published: April 2003

Story Title: “Inheritance”
Published: March 2003

Story Title: “Still”
Published: May 2003

Story Title: “Legacy”
Published: March 2003

Story Title: “Father’s Pride”
Published: May 2003

The Background:
In 1982, Marvel Comics’ editor-in-chief Jim Shooter purchased Randy Schueller’s illustration of a black-suited Spider-Man for a mere $200; writer Tom DeFalco and artist Ron Frenz then conceived of the costume being a living organism Spidey would acquire in the “Secret Wars” event. After he shed the parasitic symbiote, it bonded with disgraced reporter Eddie Brock and Spidey was tormented by Venom, a twisted double who proved so popular that additional symbiotes and storylines spun out of the character’s lore. First proposed by lawyer Bill Jemas, Ultimate Marvel was a secondary imprint of Marvel Comics that ran alongside the main comic line (known as “Marvel-616”) but told their most popular characters’ stories from a fresh, modern perspective to entice new readers and fans of the live-action adaptations of the time. The imprint was spearheaded by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley’s Ultimate Spider-Man series, which featured a far younger Peter Parker who encountered many of his most notorious villains while still in high school. The series proved incredibly popular, and even survived the eventual destruction of its universe in the form of Miles Morales, and offered a far different, more scientific incarnation of Venom to its universe. The six-issue “Venom” story arc proved so successful that developers Treyarch revisited and expanded upon it for their moderately successful Ultimate Spider-Man videogame (ibid, 2005), which included this version of Venom as a playable character!

The Review:
I think it’s only fair to start by saying that I was never really a big fan of Ultimate Spider-Man, or the other Ultimate comics; the art work was amazing, and I admired how writers like Bendis were able to capture natural, relatable dialogue and how the comics adopted a dynamic, real-world aesthetic. But, for me, the comics were a little too dark, a little bit extreme at times, and rushed through some of Marvel’s biggest storylines and burned themselves out too quickly as a result. The Ultimate Spider-Man comics were especially difficult for me to get into since Bendis packs so much dialogue onto the page, sometimes having a single splash page of a character talking and a good 80% of the background being dominated by a huge speech bubble. Either that or he’d have characters barely able to string sentences together, which, again, is very realistic and indicative of real-life conversations but can make reading the comics a bit of a chore as relatively simple storylines are dragged out across multiple issues simply for the sake of drama. However, having said all that, Mark Bagley is one of my favourite Spider-Man artists, so I absolutely had to seek out the “Venom” story arc to see him working on the character again and he definitely made this younger, far more flawed Spider-Man all the more impressive and dynamic with his explosive and visually engaging art.

Following a painful break up, Peter reconnects with a childhood friend.

Anyway, the “Venom” arc comes at a time of great upheaval in Peter Parker’s life; already struggling with high school and the guilt of indirectly causing his beloved Uncle Ben’s death, Peter is burdened by his part in the death of heroic police captain George Stacy and has recently been dumped by his long-term friend and on-and-off girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson, since she can’t handle the pressure of worrying about his web-slinging activities (Peter’s duel identity wasn’t the best kept secret in the Ultimate comics). Peter is left devastated and wallowing in self-pity, doubt, and anger at having screwed up with M. J. While struggling with his tumultuous and self-deprecating emotions in his Aunt May’s attic, he stumbles across a box of photographs of his long-dead father, scientist Richard Parker, and a VHS tape depicting him as a small boy with his parents, his Aunt May and Uncle Ben (depicted as more of a free-spirited hippy in Ultimate Spider-Man), and the Brocks, family friends of the Parkers. Eddie Brock Snr was Richard’s partner on the “Venom Project”, while Eddie Brock Jnr was Peter’s best friend as a child; his memory jogged of his long-lost friend, Peter decides to reconnect with Eddie, who also lost his parents in the same plane crash that killed Richard and Mary Parker, and easily tracks him down thanks to the internet. Awestruck by the bustling Empire City University, Peter meets with Eddie, who’s in a bioengineering program at the university but struggling to live up to his father’s legacy thanks to the workload and the expense of university life.

In a bid to complete his father’s work, Peter finds himself garbed in a protoplasmic suit.

When Peter shares the news of his recent break up, Eddie is a little dismissive, but he’s absolutely right when he says that high school drama is nothing compared to the struggles of the bigger, wider world and he encourages Peter to not let it ruin the best years of his life. Touched by Peter sharing a copy of the video tape, Eddie takes him to a high-tech lab where he’s been working on their “inheritance”, a beaker full of black goo that represents their fathers’ life’s work. Thanks to help from Doctor Curtis Conners, Eddie has pieced together that Richard and Eddie Snr were working on a protoplasmic suit that could (theoretically) cure any disease while simultaneously enhancing the wearer’s natural physical strengths. To fund their research, Richard and Eddie Snr turned to Trask Industries, though this meant that anything they discovered or created would no longer be theirs, and Eddie theorises that they were killed when they tried to keep their project from being perverted into a weapon of war. Eddie’s sample is all that’s left, a small quantity that their fathers worked on in secret, one that was created using Richard’s own DNA and which Eddie fully believes could change the world for the better. Stunned by these revelations, Peter rekindles his friendship with Eddie, who picks him and his house mate and friend, Gwen Stacy, up after school, much to the chagrin of the conflicted M. J., who clearly still has feelings for and cares about Peter. Reviewing his father’s notes and video diaries, Peter snaps when he sees just how distraught his father was at having his research stolen or perverted and resolves to finish his father’s work by breaking into the lab as Spider-Man and taking a sample of the goo to run his own tests. However, a small drop of the liquid splatters onto his hand and a startling, agonising transformation occurs that sees Spidey engulfed by the writhing goo, encased in a monstrous cocoon of sorts, and finally emerging in a sleek, form-fitting black costume.

Peter’s elation soon turns to horror when the suit transforms into a hulking monster!

Spider-Man tests out his new duds by first rescuing a shallow, self-obsessed pop star after she’s held hostage by armed forces in her own limo and then making short work of Herman Schultz/The Shocker. The suit not only greatly amplifies Spidey’s already superhuman strength and speed but allows him to instantly heal from point-blank gun shots and fire black webbing from his fingertips and Peter revels in the power and euphoria offered by his father’s incredible invention. However, things quickly take a turn for the worst when he confronts an armed robber who shoots and kills an innocent man in front of his wife and child; overwhelmed by memories of Uncle Ben’s death, Spidey transforms into a hulking, salivating, monster that hungers for blood and drives him into a mindless rage! Peter’s sense returns in time to spare the man’s life and, horrified by the suit’s grotesque appearance and overwhelming appetite, he flees into the rainswept night, desperately trying to remove it. Luckily, his wild thrashing sees him collide with a set of power lines, which burn the suit off his body and leave him dramatically lying (butt-naked) on the grave of his dead uncle and parents. While all of this is going on, Gwen and Eddie were raving at a reggae concert; afterwards, he tries to put the moves on her and is slighted when she rightly refuses his advances since she’s only fifteen. Any further exploration of Eddie’s inappropriate lusts for the younger girl are quickly dashed when he turns on the news and sees Spider-Man’s fancy new black costume; racing back to the lab, he’s stunned to find Peter there but enraged to find that his young friend is planning to destroy their fathers’ legacy since it’s uncontrollable and dangerous.

Turns out Eddie’s a bit of a creep, and a selfish, jealous dick on top of it!

Eddie’s anger is only exacerbated when Peter reveals that he’s Spider-Man and goes on a lengthy tirade about power, responsibility, and his experiences with just a small sample of the suit. Devastated to learn that his father’s legacy is a volatile and potentially life-threatening substance, Eddie reluctantly allows Peter to take the remainder of the goo and destroy it, apparently convinced of his friend’s sincerity by the little white lie Peter tells that nobody else knows about his secret identity. However, as Gwen so astutely puts it, Eddie is a “bad guy” deep down and, soon after Peter leave, he mutters a bunch of insults at Peter, disgusted by the belief that he’s a Mutant, and willingly exposes himself to a separate sample of the protoplasm he secretly had locked away. Potentially because he lacks Peter’s spider-strength, the transformation is far more unstable and gruesome for Eddie; suffering from extreme cold and overwhelmed with an insatiable hunger, Eddie is bombarded with cruel and negative emotions, and the sheer panic at the realisation that the suit is feeding on him! By focusing on his anger and pain, Eddie is able to force the suit under some measure of control, but he quickly loses his focus when guards show up and transforms into a slobbering, clawed beast that devours people whole! Tormented by nightmarish memories, Peter finally snaps and visits M. J. and the two have a heart to heart in which he tells her that he loves her, but they far from reconcile despite her obviously still having feelings for him. Because of her intimate knowledge of Peter and his abilities as Spider-Man, she’s the only one who notices when he’s distracted by this spider-sense, which alerts him to the presence of the suit on the school grounds; chastising himself for not making sure the suit was completely destroyed, and theorising that it has some kind of “biological memory”, he races out to control it in his street clothes, completely unaware of Eddie’s fate.

Peter is left distraught when Eddie attacks him and appears to die.

Indeed, when Eddie is revealed to be within the thrashing, monstrous suit, Peter is both shocked and appalled that his old friend would willingly subject himself to the suit’s influence. Unlike the mainstream version of Venom, Ultimate Venom is a volatile and almost mindless beast; a pulsating, brutish monster with teeth and spikes dotted throughout its body and whip-like tentacles, it oddly lacks the spider symbol so associated with the character (despite this appearing on the issue’s covers and Spider-Man having it when he wore the suit…and it randomly appearing in one panel…) and is constantly consuming Eddie’s body, feasting upon and fostering his rage and dark emotions to sustain itself. Lashing out in a jealous and embittered rage, Eddie attacks Peter, easily swatting him aside and half-choking him with his tendrils, all while Peter desperately tries to talk sense into his half-crazed friend. Realising that Eddie is out of control and that the suit is simply mimicking his spider abilities and driving him into a murderous fury, Peter leads Ultimate Venom away from the school grounds, lamenting the friends and loved ones he’s lost to “this super hero crap” and wondering whether the suit drove Eddie crazy or if he was always like that deep down. Regardless, they clash on a rooftop, quickly plummeting through some power lines and to the streets below. With Eddie stunned, the suit tries to overtake Peter once more, with Eddie’s distorted rambling claiming that the suit has to kill Peter in order to be whole since Eddie isn’t strong enough to sustain it. The timely arrival of New York’s finest see both peppered with gun fire, which drives Ultimate Venom back towards a live power line and, in a flash of light, apparently incinerates both the suit and Eddie before Peter’s eyes in suitably anti-climatic fashion. Naturally, Peter is also fired upon and, wracked with guilt and pain, he retreats home and ends the story exactly where he started: distraught and in utter anguish at having lost another friend and ruined his life even more thanks to his duel identity.

The Summary:
So, yeah, Ultimate Venom does suffer from some of those negatives that I find off-putting about the Ultimate Spider-Man comics; there’s a lot of dialogue, much of it rambling and disconnected, with at least one page being Peter babbling on and on to Eddie, which really isn’t all that interesting to see or read since we already know everything he’s saying and it just seems like padding. Any time Richard and Eddie Snr are discussing their work, you can expect a whole bunch of speech bubbles to be dotted all over the pages and panels, and there are a few instances where characters are completely static and art work is repeated between panels with the characters just saying different things. It’s a weird one for me as, like I say, I do appreciate and admire the way Bendis captures real, natural, often haphazard character dialogue but sometimes it’s a bit much. One thing that both works for and against the Ultimate comics is how cinematic they often are; panels and events are presented very much like a movie, showing rather than telling in some instances, and then snapping back to a massive exposition dump, with dynamic and exciting action sequences and visuals to help keep things interesting. On the plus side, Ultimate Spider-Man is arguably, subjectively, easier to read than some of the comics from the sixties and seventies since they’re not bogged down with outdated dialogue and such (though there is some of that here, particularly in Gwen’s dialogue) and the presentation is far more energetic, but I can understand why some people don’t really care of these comics as they’re very angsty, teen drama like a high school show.

Peter is definitely full of angst, which sadly limits his Spidey action.

Anyway, that aside, there’s a decent amount to like here; the art, especially, is incredible. Mark Bagley did some of his best work on Ultimate Spider-Man and really makes this younger, more troubled teenaged Spider-Man visually distinct from his mainstream counterpart not just in his haircut but in the physical depiction of Spidey as this gangly, inhuman superhero. Unfortunately, Bagley seems to struggle a bit with faces; a lot of the characters look the same, facially, and there’s a noticeable lack of Spider-Man in this arc. He only suits up a couple of times, and he’s only in the black suit for one issue! This is what I mean by Ultimate Spider-Man rushing through things; 616-Peter had the black suit for four years before its true nature was revealed and, at that point, he was in his early twenties. Here, Peter’s still in high school and has already had impactful encounters with some of his most memorable villains, and he’s in the suit for what seems like only a few hours before it tries to consume him, and he frantically rids himself of it. I’ve read a lot of mainstream Spider-Man stories and Peter is absolutely known for being riddled with guilt, pressure, and angst but his Ultimate counterpart is far more dramatic and melancholy; he’s driven into a self-deprecating, morose depression after M. J. dumps him (which I can totally relate to) and has been pushed to the edge by recent events, which cause him to recklessly experiment with the goo and thus almost be killed when the suit goes mental on him. Realising that he’s made a serious mistake and heartbroken to find that his father’s life’s work is volatile and dangerous, Peter immediately backpedals and tries to make everything right by destroying his dad’s research, which means exposing himself to Eddie and desperately trying to convince his childhood friend to go along with this despite how difficult the truth is to hear.

Eddie’s a bit of a weirdo, but Ultimate Venom is nothing more than a mindless beast.

