I've never been, quote unquote, a comic book guy. I owned some Johnny Quest, Spider-Man, G.I. Joe and X-Men comics same as any other budding nerd in the mid90s (shoutout Jonah Hill) but I wasn't ever rushing to the comic book store for one issue or another despite living just up the block from the best comic book store in town. I was, in this way, the perfect mark for what has become the Marvel