Eddie himself is quite different here. A scientist rather than a discredited reporter, he’s a slender hipster who seems to have really valued his friendship with Peter and who is absolutely fixated on completing his father’s research so that his legacy can live on. There are some red flags raised when it comes to Eddie from the moment Peter meets him at his dorm room, which is a bit of a mess for one thing and shared with another student who has nothing good to say about Eddie. The exact depths of his depravity aren’t revealed until later, however, when he flirts with Gwen and tries to kiss her, then spitefully calls her a tease and dismisses her after she understandably rejects him. Although Peter defends his friend and believes that he’s a good person deep down, this incident is enough to convince Gwen otherwise, and it turns out she’s absolutely right as he’s a bit of a depraved, disturbed young man; bigoted towards Mutants (like most of the Ultimate universe) and ridiculing Peter’s naïvety, Eddie maliciously exposes himself to the goo simply to both prove Peter wrong and to assume the power he described for himself. Instantly, however, Eddie is consumed and driven to madness by this extremely removed version of Venom; little more than a voracious, cancer-like substance, Ultimate Venom is more an amplifier of emotions and abilities than it is a symbiotic life form and simply drives Eddie to confront and devour Peter in order to sustain its unstable and monstrous form out of an innate need for self-preservation rather than any kind of twisted vendetta. This results in a creature that is more of a hulking, primeval brute rather than a sadistic villain looking to make Peter’s life a living hell, though there are some similarities in that Ultimate Venom has apparently copied Spider-Man’s abilities. Ultimately, however, it’s more like a protoplasmic clone of Peter, one spewing teeth and tentacles and going on insatiable rampage, spouting nonsensical accusations and threats but being a far less interesting and layered character in its own right since it’s just a parasitic lifeform that overtakes Eddie.  

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you read Ultimate Spider-Man’s “Venom” arc? What did you think to this new depiction of Venom? Were you a fan of the changes made to Eddie’s character and his more disturbing nature? Were you also disappointed that Peter’s time in the black suit was cut so dramatically short and that he didn’t fight Ultimate Venom as Spider-Man? Did you enjoy the Ultimate comics, specifically Ultimate Spider-Man and, if so, what were some of your favourite moments from those comics? What is your favourite Venom story and how are you celebrating Venom Day today? Whatever your thoughts on Venom, feel free to leave them below.

Game Corner [Spidey Month]: Spider-Man 2 (PlayStation 2)

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Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was first published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Saturday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Released: 28 June 2004
Developer: Treyarch
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Mac-OS X, N-Gage, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox

The Background:
Back in the day, it seemed like every single cinema release was accompanied by a videogame adaptation, whether they warranted it or not. Naturally, considering his popularity, Spider-Man has a long and varied history with videogame adaptations across numerous platforms, and developers Treyarch began development of a tie-in to Spider-Man 2 (Raimi, 2004) soon after the success of the first movie. No strangers to the wall-crawler, Treyarch sought to dramatically improve upon their previous efforts by incorporating a large populated recreation of New York City, expanding on the film’s story, and placing a heavy emphasis on Spider-Man’s web-slinging. The new system, which utilised ray casting to automatically map infinite points where players could attach webs to swing from, was developed by designer Jamie Fristrom and has long been the subject of praise amongst fans of the videogame, and the character. Indeed, Spider-Man 2 has been met with a surprising amount of positivity for a videogame tie-in; while some of the more repetitive aspects were criticised, reviews praised the combat and controls, seamless open world and mission variety, presentation, and even the minigames. Even in the face of its bigger, more graphically impressive successors, Spider-Man 2 is often lauded as one of the character’s greatest videogame outings; the praise for this game is so great that I was actually a little intimidated to try it out for this review, which is my first time actually playing it.

The Plot:
Two years after the events of the first game, Peter Parker is struggling with his personal life and his responsibilities as the superhero Spider-Man. Unable to ignore the threat posed by criminals and supervillains alike, Peter’s social life begins to suffer, but his powers are put to the ultimate test when renowned scientist Doctor Otto Octavius becomes a four-limbed madman and threatens the entire city!

Gameplay:
In a change of pace from its predecessor, and basically every Spider-Man title released up until that point, Spider-Man 2 is an open-world adventure in which you’re given free reign to use all of Spider-Man’s amazing abilities throughout one of the largest and most faithful digital recreations of New York City ever seen at that time. Unlike the previous game, which was basically a reskinned version of Neversoft’s fun but limited 2000 adaptation of the web-slinger, Spider-Man is hardly ever trapped in an enclosed environment and thus a primary focus of Spider-Man 2 is on swinging around the city, stopping random crimes and helping non-playable characters (NPCs) with various issues. Thankfully, Spider-Man is more than equipped to handle everything the game has to throw at him, and the controls and combat options have been revised to accommodate this new focus. Spider-Man can attack enemies or interact with objects and NPCs with the Square button; successive presses in conjunction with directional inputs and the Triangle and Circle button will see him pull off combos, often involving webbing and tossing his enemies, and you’ll awkwardly home in on the nearest enemy when in air combat as well. You can stick to walls by pressing Circle, which is also used to evade incoming attacks and bullets whenever Spider-Man’s spider sense goes off (as indicated by his glowing head); this also fills up your “Spider Reflexes” meter and allows you to execute a counter attack but I found evading (and the combat in general) to be a little clunky and haphazard at times, especially as even New York’s most common thugs can take quite a beating and even block against your attacks. Triangle shoots a web; holding the button will temporarily tie enemies up, pressing up and Triangle fires a ball of impact webbing, and you can even use your webs to disarm foes, though it’s next to useless against most bosses and mechanical enemies. Spider-Man jumps with X; pressing it twice performs a double jump and you can hold the button to charge a big jump and executing a jump at the apex of a web sling is crucial to covering vast distances when swinging about. Holding down L2 sees Spidey spring or get a boost to his swing, Triangle (and in conjunction with Circle) will allow you to pick up injured NPCs or grapple thugs, and you can press down to lock-on to nearby targets.

Combat is much improved but the highlight of the game was the ground-breaking web-slinging.

Once the aforementioned meter has a bit of blue in it, you can press L1 to activate your Spider Reflexes, which effectively functions as a form of bullet time, slowing down the action until the meter depletes or you press L1 again and allowing you to better dodge and attack enemies. The meat and potatoes of the game, though, is in the web-slinging; the game offers two options for this, “Easy Swinging” and “Normal Swinging”, with the latter requiring more input from the player to direct Spider-Man’s swings. Either way, R2 sees you throwing a web and swinging through the city but, unlike in every other Spider-Man game before this, you can only web-sling when there are buildings or suitable purchase holds nearby. This means you’ll see Spider-Man veer to the left or right as he shoots webs at the nearest building and allows for the most realistic and innovative web-slinging ever seen. Spider-Man can also eventually web-zip by pressing L2 and R2 together to quickly cover flat distances and you can easily speed through the skyscrapers by attaching to buildings and gaining extra height with your jumps, though you can’t clamber up your web as you swing as in other games, which can make chasing through the city a bit frustrating at times. Equally annoying are the number of dead ends and the various heights of the city’s buildings, which can interrupt your flow; thankfully, the onscreen mini map is a great help for getting around and spotting crimes in progress, side missions, and directing you towards your next story-based objective. You can review these at any time from the pause menu and expand the map out by pressing ‘Select’; this displays the current time and all landmarks and places of note, but sadly doesn’t include the option to place waypoints so you still have to manually read the map and follow the onscreen indicators to get to objectives. Spider-Man 2 is split into chapters, beginning with a simple and in-depth tutorial where Bruce Campbell’s disembodied and snarky voice teaches you the fundamentals of gameplay. To progress through the story, you need to complete story-based objectives; generally, this amounts to following the compass to a certain place in the city to advance the story or confront a boss, but you’ll also need to earn “Hero Points” and acquire new abilities from the various shops dotted across the city.

There’s always someone in peril, or a crime to stop, or a race to be had.

Hero Points are earned from stopping crimes, rescuing civilians, completing time trial races, and other similar distractions; it’s a bit annoying that the game effectively grinds to a halt while you work to obtain the required Hero Points, but you get a fair amount for each side quest you complete and it’s not as if you’re short on things to do. It seems someone’s being mugged or needs help every thirty seconds, and you’ll often stop a burglary only for a child to lose their balloon across the street or an armoured car be attacked a block over. Sometimes, you’ll help an NPC only to be jumped by a gang of thugs in a sneak attack; other times, criminals will hijack vehicles to make a quick getaway and you’ll need to chase them down and land on top of the car, which can be tricky unless you lock-on to it. Once on the roof, you need to pound away with Square and dodge their bullets with Circle until they’re forced out for a fistfight and, as the story progresses, you’ll find burglars and shoot outs often culminating in one of these chase sequences. You’ll also run into Felicia Hardy/Black Cat numerous times throughout the story; each time you do you need to chase after her as she leaps and grapnels around the city, which can be aggravating as she makes erratic turns and it’s difficult to stay on the rooftops. Similarly, you’ll need to chase after Dr. Octopus when he makes an escape in a helicopter and can take on timed challenges where you must race through rings, and the game’s pretty unforgiving, slapping you with failure if you even remotely fall behind or stay too far. More often than not, you’ll face a timer as you race to story-based locations, with the final race to Dr. Ock’s lair being the tightest of them all, or be asked to deliver pizzas and swing over to specific points on the map or skyscrapers to automatically take pictures, or will have to quickly crawl up buildings to rescue civilians in danger or falling, or quickly take injured civilians to the hospital. There’s quite a lot to do in this regard, and it’s fun to pop over to the Daily Bugle and change to Peter Parker in the men’s toilets, but the variety of these side missions soon wears thin as you repeat the same cycle of requests over and over but with more enemies or a tighter time limit.

Graphics and Sound:  
It’s obvious that a lot more time and effort went into Spider-Man 2 compared to its predecessor; most videogame tie-ins suffer from a rushed development schedule, and this is often reflected in their length, variety, and presentation but Spider-Man 2 does pretty well in all three regards. Spider-Man’s character model is much improved compared to the last game, with far more animations when he’s web-slinging and battering crooks on the streets; Spidey even runs along buildings when he swings close, can perform a variety of mid-air tricks with well-timed jumps, and NPCs will even automatically dodge out his way and throw insults at him when he runs or swings through the streets. Sadly, the enemy models and NPCs don’t fare nearly as well; you’ll see the same polygonal faces and voices repeated over and over, but it’s hard to begrudge this as this was symptomatic of the games of this era. What I can’t defend, however, is the soundtrack and voice acting; once again, the game opts for a soundalike to Danny Elfman’s iconic Spider-Man score that just doesn’t work as well and suffers from awkward looping or disappears entirely for no reason. Only a handful of the movie’s actors returned to voice their polygonal counterparts as well; while Alfred Molina continues to shine as Dr. Octopus, both Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst sound bored to death recording their lines, though I did enjoy that Spider-Man throws quips and monologues to himself as you play. When the character models are used for in-game cutscenes, the game also falls apart under close scrutiny, though the higher quality cinematics fare much better, despite the rubbery appearance of the models, and I liked how the film’s events were recreated but also altered and expanded upon here, even if sub-plots like Peter losing his powers were dropped.

It’s lucky for the ropey cutscenes and voices that the digital recreation of New York is so good.

Naturally, the game’s biggest selling point is the sprawling and bustling recreation of New York; all the landmarks you associate with the city are present and accounted for, alongside recreations of locations from the films such as Peter’s apartment, the Daily Bugle building, Dr. Octopus’s pier lair, and the pizza parlour (though relocated and redesigned here). Not only can you web-sling across the city without any noticeable slowdown or load times, the game also includes a day and night cycle and the story is geared towards pushing you to visiting new areas, such as Roosevelt Island, the Statue of Liberty (accessible only by hitching a ride on a helicopter or using Mysterio’s UFO-like drones), Central Park, and Oscorp. 90% of the game takes place outside amidst the city skyscrapers; traffic and pedestrians mingle around down below, crime is rampant, and the enemies you encounter even change as the story progresses. While you can only enter a handful of buildings, those that you can offer some rewards, such as interacting with the Daily Bugle staff for tasks or purchasing upgrades. The handful of other times you’re forced into a warehouse or an open-air stadium, it’s for a close-quarters boss battle or to take on one of Mysterio’s challenges, meaning the only interior of any real note is Mysterio’s madcap “funhouse” that sees you venturing into a hall of mirrors and through upside-down environments. The thrill of swinging through New York is definitely palpable but I’d be lying if it doesn’t lose its appeal pretty soon; with no options for fast travel and only one real collectible on offer, there’s not really much to see beyond the digital recreation of the city or to do beyond stopping the same crimes over and over.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you swing about the city in your colourful underoos, a gaggle of the dregs of society will inevitably crawl out of the woodwork to cause trouble in the streets. New York is rife with purse snatchers, bank robbers, and armed gangs who love to rob armoured cars and get into shoot-outs with the cops or hijack passing cars and you’ll get to beat the ever-loving piss out of them all multiple times. Most enemies you encounter will simply try to bash your head in, but others have crowbars and bats or can guard against your attacks, requiring you to execute a counter after dodging their attacks. The worst are those armed with guns as Spider-Man doesn’t do too well when riddled with bullets, so it’s best to either disarm them, web them up, or try to take them out early, which can be easier said than done when you’re literally surrounded by enemies on all sides. Eventually, New York will also be attacked by Mysterio’s robotic drones, which fly about the place and blast at you with lasers; these can be tricky to hit as mid-air combat is actually less refined than in the previous game in many ways, though that weird homing function comes in handy here. Herman Schutlz/The Shocker’s goons also end up terrorising the citizens as well, firing high velocity blasts to send you flying, and all of the game’s enemies except the robots can take quite a beating before they go down. You’ll also have to contend with three mech-wearing goons in one particular mission that sees Spidey and Black Cat gate-crash an auction. This mission is one of the game’s toughest, on paper, due to the sheer number of bullets, enemies, and explosions happening all around you but an easy way to get past it is to simply swing about back and forth overhead; eventually, the mechs will take each other and most of the other enemies out, leaving you to pick up the scraps.

After tangling with the Rhino, Black Cat lends a hand in two annoying battles with the Shocker.

Disappointingly, though, Spider-Man 2 only contains four actual bosses, but you’ll face some of them more than once, at least. The first one you battle is Aleksei Sytsevich/The Rhino as he’s in the middle of a bit of thievery; the Rhino is too powerful to take on head-first so you need to rapidly tap Circle to avoid his swings or dodge his charge, both of which will leave him dizzy and vulnerable to a good pummelling. Instead of fighting Black Cat, you’ll chase her across the city (so many times that it got legitimately annoying for me) to encounters with the Shocker, who you’ll battle twice alongside Black Cat. The first fight takes place inside a warehouse and sees the Shocker blasting himself about the place, constantly staying on the move and making himself a difficult and annoying target. When you do get close to him, you only have time to rattle off a quick combo before you need to get the hell away from him to avoid his huge concussive blast, which sends you flying. The Shocker’s blasts are also used to keep you at bay, he shrugs off your webbing, and is joined by some goons in this fight, which quickly becomes laborious because of the hit and run tactics. Sadly, you’re forced to repeat these in the second encounter, which takes place in an even smaller, enclosed arena where the Shocker is protected by a shield. You need to head up top, dodging his blasts when your spider sense goes off, and activate whatever console is opposite from the one Black Cat is at to lower his shield. These weird blasts of water (or energy, I couldn’t tell) form platforms in the middle of the arena, giving the Shocker the high ground, but the same strategy as before is needed to whittle his health down. Eventually, Black Cat will shut his shield down for good, meaning you’re on the home stretch, but she doesn’t really seem to actively do damage to him when she’s attacking him.

Mysterio’s “tests” prove to be frustrating test of your patience.

Easily the game’s more persistent enemy is Mysterio; when you first face him as plain old Quentin Beck, he challenges you to a series of “games” in an effort to prove Spidey’s a fraud, which involves you grabbing and tossing goons into green highlighted pits faster than him in a game of human basketball and then clambering about on elevated, moving, and twisting platforms trying not to get hit by his laser cannon. The second time, he swarms New York with his UFO-like drones and takes hostages at a theatre; this was an annoying section as you have to fend off his drones, watch out for a flaming floor, and battle a brief time limit to rescue everyone there but it’s nothing compared to when he encases the Statue of Liberty in an elaborate mechanical construction to resemble an alien attack. I was tearing my hair out at the finnicky controls as I webbed my way over the Lady Liberty and fell countless times into the water to be washed ashore and have to start all over, and near enough lost my rag when tasked with destroying the eight orbs surrounding Mysterio’s machine to expose the “brain”. Eventually, I was somehow able to gain enough height to get up there and take them all out and then get up to where the brain is before the orbs could respawn and dispel the illusion, but it was a pain in my ass, for sure. Afterwards, you track Mysterio to his apartment and hidden funhouse lair, where you have to fend off a swarm of twisted Spider-Man clones to find a hidden exit in his hall of mirrors and shut down his hologram. Finally, Mysterio shows up in the flesh later in the game to rob a deli; this was actually really amusing as the game loads in this ridiculously long and layered health bar and makes it seem like it’s going to be this long and epic showdown but all you have to do is punch him once and Mysterio folds like a paper plane.

Thanks to his thrashing limbs and raging machine, Doc Ock proves an aggravating and formidable foe.

Finally, there’s the main man himself, Dr. Octopus, who you encounter four times throughout the game. The first encounter is during the mishap with his fusion experiment and is one of the most frustrating parts of this or any other game; the reactor is going crazy, sending out intermittent energy bolts that you must dodge the second your spider sense goes off as these pulsating waves of energy that not only do massive damage (three hits is usually enough to kill you) but send you flying across the screen! Through a combination of luck, timing, and the patience of a saint, you need to dodge past all this shit and hit four consoles to power the machine down, but this almost had me rage-quitting right then and there. Next, you’ll fight Dr. Octopus and his grenade launching goons at the bank, which establishes the strategy you’ll need to best him in all encounters; you need to dodge his tentacles and then quickly fire a web to pin each one down and leave him vulnerable to attack, but this is very hard to do and he’s easily able to grab you, slam you about, toss you around, and beat you to death in just a few hits. After chasing his helicopter and rescuing Aunt May from the train tracks, you’ll battle Doc Ock on the roof of a train just like in the film…eventually, because first you need to battle the game’s controls and camera to actually get on the damn train! Here, it’s more of the same and actually a little easier than the last encounter except for the fact that Doc Ock can toss you off the train if he grabs you. Finally, it’s the worst of both worlds at his pier lair as Doc Ock relentlessly chases you, protected by a shield generated from his rampaging machine and able to spam-beat you to death in the blink of an eye if you don’t constantly keep moving, dodging, and webbing him up. You need to deactivate nine consoles scattered about the lair, with one high above and one down below near the instant-death water, all while avoiding the electrical bolts, the thankfully less damaging but no less annoying energy waves, and Doc Ock himself. Once you finally take care of that, you’ll go one-on-one with him again where you’ll need to be super fast on the dodge and webs to stop his relentless thrashing tentacles and avoid being tossed into the aforementioned water, but once you land a good few combos he finally goes down for good.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
In the spirit of the movie upon which it is based, Spider-Man has an infinite supply of webbing in Spider-Man 2 so you never need to worry about collecting extra web cartridges, though the game does lack some of the fancier web-based moves potentially as a result of this. Every time you defeat a wave of enemies in side missions, they’ll drop some health to fully restore your health bar, but these won’t be present in boss encounters, which can make them all the more frustrating. Additionally, while there are “secrets” to be found around the city, they simply grant a few more Hero Points so there’s no pick-ups to boost Spidey’s abilities. Instead, you’ll gain new buffs, tricks, combos, and such by spending Hero Points in the many shops scattered around the city; these increase the speed of your swing, add fancy moves to your jumps, and add a little more flourish to your combos but I found little use for most of them and got along pretty well just mashing Square and peppering in the odd Circle and Triangle here and there.

Additional Features:
As mentioned, there are many secrets dotted around the city; these are pretty hard to find, and I only stumbled upon three or four by chance but they do allow access to a couple of new moves. There are also some races and timed challenges you can take on for more points, and which probably count towards you achieving the list of “Awards” offered by the game (though most of these are story-based). Although there are some options available to you to change the game’s display, sound, and control scheme, there are no difficulty settings here, no costumes to unlock (though you do get to play as Peter and unmasked Spidey in the story), and no additional characters or modes to unlock or play as even using cheats. The best on offer here is a code to award you a bunch of Hero Points and upgrades, making this a significant step down not just from the last game but Neversoft’s previous efforts with their many additional costumes and modes. However, after you clear the game, you’re dropped back into a free roaming mode and are free to stop crimes until the end of time across the city; you can also purchase access to the Battle Arena where you can not only battle the game’s bosses in endurance fights but also face off with a secret additional boss, Calypso Ezili/Calypso, though I’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is actually worth your time.

The Summary:
All I’ve heard since 2004 is how great Spider-Man 2 is; it either tops or is included in so many “best of” lists for videogame tie-ins and superhero videogames that I knew I had to get it once I started building my PlayStation 2 library, even though I am primarily against videogame tie-ins unless I’m trying to increase my Gamer Score. The difference between this and the last game, and other Spider-Man games before it, is immediate and reinforced throughout; the sheer size of New York City and the number of crimes to stop is very impressive for the time and never before has a videogame so perfectly captured the rush of being Marvel’s famous web-slinger. The drama and crime even interrupts the story on numerous occasions, really throwing you into Spidey’s troubled shoes, and the web-swinging mechanics definitely live up to all the hype. The versatility and accessibility of swinging through the city was unparalleled at the time and perfectly recreates the speed and exhilaration of the web-slinging seen in Sam Raimi’s films. Sadly, the combat doesn’t really live up to this, being clunky and oddly unbalanced at times even when you manage to land a dodge and a counter. Naturally, character models and cutscenes haven’t aged too well, but I can forgive that; what I can’t forgive is how empty, repetitive, and frustrating parts of the game can feel. It’s great having all of New York to explore, but there’s not a lot to see and you’ll be stopping the same crimes over and over, which can get very old very quickly. I would’ve liked to see comic book covers and other collectibles scattered about to unlock costumes and concept art, but there’s none of that here, meaning there’s little incentive to explore. The few bosses there are can also be annoying; I got so sick of chasing after Black Cat, being tossed about like a ragdoll by the Shocker and Dr. Octopus’s bloody machine, and being mullered by bullets, to say nothing of that God-awful encounter with Mysterio at the Statue of Liberty. The game was also a lot shorter than I was expecting, with the gameplay padded out by the story forcing you to acquire Hero Points to load in the next chase, battle, or cutscene, and I found myself just feeling relieved when the game was over. Overall, I can certainly see why the game was so beloved at the time and is so highly regarded; it still holds up pretty well, despite some obvious flaws, and was the most immersive Spider-Man game at the time, but it’s obviously been overshadowed by better, more polished Spidey title sin the years since.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Have you ever played this beloved tie-in game? What did you think to the open-world gameplay and web-slinging mechanics back in the day? Do you think Spider-Man 2 still holds up today or were you also frustrated by some of its more tedious features? What did you think to the battles against Mysterio, the chases against Black Cat, and the encounters with the Shocker? Were you disappointed by the lack of unlockables and additional gameplay options? Which Spider-Man videogame or movie adaptation is your favourite? Head down below or over to my social media to share your thoughts and memories of Spider-Man 2.

Movie Night [Spidey Month]: Spider-Man 2.1

Dr. K3 Comments

Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’ve been dedicating every Saturday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Released: 17 April 2007
Originally Released: 30 June 2004
Director: Sam Raimi
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Budget: $200 million
Stars: Tobey Maguire, Alfred Molina, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, J. K. Simmons, and Rosemary Harris

The Plot:
Although he has saved countless lives as Spider-Man, Peter Parker’s (Maguire) personal life is falling apart due to his double life. Lovesick for Mary Jane Watson (Dunst) and tormented with guilt, Peter’s powers begin to fail him just as he faces his greatest challenge yet when renowned scientist Doctor Otto Octavius (Molina) becomes a four-limbed madman following a freak accident. When “Doctor Octopus” endangers lives, Peter is forced to reconcile his two lives in order to save the city, and the woman he loves, once again.

The Background:
Fittingly, given that his debut issue became one of Marvel’s best selling titles at the time, Spider-Man became so popular that he was ideally placed as Marvel Comics’ flagship character; the wall-crawler starred in numerous team-up titles, videogames, cartoons, and even a live-action series in the seventies, but his cinematic debut was constantly delayed by script and legal issues. Thankfully, director Sam Raimi and Sony Pictures Entertainment finally brought the character to life in Spider-Man (Raimi, 2002), which was an incredible critical and commercial success, but, while a big-budget sequel was almost immediately greenlit by the studio, Spider-Man 2 nearly underwent a major recast after star Tobey Maguire suffered a back injury. Although Jake Gyllenhaal was pegged to replace Maguire in the title role, Tobey recovered and returned to the franchise, which saw him go up against Alfred Molina as Doc Ock. A big fan of the comic books, Molina was excited to win the role and threw himself into it, relishing the chance to play a sympathetic villain with a sardonic sense of humour and even naming and playing pranks with his four prosthetic limbs on set.

After decades of legal issues, Spider-Man’s big-screen debut was a massive success.

Doc Ock’s arms were created by Edge FX and were a mixture of practical puppetry and visual effects. To improve upon the first film’s web-slinging antics, a specially-constructed “Spydercam” was employed to zip through the city and more accurately create the illusion of speed and excitement throughout the entire film, rather than just the final swing sequence. Following a number of script ideas, Raimi worked closely with the screenwriters to alter Doc Ock into a more sympathetic figure and to incorporate elements from the classic “Spider-Man No More!” (Lee, et al, 1967) story. Considering that Spider-Man 2 is often regarded as one of the greatest superhero movies ever made, and far exceeded its predecessor in terms of storytelling and visual effects, the film actually made less than the first at the box office (though a $789 million worldwide gross is anything but a failure!) Critics heaped praise upon the film; Molina, especially, was highlighted for his magnetic performance and the engaging plot regarding Peter’s personal drama was praised as much as the visual effects. Still consistently cited as one of the best sequels and superhero films ever, Spider-Man 2 was followed not just by a videogame adaptation and a third instalment, but was also re-released on home media (with twenty minutes of additional footage and some alternate cuts incorporated into the film) close to the Spider-Man 3’s (Raimi, 2008) release and Molina would later reprise his iconic role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Review:
While I remember there being a great deal of hype surrounding Spider-Man, I actually don’t remember the same being true for the sequel; this isn’t to say that it wasn’t massively anticipated by many, myself included, I just can’t really remember it as much as I was a little older and distracted by other concerns at the time. I know the initial trailer hit pretty hard, and it was exciting to see Doc Ock being brought to life, especially as he’s always been my favourite classic Spider-Man foe. Growing up reading the limited comics I had access to and watching the Spider-Man cartoon (1994 to 1998), I’d actually had little exposure to Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, and it wasn’t until Raimi’s first movie that I fully understood how big an impact Osborn had had on Spidey’s life. Consequently, though, I had always seen the calculating, ruthless Doc Ock as Spidey’s greatest villain; he handed the wall-crawler his first defeat, brought together the Sinister Six, and always seemed to crop up in the comics and videogames I was exposed to (potentially because Osborn was dead at that point). Still, back then, superhero movies were really starting to break through to the mainstream, and Spider-Man 2 was an exciting prospect given how well the first one had gone down, and the film immediately recaptures the feel and atmosphere of the last movie by once again utilising the great Danny Elfman for the opening title sequence (and even catching viewers up to speed using paintings by the amazing Alex Ross to recap key moments of the last movie).

Burdened by the weight of his responsibilities and the stress of his life, Peter’s powers begin to fail him.

As in the first movie, Spider-Man 2 opens with a bit of narration from Peter Parker, who’s in a pretty bad place here; having chosen to walk away from M. J. and live a life of responsibility, forsaking his own selfish needs in order to honour the memory of his beloved Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson), Peter is tormented by M. J.’s vacant, staring visage from atop a giant billboard and pines for her every day, martyring himself for the choice he was forced to make. No longer living in his childhood home in Queens with his doting Aunt May (Harris), Peter lives in a crummy little apartment in the middle of the city that is cramped, dirty, falling apart, and right next to the train line. The door sticks, there’s a communal bathroom, and he’s constantly hounded by his landlord, Mr. Ditkovitch (Elya Baskin) for rent, which he can barely afford to pay as he has recently lost his job as a pizza delivery boy and is constantly being shafted on payment for his photos of Spider-Man (and other notable events in the city) by Daily Bugle editor-in-chief J. Jonah Jameson (Simmons). While Peter was often angst-ridden and burdened by bad luck (“Parker Luck”, as he called it) in the comics, the whole world is out to get him here; he can’t keep up with his college assignments, people are constantly barging into him, he’s cockblocked by an obnoxious usher (Bruce Campbell), and he can’t even walk out of a supply cupboard without stuff falling on him. The amount of hardship he faces in this one movie is almost absurd, and is equalled only by his desperate pining for M. J.; he desperately wants to tell her the truth but can’t risk endangering her life, and is equally unable to quell Harry Osborn’s (Franco) hatred of Spider-Man to preserve Norman’s memory. Peter’s also still carrying the guilt of having indirectly caused Uncle Ben’s death, and it’s only after sharing this with Aunt May that his outlook begins to change. And just in time, too, as all this stress is not only causing a rift between him and the few friends he has but also cancelling out his spider-powers. Since Tobey has organic webbing, this is an interesting way to do the old “run out of web fluid in mid-air/mid-fight” trope, but the depiction is quite inconsistent; potentially an allegory for sexual inadequacy and clearly a manifestation of his troubles, Peter’s powers only short out when the script says so, meaning he’s denied even the freedom offered from retreating to web-slinging.

Though she has a hunky astronaut, M. J. can’t deny her feelings and chooses Peter after learning the truth.

Just as Peter pines after M. J. on a daily basis, almost to an uncomfortable degree, so too is M. J. constantly distracted by him; Harry claims that she is “waiting for [him]”, but, regardless of his love for her, Peter continues to keep her at arm’s length and to avoid discussing his feelings for her. Although she’s clearly still in love with him, M. J. is doing a far better job of moving on (or, at least, hiding) from those feelings; she not only has a billboard but has landed her dream job with a part in The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (Wilde, 1895) and even gotten herself a ruggedly handsome astronaut (of all things), Colonel John Jameson (Daniel Gillies). John is barely a character at all and simply there to deliver another gut punch to Peter; M. J. clearly isn’t that into him, despite accepting his proposal, as she’s constantly yearning for Peter and waiting for him to admit his feelings for her. However, she’s also increasingly frustrated by Peter; despite him claiming to be her greatest friend and confidante, he’s been absent and unreliable, and she’s driven to the edge when he breaks his promise to see her play. Otto offers Peter some advice in trying to explain things to M. J., which leads to him awkwardly blurting out random poetry excerpts to her, and he inadvertently ends up alienating her so much that she’s fully prepared to settle for John, even briefly entertaining the idea that she was wrong about Peter and that John is Spider-Man. All of M. J.’s frustrations and concerns are completely swept away once she sees the truth she’s known all along and Peter clearly explains that he can’t risk being with her because of his responsibilities, but she ultimately chooses to face those dangers with him so that they don’t have to deny themselves. M. J. is a bit underwhelming here, to be honest; I’ve never really been a big fan of Dunst in the role and, while she has a feisty side, the script doesn’t really do her character any favours. It gets a bit worse in hindsight as she blows up at Peter in the next film for kissing a girl but she’s here making out with (and presumably having sex with) her hunky boyfriend, while trying to coax the truth out of Peter instead of just demanding that he be honest with her. She also ends up as a screaming hostage once more, and it’s telling that even Aunt May has more fight in her when captured by Doc Ock than the object of Peter’s affections.

Harry, consumed with vengeance, is stunned to discover Peter and Spider-Man are one and the same!

Peter’s life is further complicated by his strained relationship with Harry; despite struggling through school in the first film, Harry has done pretty well for himself in the intervening time, becoming head of special projects as OsCorp and funding Otto’s fusion research in a bid to live up to (and surpass) his father’s lofty ambitions. However, having seen Spider-Man with his father’s body at the conclusion of the first film, Harry assumes that Spidey killed his dad and has been harbouring a deep-seated vendetta against the wall-crawler ever since. Even when Spider-Man saves his life, Harry isn’t swayed in his opinion, and his lust for revenge even drives him to turn against Peter in a bitter, drunken rage in one of the film’s most dramatic and upsetting moments. An extended scene included in this version sheds a little more light on Harry’s mindset, as he believes that Peter either knows who Spider-Man is or is protecting him from reprisals since he earns money from the masked vigilante, and he compares his desire to see Spider-Man dead to the bloodlust Peter must feel towards the man who killed Uncle Ben, thus painting Harry as a dark mirror of the titular hero. Frustration and grief get the better of Harry after Otto’s experiment is a disaster, and he unleashes a vicious, heart-breaking tirade against his best friend for choosing his livelihood over his best friend. Harry’s obsession only grows when Spider-Man is believed to have quit after his discarded costume is discovered, and he’s so consumed by vengeance that he partners with Doc Ock to draw Spider-Man out by having him target Peter in exchange for supplying the mad scientist with the Tridium he needs to complete his fusion experiment. With Spider-Man helpless before him, Harry prepares to deliver the killing blow and is stunned into a near maddening disbelief to find his best friend behind the mask, shattering his perception of reality and the people around him and leaving him susceptible to the manipulative influence of his father’s vengeful spirit.

A science experiment gone awry transforms kindly Dr. Octavius into the twisted, sardonic Doc Ock.

Of course, Spidey’s most tangible threat in the film is Doc Ock himself; beginning as a kindly mentor and hero of Peter’s, Otto is a far cry from the malicious, power-hungry mad scientist from the comic books. Although initially reluctant to interrupt his work by entertaining Peter’s questions, especially given he’s aware of Peter’s assumed laziness, Otto quickly finds a kinship with Peter based on their mutual appreciation for science. A likable, fatherly figure, Otto is absolutely besotted with his beloved wife, Rosie (Donna Murphy), and emphasises to Peter the importance of using his great potential and intelligence for the good of mankind. Despite his unparalleled scientific mind, Otto is also a romantic at heart and encourages Peter not to bottle up his love and emotions lest they make him sick, though both he and Rosie stress that love requires a lot of hard work from both parties. Otto’s life work is to provide the world with clean, renewable energy using a Tridium-based fusion reaction; Otto is so convinced of the safety and importance of his experiment that he generates an artificial sun in the middle of New York City, confidant that his four mechanical limbs will allow him to stabilise the resultant reaction and give him his moment of glory. Of course, everything goes hideously wrong when his machinery malfunctions, which not only results in Rosie being killed but Otto’s mechanical appendages being fused to his spinal column. Awakening in a confused state, Otto finds himself susceptible to the arms’ artificial intelligence after his inhibitor chip is destroyed; as they’re programmed to create and stabilise the experiment, the arms influence him towards robbing banks and committing crimes to rebuild the reactor at an abandoned pier rather than drown himself in the river in his grief. Christened Doctor Octopus (“Doc Ock”) by Jameson, Otto becomes a twisted, power-hungry maniac who completely abandons all of his former principals and puts innocent lives in danger thanks to the influence of his arms. He not only tries to kill a train-load of New Yorkers but even takes Aunt May and M. J. as hostages and battles Spider-Man with a devious glee, constantly frustrated by the web-slinger’s interference and determined to kill him so he can be left in peace. Doc Ock’s story is functionally similar to that of Norman’s in the first film (both were mentor and father figures turned to evil by science), but the execution is unique enough to stand out from his predecessor; he stomps around in broad daylight, his identity is never in question, and his ultimate goal isn’t to prove his physical superiority, but to prove his intellectual superiority and complete his life’s work by any means necessary.

While Jonah delights in Spidey’s misfortune, Aunt May and Ursula offer Peter some much-needed support.

As haunted by M. J. and his many doubts and problems Peter is, his guilt over indirectly causing Uncle Ben’s death basically dictates his entire life. The only reason he’s denying his true feelings is because his interpretation of Ben’s final teaching was that he had an obligation to put his powers to good use, a life lesson that is reinforced by Otto and his position of scientific acumen. However, all of the stress caused by his conflicting duality sends Peter’s power son the fritz; his webs stop firing, he can’t always stay stuck to walls, and he begins wearing his glasses again as his eyesight fails. Concerned for his physical welfare, he consults a doctor, who offers the prognosis that the issue is psychological rather than physical, and, with the weight of the world pressing down upon him thanks to Jameson’s smear campaign, Peter rejects his responsibilities in a dream-like conversation with his uncle’s spirit. Upon being brought Spider-Man’s discarded suit, Jameson is overjoyed that his efforts to besmirch and belittle the wall-crawler have met with success, but he’s forced to admit that Spider-Man was a hero when Doc Ock kidnaps M. J., thus leaving John distraught, though Peter delights in upstaging the cantankerous editor once he gets his shit together. He’s helped in this regard by an honest exchange with Aunt May; given that the film takes place on the two year anniversary of Ben’s death, May is in a fragile place, which is only exacerbated by her inability to keep up the payments on their family home. Burdened by his guilt, Peter shares a version of the truth of that fateful day to her; though initially horrified, she forgives him and stresses the importance of doing the right thing. It’s heavily implied in this exchange that May is aware of Peter’s dual nature and, though neither explicitly admit it, he’s relieved that her encounter with Doc Ock and subsequent rescue from Spider-Man has turned her opinions on the web-spinner around. After giving up his suit, Peter applies himself fully to his social life and academic work, finally earning him the praise of his teacher, Doctor Curt Connors (Dylan Baker), and he later finds some support in Ursula (Mageina Tovah), the daughter of his landlord, who clearly has a crush on him and brings him a moment of quiet reprieve in a moment of absolute despair. This extended cut adds a few additional scenes, most of which are alternate takes and longer sequences that don’t really add too much to the existing story, though one of the most notable additions is a hilarious scene where Jameson hops around his office garbed in Spider-Man’s discarded suit and a discussion between M. J. and her friend where it’s revealed she accepts John’s proposal primarily because of her father’s abusive nature.

The Nitty-Gritty:
Given that it’s a Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man 2 is primarily focused on exploring themes of guilt and the weight of responsibility; Peter drives himself into the ground trying to save everyone he can and live up to his uncle’s expectations, to the point where he neglects his life outside of the costume. Not only is he failing at school and to make money, he’s letting everyone around him down, which only adds to his feelings of despair; his friends are starting to resent and distrust him because of his absent nature and, while he’s desperate to do more and to apply himself better, he can’t shake the call to action. Even something as simple as delivering pizzas or getting to the play is interrupted by a disturbance of some kind, whether it’s kids playing in the street or a high-speed car chase, and Peter doesn’t even let himself relax when he’s in his crummy apartment as he sits there tuning into the police radio band to find ways for him to help. This ever-mounting struggle to find the right balance between his wants and his responsibilities is the primary cause for his failing powers; losing his webs, wall-crawling, spider-sense, and strength only adds to Peter’s confusion and frustration as the freedom afforded to him by being Spider-Man also becomes a closed door. Once he decides to quit, that weight is immediately lifted but his brief moment of happiness is shattered when he’s unable to save a life from a house fire, thus hammering home that he is capable of great things and thus must exercise great responsibility.

Both Spider-Man and Doc Ock look fantastic, and Ock’s arms add much excitement to the fight sequences.

Surprisingly, Tobey’s spider-suit is basically the same design as before; normally, superhero sequels go out of their way to change the character’s costume to make more toys but, aside from popping a little more and a few tweaks to the mask, muscle suit, and other minor details, it remains consistent with the first film. Thanks to the movie not having to spend an hour or so setting up Peter’s origin, we get much more Spider-Man action here and the aforementioned Spydercam really delivers some dynamic web-slinging shots. As ever, Peter has an annoying tendency to lose or remove his mask so that we don’t miss out on the emotional impact scenes and events have on him; this is, as always, hit or miss as Tobey favours a vacant, doe-eyed stare throughout most of the film and the regularity that he is unmasked gets ridiculous at times, regardless of how dramatic or thematically relevant these scenes are. While audiences will forever decry the Green Goblin’s outfit in the last film, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone complain about Doc Ock’s depiction here; garbed in a trench coat, hat, and glasses, Doc Ock cuts a simple but intimidating figure and it really is impressive how Molina projects the weight and movement of his mechanical limbs. The arms are extremely versatile, able to stretch out and grab things in their claws, light Ock’s cigar, and even sporting a nasty looking spear-like appendage. While Otto can control and influence the arms, the destruction of the inhibitor chip allows them to act independently of him, but their goal is not only to create and sustain a fusion reaction but also to protect Ock at all costs. Swinging and whipping everywhere, the tentacles cause Spider-Man a great deal of difficulty in getting to Doc Ock and make him a constant threat as they can perform multiple tasks and endanger many lives all at once. One of their most memorable sequences is when they lash out while Otto is unconscious, slaughtering the doctors that try to remove them in scenes that harken back to Raimi’s time as a horror filmmaker as we see fingernails being ripped off and screaming bodies being tossed all over the place. Indeed, Rosie’s horrific death (though not seen onscreen it’s pretty clear she was practically decapitated) and many shots of the arms are created using practical effects, puppetry, and first-person perspectives just like those seen in his Evil Dead films (Raimi, 1981 to 1992) and their threat is matched by Otto’s obsession with holding “the power of the sun in the palm of [his] hand”.

Spider-Man and Doc Ock’s battles are a visual spectacle, and Spidey performs incredible feats to save lives.

The versatility of Doc Ock’s arms really do make for some of the best fight sequences in any Spider-Man film; despite the armaments and manoeuvrability of the Green Goblin’s glider, Spider-Man’s fights never really kicked into that higher gear as the filmmakers were still working out how to create the special effects necessary to shoot these sequences (something that the third film greatly improved upon), but Spider-Man 2 more than makes up for this with scenes depicting Spider-Man and Doc Ock battling up the sides of buildings and on top of a speeding train. While it’s true that any one of Spidey’s repeated blows to the non-superpowered Doc Ock should have immediately ended the multi-limbed menace, I can forgive this as it’s really exciting to see Spidey have to dodge and flip around the tentacles and fight through them while on the side of a building or whipping around a bank. I can also forgive the convenience of Doc Ock robbing the same bank that Peter and May happen to be at because it leads to him clambering up the sides of buildings with May and his bags of loot, tossing better (and more sadistic) quips than Spider-Man himself, and showing just how dangerous and adaptable his mechanical limbs are as they can hoist him up, absorb impact damage, and deflect Spidey’s blows at every turn. Obviously, the most thrilling action scene is the train sequence, which sees Spider-Man first using his webs to save the civilians Doc Ock causally tosses away, battling him on the exterior of the speeding train carriages, and then using all of his fantastic strength to literally force the out of control train to a stop. Full disclosure, though…I’ve always found this sequence to be a little over the top; the physics and logistics of it seem a little outside of Spider-Man’s range and more like something Clark Kent/Superman would do, but it undeniably makes for a brilliantly dramatic sequence as it shows that Peter will literally push himself to exhaustion and beyond his limits to save lives. The passengers are so grateful to him that they promise not to share that they’ve seen his face, moved by how young and brave he is, and Spidey only adds to his heroic card by basically trading his life for theirs when Doc Ock returns for him.

Thanks to Otto’s sacrifice, the city is saved, but a greater threat looms when Harry discovers his father’s secret…

After having a taste of happiness, Peter begins to believe that he can finally offer M. J. his true feelings but, after realising that he can’t deny the great responsibility bestowed upon him, he’s forced to walk this suggestion back and once again pretend that he’s not in love with her. However, his spider powers truly return in full force after Doc Ock inexplicably kidnaps M. J. to force Peter to lure Spider-Man out for a final confrontation. As many have mentioned, it’s damn lucky that Peter is Spider-Man and that his spider-sense kicked in at that exact moment or else Doc Ock’s errant taxicab would have squashed them both and Harry would’ve indirectly killed his two best friends. When he discovers that Peter and Spider-Man are one and the same, Harry is stunned, to say the least, and heartbroken by the belief that his best friend apparently killed his father. However, Peter manages to convince Harry to reveal Doc Ock’s location in order to rescue M. J. by stressing that there’s more at stake than their personal problems (though a quick “No, he was a madman who tried to kill me” might’ve gone a long way…) Thus, once again, Spider-Man has to save M. J. from a supervillain, though she’s much sassier here than last time, where she was little more than a screaming wreck. Enraged at Doc Ock’s actions, which not only threaten the entire city but have put first Aunt May and then M. J. in the line of fire, Spidey delivers a massive beatdown, once again taxing himself to the limits to shield M. J. from a falling girder and finally revealed the truth to her after removing his mask again. To be fair, this time Peter voluntarily unmasks in a desperate attempt to appeal to Otto’s humanity; thoroughly beaten, Otto snaps out of his insanity upon seeing the face of his protégé and surrogate son and realises that his arms have perverted everything he once stood for. With the fusion reaction threatening to suck the city into it like an artificial black hole, Otto exerts all of his willpower and humanity in a tragic sacrificial effort to drown the artificial sun and redeem himself, once again delivering a startling message of the dangers of scientific exploration and arrogance to Peter. Despite coming to terms with the fact that he can never be with M. J. as he’ll always be Spider-Man, Peter is delighted when she ditches John at the altar to be with him and triumphantly swings off to attend to an emergency with M. J.’s blessing. However, unbeknownst to either of them, Harry is tormented by a vision of his dead father and stunned to stumble upon a hidden laboratory containing a cache of Norman’s Green Goblin apparel, and potentially the means to exact his revenge against his former friend…

The Summary:
Even today, after all the Spider-Man films we’ve had over the years, Spider-Man 2 remains a highly praised entry in the franchise and has long been the gold standard that all other Spider-Man films are measured by. It’s really not too hard to see why; like all great sequels, Spider-Man 2 takes everything that worked in the first film and provides not only more of the best aspects but improves upon them at every turn. The interpersonal drama is heightened, the action and fight sequences are much more exciting and visually impressive, and Spider-Man’s web-slinging is a sight to behold thanks to the innovative camera techniques pioneered in this film. While some of the performances still leave a lot to be desired, the visual spectacle more than makes up for it and Alfred Molina’s brilliantly nuanced portrayal of Doctor Octopus carries the acting quality to a new level, allowing Tobey Maguire to focus on embodying Peter’s utter despair and anguish. Most importantly, Spider-Man 2 does a wonderful job of balancing all of its narrative elements; Peter’s struggles with his dual life and his failing powers are perfectly juxtaposed with Doc Ock’s menace, and it never feels like there’s too much going on. I’d argue that the only main character to suffer is Mary Jane, simply because I would prefer to see more agency from her, but I loved seeing Harry’s obsession send him into a downward spiral of revenge that parallels Otto’s degradation from kindly father figure to sadistic, megalomaniacal villain. If you’re going to watch Spider-Man 2, be sure to pop in this extended version as the few extra minutes add a little more spice to the sauce, so to speak, and the film remains as entertaining as ever, even in the face of the more visually impressive and narratively faithful Marvel Studios movies. My only regret is that some of the lingering plot points were poorly addressed in the third film, but that definitely doesn’t diminish Spider-Man 2’s appeal and it remains in the top tier of the web-slinger’s live-action films to this day.  

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Are you a fan of Spider-Man 2? Where does it rank for you against the many other Spider-Man movies? Did you enjoy the extended sequences offered in this version of the movie? What did you think to Peter’s many struggles in the film and which of the fight sequences was your favourite? Were you a fan of Alfred Molina’s portrayal of Doc Ock and were you excited to see him return to the role? What did you think to Harry’s character development and were you excited at the prospect of him taking up his father’s legacy in the third film? Do you think the film still holds up or do you prefer other filmic interpretations of the character? Whatever your opinion on Spider-Man 2, sign leave a comment or drop me a line on my social media and thanks for joining me for Spider-Man Month!

Back Issues [Spidey Month]: The Amazing Spider-Man #50

Dr. K1 Comment

Easily Marvel Comic’s most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, which was published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, in celebration of his debut and his very own day of celebration, I’m dedicating every Saturday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Story Title: “Spider-Man No More!”
Published: 11 April 1967 (cover-dated July 1967)
Writer: Stan Lee
Artist: John Romita Sr.

The Background:
Considering Spider-Man’s debut almost didn’t happen, it’s pretty ironic that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko‘s angst-ridden teenage superhero would go on to become the flagship character of Marvel Comics. Over the years, Spider-Man has been involved in some of Marvel’s most celebrated, and notorious, story arcs, and the troubled wall-crawler is often depicted battling his own personal woes as often as one (or more) of his colourful rogues. In 1967, he faced one of his most trying challenges when, burdened by J. Jonah Jameson’s hate campaign, Peter walked away from his responsibilities as a superhero in one of the character’s most influential stories, which also introduced readers to one of the most notorious Marvel villains, Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin.

The Review:
“Spider-Man No More!” kicks off with a bang courtesy of a visually stunning full-page splash from one of comic’s greatest artistic talents, John Romita, who practically wrote the book on how dramatic and spectacular Spider-Man’s depiction should be. With absolutely no context at all, we’re thrown right into the action as Spider-Man tackles a group of armed thugs who are in the process of pulling off some kind of heist. As is commonplace in sequences like this, the crooks are stunned at Spidey’s superhuman agility, which allows him to easily dodge bullets, and completely powerless against his superhuman spider strength, which easily allows him to shrug off even their combined assault and render them all unconscious with a few hard-hitting blows. However, despite saving the day in magnificent fashion, Spider-Man is met with fear and suspicion by one of the employees he saved, and he swings away cursing the efforts of grouchy Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson at painting him as a crazed masked maniac. Thanks to Jameson’s editorials, half of New York City is either terrified of him and thinks he’s just as bad as the many colourful supervillains in town and the other half thinks he’s mental, which he can’t help but be bothered by considering the populace celebrates other costumed superheroes like the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. Peter’s woes that, no matter what he does or how hard he tries, the public hates him more and more are only added to when he returns to his apartment and learns from his friend and roommate, Harry Osborn, that his beloved Aunt May has fallen ill. We’re not told what, exactly, May has been stricken by, however; she’s simply had “another attack” and been left bedbound. Naturally, Peter blames himself for his aunt’s condition; after all, if he’d been at home rather than putting his life on the line for his own sense of self-gratification, he would’ve been able to get there faster and he’s burdened by his unreliable nature due to his superheroics.

Burdened by his woes and Jameson’s smear campaign, Peter gives up his costumed identity.

Beating himself up and already blaming himself for not being there for the only family he’s ever known and has left, Peter’s unable to concentrate on his studies, which directly translates into him struggling through a test the next day and receiving a kindly warning from his Physics teacher, Professor Miles Warren, about his steadily declining grades and that his once-impressive science record won’t allow him to coast along unless he puts in the work. To make matters worse, Peter’s so troubled by his aunt’s health and his failing grades that he’s forced to turn down a genuine offer from beautiful socialite Gwen Stacy, which only further adds to his woes as he kicks himself for not having the time or enthusiasm to find out if the likes of Gwen or seemingly scatter-brained Mary Jane Watson are really interested in him or have more depth to their personalities. Peter’s even had to turn down a fantastic job working for Harry’s dad, Norman Osborn, because he has to keep his evenings free in case Spider-Man is needed, and his troubles reach boiling point when he turns on the television and is faced with a malicious rant from Jameson painting Spider-Man as a neurotic trouble-maker who provokes villains for his own ego. Jameson’s so sure that Spider-Man is a menace to society that he offers a whopping $1000 reward for the capture and conviction of the web-slinger and Peter reaches his breaking point. Realising that his colourful alter ego has brought him and those around him nothing but pain, Peter begins to think that Jameson is right, that he’s been swinging all over town out of some childish, selfish desire for attention, and dramatically dumps his costume, and the identity of Spider-Man, in the trash once and for all.

As the Kingpin seizes power, Peter is reminded of his responsibilities and returns to action once more.

Of course, Jameson is overjoyed when a small boy delivers him Spider-Man’s costume and that his smear campaign has worked, publishing his victory on the front page to a largely incredulous New York City (it’s actually endearing how his readers see it as nothing more than a publicity stunt and actually show support for Spider-Man). Peter follows up his decision by quitting as Jameson’s lackey, much to his comical outrage, though the publisher delights in bragging about his triumph and proudly displays Spider-Man’s costume in a trophy cabinet in his office. Meanwhile, the city falls into anarchy as the Kingpin takes the opportunity to consolidate the city’s various mobsters and gangsters under his direct supervision, organising them in a way they’ve never been before and leading to a flurry of crimes, all of them in broad daylight, that threaten to tax the city’s police department to their limit. Peter, however, is having a whale of a time; no longer having to devote his time and energy to crimefighting, he’s finally able to socialise with Gwen, dote on his recovering aunt, and catch up on his studies. He’s even giving serious thought to taking up Norman’s job offer once Aunt May is fully recovered but, while he catches himself in the act of responding to the news of a robbery at the welfare office, he instinctively acts without hesitation when he sees a watchman being set upon by armed thugs. Chastising himself for going back on his promise so quickly, Peter is devastated when he realises that the kindly old watchman has the likeness of his beloved Uncle Ben. All at once, the pain and guilt of his irresponsibility catch up to the troubled teenager as he relives his childhood and his failure to us his great powers responsibly, which directly caused his uncle’s death, and he realises that it’s his burden, his duty, to set aside his personal woes and use his superpowers for the benefit of others to atone for that loss. Thus, he breaks into Jameson’s office, recovers his costume, and pranks the editor with the promise of flooding the city with more Spider-Men before swinging off into the city rejuvenated once more.

The Summary:
If you came into “Spider-Man No More!” expecting fast-paced, hard-hitting action and to see Spider-Man pummelling goons and supervillains galore, then you’re probably going to be disappointed. Instead, in keeping with the story being published in The Amazing Spider-Man’s fiftieth issue, what we have here is a deep dive into Peter’s troubles and a new spin on detailing exactly why he’s cursed to set aside friends and even family to save lives as Spider-Man. It’s not uncommon for comics, especially Spider-Man stories and tales from this era, to constantly rehash a character’s origin but I think it’s used to good effect here and almost makes The Amazing Spider-Man #50 a kind of starting off point for new readers. Thanks to being overwhelmed by his aunt’s failing health, his non-existent social life, his declining grades, and Jameson’s smear campaign, Peter has lost sight of his mission and fallen into a depression so deep and so dark that the only solution he can think of is to literally and figuratively ditch his costumed identity in one of comic’s most iconic panels. We see the effect this has on Peter right away; no longer does he have to shun Gwen or Mary Jane or his studies since he has the time and focus to think about things other than crimefighting or swinging off to help with the next emergency. He can be there for May, relax with his science books, and apply himself in far more productive ways, literally turning his frown into a smile as he happily goes about his daily business without the burden of Spider-Man weighing him down. Peter even takes a great deal of pleasure in quitting from the Daily Bugle, a job that has always underpaid and underappreciated him, and is perfectly happy to let the city police handle  the escalating crime way sweeping across the town.

Peter’s joy at rediscovering his life is short-lived since Spider-Man’s powers will always be needed.

While New Yorkers are troubled by Spider-Man’s absence, the Kingpin sees it as a fantastic opportunity and makes an impact with his plan to consolidate the disparate gangs and criminals into something more akin to a business, with him as the chairman of the board. Though he doesn’t physically get involved in the action, he showcases his threat when Farley Stillwell tries to get in on the action and quickly makes a name for himself in the criminal underworld through his organisational skills and lofty goals. Although Peter is quick to chastise himself for reverting to type so quickly, he reasons that he had no choice but to act when he saw the watchman’s life in danger, and this brings back a flood of memories that we’re all keenly aware of but which serve as a stark reminder to the troubled youth that he has an obligation to use his gifts responsibly, regardless of the cost to his social life or his own desires. Having been reminded of his life’s mission, and perhaps feeling a sense of closure at having saved his uncle’s doppelgänger, Peter immediately returns to action as Spider-Man; though the story doesn’t resolve how he’s going to juggle his friends, family, and studies, it can be assumed that he’s at least more at peace with his duel identity for the time being and more than ready to make up for lost time. Overall, there’s a reason “Spider-Man No More!” is one of Spider-Man’s most celebrated adventures; what it lacks in action, it makes up for in interpersonal drama and a character study of everyone’s favourite web-head and the story is perhaps the quintessential reminder of the heavy burden Peter must carry lest he fail to use his gifts responsibly and indirectly cause more death or heartache. It’s a tragic tale, to be sure, but also one that encapsulates everything Spider-Man is; he sets aside his personal desires for the greater good and, even when he does take the time to be selfish for a change, his inherent need to help others will always win out, which is a message we could all stand to learn from.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you a fan of “Spider-Man No More!”? Where would you rank it amongst Spider-Man’s many other stories and moments? What did you think to Peter’s troubles and his decision to quit being Spider-Man? Do you think Peter was maybe a little too angst-ridden and could’ve found a better way to balance his duel identities? What did you think to the Kingpin’s plot to unite the city’s criminals? Do you think the resolution to Peter’s anguish was a bit rushed or did you enjoy that he got to save his uncle’s proxy? Would you say that Spider-Man is an egomaniac and a menace or do you think he’s a benefit to the city? How are you celebrating Spider-Man this month? Whatever your thoughts on Spider-Man, and “Spider-Man No More!”, share them below or drop a comment on my social media and be sure to check out my other Spider-Man content!

Back Issues [Spider-Man Day]: The Amazing Spider-Man #3

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Easily Marvel Comics’ most recognisable and popular superhero, unsuspecting teenage nerd Peter Parker was first bitten by a radioactive spider and learned the true meaning of power and responsibility in Amazing Fantasy #15, published in August 1962. Since then, the Amazing Spider-Man has featured in numerous cartoons, live-action movies, videogames, action figures, and countless comic book titles and, following this celebration of his debut, I’ll be dedicating every Saturday of August to talk about everyone’s favourite web-head!

Story Title: “Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus”
Published: 9 April 1963 (cover-dated July 1963)
Writers: Stan Lee and Steve Ditko
Artist: Steve Ditko

The Background:
After achieving incredible success with the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics editor and head writer Stan Lee sought to capitalise on this with a teenaged superhero for younger readers to identify with. Inspired by a fly climbing up his office wall, Lee created Spider-Man (emphasis on the hyphen) and turned to artist Steve Ditko to settle on the character’s final design. Although Marvel publisher Martin Goodman disliked the concept and relegated the story to the final issue of Amazing Fantasy #15, the comic was one of Marvel’s best selling titles at the time and Spider-Man’s popularity led to him getting his own solo title barely a year later. Undeniably, Spider-Man has since fought some of the greatest and most memorable villains in comicdom, with many of Spidey’s most famous being co-created by Stan Lee. Three issues into The Amazing Spider-Man, Lee dreamed up a new supervillain for the webslinger, a crazed scientist with four mechanical arms grafted to his body simply out of a desire to offer something new and randomly settling on an octopus for inspiration. Since his debut in this issue, Doctor Otto Octavius has become one of Spidey’s most notorious and formidable villains; he not only handed Spider-Man his first defeat, but formed a cabal of villains to hound the web-slinger, almost married his beloved Aunt May, and even once switched bodies with Peter to become the “Superior Spider-Man”. Doc Ock has also been a recurring villain outside of the comics, often acting as a final boss or prominent antagonist in numerous Spider-Man videogames, and being a central villain in Spider-Man cartoons, to say nothing of Alfred Molina’s much-praised turn as the character in live-action.

The Review:
“Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus” begins with a pretty typical night in New York City; three mooks are wheeling a giant, cast-iron safe through a warehouse and in the process of stealing the vault when they’re startled by the appearance of everyone’s friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man! As he was prone to doing from time to time, Spider-Man startles the crooks by projecting his spider-symbol onto the wall to put the wind up them and then makes short work of the three with his incredible spider strength. As Spidey waits for New York’s finest to show up and deal with the thieves, Spidey muses about how he’s run out of real competition and longs for an opponent who can actually put up a fight against his superhuman strength, a wish that he’s soon going to regret as, at that moment on the outskirts of the city, one of his greatest foes is about to be created! The scene shifts to an atomic research centre where genius nuclear physicist Doctor Otto Octavius has made a name for himself not just through his ground-breaking research but also in the development and utilisation of a unique mechanical harness which effectively grants him four additional, robotic arms that allow him to perform experiments no other scientist could dream of from a position of complete safety. While his peers have given him the nickname “Doctor Octopus” and regard him with a mixture of awe and ridicule, Otto is concerned only with his work and, early on, already shows signs of mania as he relishes in the benefits of his arms, which have made him the master of radiation.

Doctor Octopus’s mechanical arms grant him the power to manhandle Spider-Man and seize a nuclear facility.

However, tragedy strikes the workaholic scientist when the facility randomly explodes, leaving him not only permanently brain damaged (though we have no basis for comparison between this pre-accident personality and his post-accident one as they both seem very similar) but also fuses his mechanical arms to his body from the “radiation”. When Otto awakens, he’s eager to return to his work and, when the doctors insist that he lay down and rest, assumes that they’re jealous of him and actively keeping him from his research. His desire to escape is realised by his arms, which now obey his mental commands rather than being manually operated, and he basks in his newfound physical abilities. Naturally, cantankerous Daily Bugle editor, J. Jonah Jameson, wants pictures of the injured scientist yesterday so budding freelance photographer Peter Parker heads off to get the photos no-one can as Spider-Man. However, when he crawls his way up to Otto’s room, he’s stunned to see that the scientist, now embracing his nickname of Dr. Octopus, has gone mad with power and taken a few hostages so he can whip up some experiments. Spider-Man swings in to save the day, but Doc Ock is unimpressed by his quips and spider strength and even gives the web-head the shock of his life when he snaps his webbing, overwhelms him with his many arms (bitch slapping him in the process) and tosses him from the room like he was nothing. The shock of suffering his first real, unequivocal defeat runs deep for Peter, who suffers a crisis of confidence that leaves him powerless to stop Doc Ock from returning to the atomic research centre and easily taking command of the “brain centre”, granting him untold (if vague) power.

Peter bounces back from his defeat to out-think and defeat his multi-armed new foe.

To demonstrate his superiority, Doctor Octopus destroys part of the facility and rebuilds it to his specifications, setting up electronic barriers and barricades to create an impenetrable fortress; though it’s unclear what his ultimate goal is, it’s enough to put the wind up “the foremost brains of the nation’s armed forces”. Stuck in a deep depression, Peter feels lost and helpless, sleepwalking his way through school and envious of Johnny Storm/The Human Torch’s powers and confidence. However, Johnny’s address to the school makes Peter realise that defeat is inevitable and that the key is to never give up, which Peter takes to heart and finds his passion once more. Ready and raring for round two, Spidey easily infiltrates Doc Ock’s fortress, dodging his many traps and hazards thanks to his superhuman reflexes and spider sense, and dodging the mad scientist’s electronic eyes long enough to use his brains not brawn to whip his own scientific solution to his multi-armed foe. Confident of his unmatched power, Doc Ock opts to attack Spider-Man directly and is impressed when the web-slinger disables two of his arms with a chemical concoction that fuses them together. However, Doc Ock remains a deadly threat thanks to his flailing arms and surprising speed so, rather than trying to fight them off or fight through them, Spidey allows himself to be lured closer to his foe and relies on his superhuman strength and durability to withstand Doc Ock’s assault and lay him out with a single, well-timed knockout punch. Relieved to have ended the threat, Spidey takes no chances and thoroughly webs the dangerous madman up for the military police to find, then drops by Johnny Storm’s hotel room to thank him for his help, leaving the flaming teenager baffled since he has no idea what Spidey’s talking about.

The Summary:
Interestingly enough, “Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus” was actually the first Spider-Man story I ever read as a kid (or, at least, it’s the one I have any memory of reading first) and, as a result I grew up perceiving Doctor Octopus, rather than the likes of Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin, as Spider-Man’s greatest nemesis. Revisiting the story now, I’m actually surprised at how enjoyable it is; Marvel Comics from the sixties can be a bit hit and miss, bogged down by dated dialogue and traditions or full of bizarre and off-putting artwork, but “Spider-Man Versus Doctor Octopus” is actually a pretty simple and effective story that shows Spidey dealing with the shock of being so handily defeated. Though often a conflicted and heavily burdened character beneath the mask, one of Spider-Man’s greatest assets has always been his unmatched physical confidence and love of aggravating his opponents with quips and jokes so to see him overpowered, smacked about like he was nothing, and cast aside like a mere annoyance was pretty startling at the time. It’s no surprise that Peter takes the defeat to heart, and he even contemplates ending his superhero career since his confidence has been shaken so badly, and it’s only through a conveniently relatable speech from fellow superhero the Human Torch that he’s able to find the motivation to suit back up for the rematch. I also enjoyed that his solution was to use his own scientific acumen as much as his incredible spider strength to best his new foe as it’s always cathartic when the very thing his peers mock him for contributes to him defeating a supervillain.

Doc Ock’s goals may be vague, but his physical threat and intelligence are more than a match for Spider-Man!

Of course, the standout of the story is Doc Ock himself and much of the story revolves around him and his mad ambitions for power. We don’t really learn anything about Doc Ock except that he’s a genius scientific mind and the accident has driven him to the point of obsessive madness; we never get a sense of who he is before the accident to compare with how it affects his mind and it’s not made clear what his endgame is in taking over the atomic research centre beyond the ambiguous threat of him having access to the strange and dangerous power of nuclear energy and radiation which was rampant in comics at the time. Radiation is such a mysterious and powerful element that it not only granted Spider-Man his powers, but also fused the mechanical arms to Otto’s body and drove him mad with the physical abilities they afford him; responding to his mental commands, the arms can extend, allow him to clamber up walls, easily manhandle his foes, and allow him to perform multiple tasks at once through sheer force of will. The arms are so versatile, dexterous, and powerful that they can even hold back Spider-Man’s superhuman strength, strike fast enough to test even his vaulted spider sense, and can break his webbing with ease. However, behind the arms, Doc Ock is simply a man; one filled with a burning desire for power and determined to prove his superiority by any means, but a man nonetheless, and nowhere is this more evident than in the ease at which Spidey punches him out once he gets close enough. Consequently, Doc Ock is a supervillain who relies on his genius, fractured intellect and his formidable arms rather than having an inherent superhuman durability, which contrasts his daunting threat with an emotional and physical vulnerability to create a villain who is visually interesting and fully capable of out-thinking and out-fighting Spider-Man.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

What are your thoughts on Doctor Octopus’s first appearance? Were you a fan of the villain and his unique powers or did you find him to be a bit shallow and ridiculous? What did you think to Spidey’s defeat and crisis of confidence and his solution to besting Doc Ock? Were you a fan of the Human Torch’s cameo or did you think it was a bit forced? What are some of your favourite Doc Ock stories and moments? How are you celebrating Spider-Man Day today? Whatever your thoughts on Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, leave them below or drop a comment on my social media and be sure to stick around for more Spider-Man content!

Back Issues: Secret Invasion

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Published: June 2008 to January 2009
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artists: Leinil Francis Yu

The Background:
In January 1962, legendary duo Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Marvel Comics readers to the Skrulls, a race of warmongering shape-shifters who have long hounded Marvel’s heroes, particularly the Fantastic Four, by assuming their identities and powers. Experimented on by the all-mighty Celestials and launching aggressive campaigns against both the Earth and their hated enemies, the Kree, the Skrulls have been at the forefront of numerous Marvel stories over the years in addition to featuring as villains in various videogames and animated ventures before making their live-action debut, in a decidedly different manner, in Captain Marvel (Boden, 2019). Perhaps one of their most prominent storylines was the Secret Invasion arc that ran through these eight issues and multiple tie-ins and spin-offs; the brainchild of writer Brian Michael Bendis, Secret Invasion had not only been hinted at for some time and was heavily advertised as a means of changed up the perception of legacy Marvel characters and even return some to mainstream publication. Reviews of the storyline were mixed, with some noting that it was an anti-climatic Marvel event and others praising the marketing and artwork while criticising the religious undertones and spotty dialogue. Still, an adaptation of the story made its way into the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoon (2010 to 2012) and it also formed the basis of a six-episode, live-action series of the same name on Disney+.

The Review:
This eight-issue event series begins “years ago” after the destruction of the Skrull throneworld, a cataclysmic, prophesied event that leads the few survivors back to their queen, Veranke, who kicks the story’s narrative in motion by seeding Skrull agents throughout our world. It took years for this to be uncovered, and it was revealed in dramatic fashion when it turned out that the resurrected assassin Elektra Natchios was a Skrull in disguise, a revelation that alerted Tony Stark/Iron Man (then the conceited and self-righteous director of the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate (S.H.I.E.L.D.) following the game-changing events of Civil War (Millar, et al, 2006 to 2007)) to the depths of the Skrull’s infiltration. Recognising that even his armour’s sensors can’t be trusted to identity friend from foe, Stark drafts in his allies – Doctor Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Doctor Henry “Hank” Pym/Yellowjacket – to perform an autopsy in an attempt to figure out how the Skrull was able to remain completely undetected to technology, magic, and Mutant probing. Conveniently enough, a Skrull ship chooses this exact moment to come crashing into Earth’s atmosphere and make landfall in the Savage Land, taking Iron Man away from the operating room so he can investigate. Concerned that this could be the full-scale invasion they fear, Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman calls in the renegade “New” Avengers (those who refused to sign up to the ludicrous Superhero Registration Act in Civil War), which leads to Luke Cage/Power Man, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine, Danny Rand/Iron Fist, Clint Barton/Ronin, and Maya Lopez/Echo subduing Black Widow/Natasha Romanova and stealing her Quinjet to beat Iron Man and his government-sanction Mighty Avengers – Iron Man, Spider-Woman, Black Widow, Carol Danvers/Ms. Marvel, Janet van Dyne/The Wasp, Ares, Simon Williams/Wonder Man, and Robert “Bob” Reynolds/The Sentry – to the crash site. Both sets of Avengers are aware of the potential Skrull threat, which drives an even greater wedge between them as not only are the Secret Avengers being actively hunted by their former comrades, but they can’t even trust each other to be who they say they are.

While the Skrulls cripple Earth’s defenses, the fractured Avengers battle their classic counterparts.

After being brought down by one of the Savage Land’s rampaging dinosaurs, the New Avengers prepare to open up the crashed ship, but they’re intercepted by the Mighty Avengers, with Iron Man immediately trying to arrest them and Luke Cage obviously telling him and his jumped-up thugs to go kick rocks. Iron Man’s attempt to keep the rogue superheroes from overstepping the mark are scuppered when Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan and his trusted butler, Edwin Jarvis, unexpectedly sabotage not only the orbiting the Sentient World Observation and Response Department’s (S.W.O.R.D.) satellite base but also Stark’s armour and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarriers and bases, effectively disabling the armoured Avenger and crippling the superhero community’s resources and communications. Additionally, maximum security prisons the Raft and the Cube are suddenly hit by mass breakouts and Mar-Vell/Captain Marvel and Susan Storm/Invisible Woman disable the villainous Thunderbolts and the rest of the Fantastic Four, with each of these supposed heroes flashing ominous eyes and assuring their victims that “He loves [them]”. Meanwhile, a Skrull armada bares down on Earth and Mr. Fantastic finds himself reduced to an elasticated mess right as he figures out the key behind the Skrull’s newfound undetectability, the victim of a shot from Pym, who’s revealed to also be the Skrull Citri Noll! Momentarily setting aside their differences to get Tony Stark to aid, the two Avengers groups are startled when a slew of classic-styled, currently deceased or long-changed superheroes emerge from the Skrull ship; Captain Steve Rogers/Captain America, the Vision, Thor Odinson, Doctor Jean Grey/Phoenix, Doctor Henry “Hank” McCoy/The Beast, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Jessica Jones/Jewel, Emma Frost/The White Queen, and Barbara “Bobbi” Morse/Mockingbird appear alongside classic versions of Spider-Man, Power Man, Wonder Man, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Wolverine, and the Invisible Woman. Naturally, a tense showdown ensues in which both groups assume the other are Skrulls in disguise; guys like Wolverine, Spider-Man, Emma Frost, and the Vision struggle to get any kind of reading on their counterparts beyond sensing their distrust while Ronin is stunned to see his former flame, Mockingbird, alive and well but, despite Ares trying to convince his allies that it’s a trap, tensions boil over and an all-out brawl kicks off!

As more characters enter the fray, internal distrust is as rife as the escalating war with the Skrulls.

With Stark in agony from the alien virus that’s crippled his armour, Ms. Marvel flies him to safety as the others duke it out; the two Spider-Men trade quips and punches, the Vision uses the Sentry’s fear of his destructive and malevolent alter ego, the Void, to disable his God-like power, and Ronin steals his counterpart’s weapons to subdue their attackers but the arrival of a raging Tyrannosaurus rex disrupts the fracas. Trampled to death by the dinosaur, the classic Spider-Man and Hawkeye are revealed to be Skrulls, and Wolverine intuits that the Skrulls are setting them against each other to wipe out any resistance to their invasion plan. However, when he tries to eviscerate Mockingbird, Ronin intervenes and questions her; she’s adamant that she’s not a Skrull and even reveals personal information that only she and Clint would know, which is enough to convince him to trust her. This offers Luke Cage the hope that the Cap and Iron Man aboard the ship are the real deal, which would certainly explain Stark’s recent manic behaviour and allow the recently deceased Cap to still be alive, but Wolverine’s far from convinced. Meanwhile, back in New York City, a portal opens up and a whole slew of Avengers-inspired Super-Skrulls attack; there’s Skrulls combining the powers of various X-Men, a Fantastic Four Super-Skrull, one that’s a mixture of Spider-Man villains, and even an Illuminati hybrid, meaning the Young Avengers – Eli Bradley/Patriot, Dorrek VIII/Hulkling, Billy Kaplan/Wiccan, Tommy Shepherd/Speed, Kate Bishop/Hawkeye, and their mentor, the Vision – are completely overwhelmed despite Hulkling’s efforts to talk down their attackers with his royal status. Thankfully, they receive some back-up in the timely arrival of fledgling superheroes, the Initiative – Joseph Green/Gauntlet, Rachel Leighton/Diamondback, Cassandra “Cassie” Lang/Stature, David Alleyne/Prodigy, Anthony Masters/Taskmaster, Geldoff/Proton, Z’Reg/Crusader, Jimmy Santini/Batwing, Fahnbullah Eddy/Gorilla Girl, Wallace Jackson/Red 9, Delilah Dearborn/Geiger, Melee, Andrea Roarke/Sunstreak, and Alexander Ellis/Annex. Though the Skrull forces prove ruthlessly formidable, and the Vision is lost in the battle, even more help arrives when the Secret Warriors – Colonel Nick Fury, Yo-Yo Rodriguez/Slingshot, Daisy Johnson/Quake, Alexander Aaron/Phobos, J.T. Slade/Hellfire, Jerry Sledge/Stonewall, and Sebastian Druid/Druid – add yet more names and the bodies to the chaotic artwork and conflict.

Heroes and villains set aside their differences to take the fight to the invading Skrull army.

The Skrull threat is doubled thanks to the distrust between the world’s heroes, with even Nick Fury abandoning Ms. Marvel because of her alien DNA. Meanwhile, as a weakened Stark desperately attempts to repair his armour, Spider-Woman reveals herself to be the Skrull Queen, Veranke, and tries to convince him that he’s a Skrull agent so deep undercover that he’s forgotten his true nature. Before her poison (both literal and figurative) can take hold, Black Widow causes her to flee and Stark reveals that the key to victory lies with Mr. Fantastic, who’s currently being tortured aboard a Skull ship. Thankfully, S.W.O.R.D. director Abigail Brand bluffs her way onto the ship and flushes the Skrull into space to rescue him; Reed then fashions a device that exposes the Skrulls’ real forms, arriving just in time to stop another conflict in the Savage Land and revealing not only that the classic Emma Frost, Invisible Woman, Thor, Ms. Marvel, and Jessica Jones are Skrulls but that Mockingbird is as well, enraging Clint. The real Thor transports everyone to New York for a final confrontation, which even the Watcher, Uatu, shows up to observe and also sees Parker Robbins/The Hood’s criminal syndicate and Doctor Norman Osborn’s Thunderbolts pitch in with the nearly-incomprehensible brawl. While Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man try to take out Veranke (still disguised as Spider-Woman) to demoralise the Skrulls, the Wasp targets Citri Noll, who apes Pym’s Giant-Man form, though it’s Stature and the assassin Bullseye who end up taking him out. Iron Man is forced to withdraw so he can sort out his messed-up armour, Fury’s forces save Mr. Fantastic from being torn apart by multiple Skrulls posing as the Invisible Woman, the real Jessica Jones joins the fray, and Kate Bishop ends up gravely injured amidst the chaos. Although Wolverine tries to take out Veranke, the bio-electrical powers she stole from Spider-Woman keep him at bay, meaning it’s an arrow through the face courtesy of the vengeful Ronin that ultimately subdues her.

Although the Skrulls are defeated, the general distrust in Stark allows Osborn to seize power!

With Veranke compromised, Citri Noll activates a device that causes Janet to enlarge uncontrollably and unleash a chemical agent designed to kill humanity and Skrulls alike. With no other choice available, Thor whips up a hurricane with his magical hammer, one so powerful that is destroys the enlarged Janet and dissipates the weird black spots that threaten everyone’s lives. Although Wolverine seeks to make Veranke pay for Janet’s death, it’s Norman Osborn who gets the kill shot, then Iron Man finally gets his shit together and leads an all-out assault on the remaining Skrull ships, with the now disillusioned and leaderless armada being easy pickings. Iron Man also frees everyone the Skrulls impersonated since the shape-shifters conveniently needed the original versions alive in order to make the deception more convincing, meaning Elektra and Mockingbird return to “life”, Reed is finally reunited with his family, and the true versions of the likes of Spider-Woman re-join society. Unfortunately, this also means that Jessica Jones left her and Luke’s baby, Danielle Cage, in the care of the Skrull-Jarvis, a plot thread left unresolved in this story. Although recent tensions are eased in the aftermath and ensuing celebration, there’s an unshakable sense of hesitation given how long the Skrulls had been a part of Earth’s society and superhero community; Thor also condemns Stark’s recent actions and refuses to associate with him. Thanks to having publicly executed Veranke, Osborn is able to manipulate the President of the United States into equally losing faith in Stark, his methods, and his technology; the President thus ousts Stark as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and names Osborn as the new overseer of any and all superhuman and defensive measures under a new organisation, H.A.M.M.E.R., unaware that this is exactly the opportunity the scheming madman and his Cabal of allies (Emma Frost, Doctor Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom, The Hood, Prince Namor McKenzie/The Sub-Mariner, and Lady Loki) were waiting for.

The Summary:
Now, I am by no means an expert on the Skrulls; I know of them, primarily as an antagonistic, shape-shifting race of aliens who are almost constantly at war with the Kree and getting into scuffles with the Fantastic Four, but they’re generally on the periphery of most Marvel stories I’ve read. Secret Invasion is probably, to date, their most prominent story, at least in my experience, and it definitely adds some nuance to them that I didn’t expect. Normally, I see them as a warmongering race who live to conquer through both subterfuge and force but, here, they’re motivated by a fanatical devotion to their God (the “He” they keep referring to) and their invasion is seen almost as divine intervention. The Skrulls swamp television screens with their pseudo-religious propaganda, hijacking every telecommunications device across the globe and assuming the guise of various political figures, celebrities, and superpowered monarchs like Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto and Dr. Doom, and insist that they’re there to bring glory to our world and that their might cannot be opposed. Given the strength of their invasion and that their Super-Skrulls have mimicked the combined powers of many of Marvel’s heroes, it’s perhaps not surprising that Marvel’s ridiculously fickle citizens embrace their alien overlords, though this scene showcases that the Skrulls aren’t simply defending themselves or there to usher in a new age for mankind as they claim and are hell-bent on conquering the planet.

Having lost everything, the Skrulls throw themselves at Earth with fanatical desperation.

This campaign is spearheaded by their queen, Veranke, a figure of worship for the Skrulls and who has placed herself on the frontline, earning the trust of Tony Stark by posing as Spider-Woman and becoming privy to many of Earth’s defences. Stark even reflects on his role in the invasion and the shame he feels about not recognising the threat sooner in a show of guilt that was somewhat uncharacteristic of him at this time; this is a man who was so blinded by his belief that superhumans needed to register with the government that he actively fought and imprisoned his fellow heroes and abandoned many of them, and his morals, in favour of an uncompromising, borderline fascist mentality that only led to further conflict and resentment Indeed, Veranke revels in the irony of having twisted Earth’s technology and heroes towards her agenda, something she was easily able to do thanks to Stark being so dead-set about forcing or punishing his peers to register their true identities and powers. However, as much as Veranke likes to preach that hers is a Holy mission, she’s actually equally motivated out of revenge, specifically against Mr. Fantastic and the Fantastic Four after they tricked a contingent of Skrulls into believing they were cows decades prior. Since the Skrull home world has been lost and their once-prosperous empire lies in ruins, the Skrulls follow her without question and throw everything they have at Earth; they’re even willing to give their lives in the process, and in a last-ditch effort of mutually assured destruction, only to be defeated and left dejected. Veranke’s death leaves the Skrulls directionless and all their once-formidable might is as nothing; those that survive are left demoralised as they saw this as their last chance at survival and glory. Thus, Veranke’s quest for vengeance and conquest leaves her people devastated and more worse off than ever as a sizable portion of their armada is destroyed and the last thing they had in all the universe, their faith, is also shattered by their defeat.

The Skrulls are so deeply entrenched that the already frayed heroes are strained to breaking point.

I’m generally not a fan of imposter storylines; it’s a tired cliché and one that quickly outstays its welcome, but it actually works quite well in Secret Invasion. Many of the Skrulls seem to be completely unaware of their true nature; the Mockingbird-Skrull believes that she’s the real deal right up until the end and is begging Clint to listen to her even as he attacks her in a rage. This is also true of Captain Marvel, who believed so strongly that he was the deceased former hero that he couldn’t bring himself to kill and was convinced by Norman Osborn, of all people, to turn on his race; he even died begging the Kree warrior Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy to carry on the fight in his stead, so complete was his conditioning. It’s not revealed exactly how the Skrulls have the memories they do but it’s one of the big reasons why so many of them went undetected; however, many of the Skrulls posing as classic Avengers continued to believe they were the real deal after their true nature was revealed rather than immediately attacking the heroes in service of their God, which definitely paints much of this conflict in a morally grey area. The Skrulls pick the perfect time to strike the Earth; its heroes are divided and at war with each other and easy to manipulate, and seeing the return of dead heroes like Captain America, Mockingbird, and Captain Marvel, as well as the original version of Iron Man, only fuelled the flames of conflict between them thanks to Stark’s actions during Civil War leading to many deaths, including Captain America’s. It would’ve been so easy to explain away Stark’s recent actions as being the work of the Skrulls but, interestingly, that doesn’t turn out to be the case and, similarly, Cap’s death isn’t immediately undone with the presence of his classic counterpart. Instead, we’re left with a world where Stark is still shouldering the burden of his actions and where Cap’s mantle has been taken up by his friend, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes; there are no quick-fixes in this story to explain away the events of Civil War and there isn’t really a sense that bridges have been mended by the end of it as distrust is still rife and the status quo remains unchanged.

A decent story with some interesting wrinkles but a bit overstuffed and manic at times.

Ultimately, I quite enjoyed this story; it’s hard to read as an eight-issue standalone as you need some knowledge of prior Marvel events, especially Civil War, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of additional story and conflict in supplementary collections and books, but the narrative works just as well if you only read these eight issues. I enjoyed seeing the Mighty and New Avengers be forced to set aside their differences when faced with their classic counterparts and the reveals of which characters were Skrulls, even if none of the major players were aliens in disguise. The quasi-religious bent to the Skrull invasion was an interesting twist, as was them siphoning and combining the powers of Marvel heroes into an army of Super-Skrulls, and the art was pretty consistent and easy to follow throughout. Unfortunately, the biggest issue I had with Secret Invasion was the sheer number of characters jammed into it; it was hard to keep track of it all at times and it’s obvious that teams like the Young Avengers, Thunderbolts, and Secret Warriors all had bigger parts to play in spin-off stories, but I think they could’ve been downplayed a little here. There’s a Skrull-Galactus with absolutely no context or consequence to the story and even Uatu shows up, which is generally a short-hand to indicate that the events are of cosmic importance but, again, it doesn’t actually factor into the story in a meaningful way. Stark spends most of the arc out of action thanks to the Skrull virus messing up his armour, which is great for leaving him vulnerable and in pain and unable to participate in the wider conflict but then he just shows up in an older armour with a throwaway line for the finale. Similarly, Thor just pops in out of nowhere, formally prominent characters like Wolverine and Spider-Man get lost in the shuffle, and late appearances from Jessica Jones and Norman Osborn are simply there to set up the next big Marvel events and stories. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable and not as much of a mess as some Marvel events, but the action got a little too chaotic at times and there were too many characters wedged into these issues, which I think would’ve been far stronger if they’d focused on, say, eight or ten main characters and then just showcased the others in supplementary materials.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

Did you enjoy Secret Invasion? Were you shocked to find out which characters were Skrulls in disguise? Were you hoping that some of the classic Avengers would turn out to be the real heroes? Which of the teams featured was your favourite? Did you think there were too many teams and characters in the story and which of the spin-off books did you enjoy? What did you think to Veranke, the pseudo-religious slant to the Skrulls, and the Skrull invasion? Were you also frustrated by Tony Stark’s characterisation during this time, or did you enjoy seeing Marvel’s heroes in dispute? What are some of your favourite Skrull-centric stories? Whatever your thoughts on Secret Invasion, feel free to share them below or leave your thoughts on my social media.

Movie Night: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Dr. K1 Comment

This review has been supported by Chiara Cooper.
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Released: 2 June 2023
Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Budget: $100 million
Stars: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman, Jake Johnson, Daniel Kaluuya, and Brian Tyree Henry

The Plot:
Miles Morales/Spider-Man (Moore) is at a crossroads in life when his multi-dimensional friend and crush Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Steinfeld) re-appears in his world, now part of a sprawling society of Spider-People led by Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Isaac). However, Miles is forced to pick between his world and his family when Doctor Jonathan Ohnn/The Spot (Schwartzman) threatens both, bringing him into conflict with the Spider-Society.

The Background:
Back in 2011, writer Brian Michael Bendis made the bold decision to kill off Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man (2000 to 2011) and replace him with a younger character, Miles Morales, an African American youth of Puerto Rican descent. Though this caused much controversy at the time. Miles quickly became a popular character and branched out into cartoons, videogames, and even the mainstream Marvel continuity (“Earth-616”). After the poor reception of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Webb, 2014) saw Spider-Man incorporated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Sony pushed forward with Spider-Man-adacent films separate from the MCU, including the visually spectacular Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Persichetti, Ramsey, and Rothman, 2018), a Miles-centric story that became a critical and commercial success. Production of a sequel began immedately after the release of the first film and the plan was always to expand upon the multiverse concept in the sequel, which would necessitate splitting the sequel into two parts. The film greatly built upon the concept of multiple Spider-People, writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were encouraged by infamous Spider-Man producer Avi Arad to include the Spot as an antagonist, and different art and animation styles were painstakingly incorporated to make each character unique. After being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opened to a massive $563.1 million worldwide gross and universal praise; critics loved the visuals and action-packed adventure and the road seems clear for subsequent sequels and spin-offs.

The Review:
It’s probably not too surprising to say that I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. While I don’t always agree or like that a street level superhero like Spider-Man is so often at the epicentre of massive multiversal stories, it was a breath of fresh air as both a superhero and animated film. The visual storytelling on offer was nothing short of spectacular and I think it went a long way to cementing in the minds of the mainstream audience that there is more than one Spider-Man out there. That groundwork is taken to the nth dimension in the highly anticipated sequel, which picks up with Miles just over a year after the last movie and finds him a little older, a lot more confident with his spider powers and unique abilities (such as his electrical “venom sting” and camouflage ability), and generally pretty beloved by the citizens of New York City. He has a working relationship with his father, soon-to-be Captain Jefferson Morales (Henry), who remains ignorant of his son’s dual identity, and has made a name for himself as the heroic friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Unfortunately, as is often the case for Spider-Man, this success doesn’t translate to every aspect of his life; despite his high grades, his absence from school has been noted and he’s under pressure to take his first tentative steps into adulthood, something made all the more difficult for him not just because of his responsibilities as Spider-Man but his guilt about lying to his parents about his extracurricular activities and the smothering he receives from his doting mother, Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Vélez), who struggles as much as Jefferson with how quickly Miles is growing and the fear of losing him to the wider world.

Miles and Gwen reconnect, only for him to realise the multiverse harbours great hardship.

Because of this, Miles feels very alone; while his roommate (and only friend), Ganke Lee (Peter Sohn) knows his secret identity, he’s mainly just a cameo and refuses to be Miles’ “guy in the chair” and, since Miles doesn’t dare reveal himself to his parents, he’s left pining for Gwen and internalising a lot of his issues, particularly his grief for his beloved uncle, Aaron Davis/The Prowler (Mahershala Ali),. His only true freedoms come from his artwork and his web-slinging; Spider-Man offers Miles a freedom unlike anything else and allows his confident, snarky attitude to rise to the forefront, but this ends up biting him the ass when he treats newly turned supervillain the Spot like an afterthought, causing the former physicist to exponentially increase his power to avenge himself on Spider-Man. Miles initially thinks very little to the Spot, especially when Gwen suddenly reappears in his life; the film’s opening delves much deeper into Gwen’s own tragic backstory, which saw her isolate herself from others after the death of her best friend, Peter Parker (Jack Quaid), after he’d transformed himself into a lizard-man. Since her father, Captain George Stacy (Shea Whigham) blames Spider-Woman for Peter’s death, Gwen is similarly unable to properly open up to her dad and, when he first meets Spider-Man 2099 and the enigmatic Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), she’s granted an opportunity to leave her world behind rather than face her pain. Although it’s fairly clear that Gwen has missed Miles as much as he has her, she remains guarded; her duties to the Spider-Society dictate that she has to keep her distance from Miles, but she can’t help reconnecting with him since he’s the only friend she has in the entire multiverse, despite all the new allies she’s made. Her affection for him drives her to hide the Spider-Society’s true purpose from him since he’s destined to rise through horrible tragedy, yet she can’t help but admire his enthusiasm and desire to do the right thing, saving everyone whenever possible, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Miles’s disregard of the Spot is nothing compared to the wrath of the ruthless Spider-Man 2099.

This is just one of many reasons why Miles follows Gwen through an interdimensional portal to Earth-50101, where they encounter the free-spirited and confident Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India (Karan Soni). Joined by Gwen’s fellow Spider-Society member, the anarchist and anti-authoritarian Hobart “Hobie” Brown/Spider-Punk (Kaluuya), the four team up to tackle the Spot once more after he escapes, realises the vast potential of his organic dimensional portals, and seeks to add to his power by absorbing energy from particle accelerators across the multiverse. While the Spot might be a deranged, deluded villain who struggles with his often-unpredictable powers, his confidence and mania grow alongside his powers, transforming him into a nightmarish creature capable of ripping entire timelines to shreds. A strange bond links him to Miles, allowing the young Spider-Man to see glimpses of the future and act accordingly; however, this is the catalyst that brings him under the scrutiny of Spider-Man 2099 since Miles interfered with a “canon event”, a life-altering moment in Pavitr’s destiny that was fated to make him a greater hero. The consequence of altering this sees Pavitr’s world threatened by a raging black hole, something Spider-Man 2099 has witnessed happen first-hand after he innocently replaced a version of himself and was forced to watch his surrogate family and timelines vaporise before his eyes as a result. Thanks to his connection to the Spot, Miles realises that his father’s death is set to be his canon event and his natural instinct is to save him, only to be imprisoned and threatened by Spider-Man 2099 and the majority of the Spider-Society since they cannot allow one life to threaten the delicate tapestry of the titular Spider-Verse. A stoic, aggressive, and driven individual, Spider-Man 2099 is absolutely relentless in his pursuit of Miles; he has no compunction about ordering the entire Spider-Society to pursue him when he escapes and tries to break him, mentally and physically, rather than allow him to risk his entire world. His ruthless pursuit casts Spider-Man 2099 as much of a villain as the Spot; though he maintains that he’s doing what’s necessary to keep the multiverse stable, his actions have caused great personal tragedy for countless Spider-People, though many of his followers (including Miles’ mentor, Peter B. Parker (Johnson), and Gwen) are strangely onboard with Miguel’s methods since it’s deemed necessary to birth greater heroes.

The Nitty-Gritty:
This questionable morality is as much at the heart of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as its ruminations of life, responsibility, and adulthood. The film is surprisingly complex in its portrayal of Miles’ relationship to his parents; both feel they’re losing him since he’s becoming a young adult and are frustrated by his obvious lies, and Miles equally is torn between wanting to share himself with them and the fear that they won’t understand. Gwen witnessed this rejection first-hand when her father initially reacted in horror at finding out Spider-Woman was his daughter and was inspired by Miles to return to her father and reconcile with him since she’s tired of running from her path and feeling alone and is struggling with her actions since joining the Spider-Society. Both Miles and Gwen feel alone and like they have no one to confide in, but only Miles feels ostracised from everyone; his friends, family, and even the wider Spider-Verse since Gwen is cagey about their recruitment specifics, and he seems to be the only Spider-Man not part of the team. This is because he hasn’t had his canon event yet, but the film’s a little iffy on that: here, it seems to be the death of a police captain that spurs the Spider-People on, yet Miles lashes out at the various Spider-People for letting down the teachings of their uncles and both Miles and Gwen already suffered tragic losses that you’d think would be catalyst enough for their growth as heroes. I do think that the reveal of the Spider-Society’s true purpose should’ve been handled differently as it’s weird to me that so many Peter Parkers were willing to let even one person die, no matter the stakes, and I wonder if it would’ve been better to reveal that Spider-Man 2099 had been deceiving all of them.

The film’s stunning visuals allow each Spdier-Person to stand out amidst various bizarre universes.

As intense and thought-provoking as the character interactions and themes of the movie are, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse excels in its visuals. The film takes the unique frame rate and cartoonish, comic book-stylings of the first movie and ups the ante to make every Spider-Person feel unique. Gwen’s world is rendered very differently from Miles’s, being mostly pastels and having an almost brushstroke effect; Spider-Punk animates jerkily, like a living piece of Sex Pistols artwork, and the attention to detail in the animation, background details, and little things like thought boxes and sound effects popping up onscreen really add to the exhilarating, pop art appeal of the film. There are some gorgeous shots here, too, such as when Miles and Gwen sit upside down and gaze upon the inverted city, rain and night effects are used for fantastic dramatic detail, and I especially enjoyed how 2099 was brought to life as a sprawling, high-tech utopia above ground and a dark, depressing, neon-spawned underbelly below. This translates into the web-slinging, which is easily the best we’ve ever seen from a Spider-Man movie since the action is only limited to the animator’s imagination. All the Spider-People web-sling and fight differently, with the pregnant Jessica Drew doing her best Akira (Otomo, 1988) on her motorcycle and spewing webs from her fingertips, Spider-Punk leaping into battle with a guitar, and Pavitr incorporating a little wooden accessory into his webbing. For me, the standout in this regard was Spider-Man 2099; as morally reprehensible and ruthless as he appears, his fighting style and web-slinging are a force to be reckoned with. Utilising energy webs and sporting both talons, fangs, and bladed appendages alongside his bad-ass suit, Spider-Man 2099 is more feral than the other Spider-People and carves a swath of destruction in his pursuit of and attack upon Miles. Although clearly outmatched, Miles manages to elude and survive even Spider-Man 2099 thanks to being an “anomaly”; the spider that bit him wasn’t even from his Earth, making him unpredictable (and, for Miguel, potentially dangerous) and accounting for his ability to fend off multiple, more experienced Spider-People and exercise a moral integrity that’s sadly abandoned many of his counterparts.

An exhilarating cliff-hanger sees Miles’ attempts to save his dad, and his world, in jeopardy.

This all comes to a head when Miles frantically uses Spider-Man 2099’s elaborate, spider-based machine to return home, desperate to save his father’s life and keep his world from being consumed by the Spot’s wrath, only to find that he’s been deposited on the wrong Earth. This is quite the twist for both Miles and Gwen, who followed him to try and help, and doubly so since Miles actually found the courage to reveal his dual identity to his mother, only to be stunned to find that his uncle is alive and well in this world, which lacks a Spider-Man since its spider bit him instead. Here, Miles finds himself strung up and held at the mercy of his uncle and his Earth-42 counterpart (Jharrel Jerome), a bad kid who has taken up the mantle of the Prowler. With Spider-Man 2099 and his lieutenants scouring the multiverse to find Miles and keep him from saving his father’s life, Gwen reconciles with her father and recruits her own band of Spider-People to help Miles and end the film on a massive and exhilarating cliff-hanger. I can’t say that I saw this twist ending coming at all; the film is so enjoyable to watch that I would’ve happily sat through another hour of it, and things were really ramping up at the end so it’s exciting to imagine where the next part will go and seeing Miles reunite with his friends from the first movie. The entire film is stuffed with cameos from Spider-People from all across the multiverse, including live-action cameos from the likes of Andrew Garfield and Donald Glover (as an alternative version of the Prowler), persistent voice cameos from J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson (proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that J.K. just is Jonah in every dimension), and references to both past and current versions of Spider-Man (the recent multiverse shenanigans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are mentioned at one point). It never feels glorified or out of place, to be fair, and it’s fun spotting and following some of these background Spider-People, though again I do find it odd that so many subscribe to Spider-Man 2099’s logic. There was a point where Miguel is seen injecting himself with something, and Miles points out how he’s more like a vampire than a spider, so I wonder if this’ll factor into the next film, perhaps revealing that Miguel is actually his brother, Gabriel, or someone like Morlun. There’s also the threat of the Spot to wrap up, too; I liked how he was driven to prove himself, just like Mils, but went to destructive extremes and I’m sure that’ll result in a spectacular final showdown involving more than a few Spider-People!

The Summary:
I was blown away by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. I expected it to be a visual treat but it overdelivered in this regard; I loved how all the Spider-People looked and felt very different, even if just in small ways, to really emphasise that all these different versions are just as valid and “real” as the other. You could spend hours going through every frame looking for cameos and little details, like frames of animation and visual quirks, and still not catalogue everything on offer here; at times it’s almost underwhelming, but it results in easily the best visually impressive Spider-Man action we’ve ever seen in cinema. At then, alongside all that, there’s a really heartfelt and relatable story of a kid trying to find his place in the world, somewhere to belong, and mature into adulthood. I really felt for both Miles and Gwen here and enjoyed how they had such a strong connection together, and it was harrowing seeing him being excluded from even her world because of things he wasn’t yet experienced enough to understand. I loved how Spider-Man 2099 was so tortured by his mistakes that he’s hell-bent on ensuring that no other worlds die because of a Spider-Person’s selfishness; it made his motivations very understandable and contributed to his manic aggression, but also made for a compelling antagonistic character. The Spot may be a joke, but he becomes a force to be reckoned with throughout the movie and I’m excited to see how he’ll be brought down and the further clash of webs and ideals between the various Spider-People. While I took issue with so many Peters and Peter proxies signing up to Miguel’s harsh philosophy, it doesn’t take away from how stunning this movie is as a piece of art. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has raised the bar not just for Spider-Man movies, but for the animation genre itself and, while I would still like to step away from multiverse shenanigans in Spider-Man movies, it’s hard to deny how incredible impressive and well-executed this film is.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

Did you enjoy Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse? What did you think of the different animation styles of the various Spider-People? Which of the alternative Spider-Man was your favourite? What did you think to Miles’ struggles? Do you agree with Spider-Man 2099 or do you think that the other Spider-People are betraying the core concepts of their characters? What other Spider-People would you like to see in the next film? Whatever your opinions on Across the Spider-Verse, go ahead and drop them in the comments and be sure to check out my other Spider-Man content across the site!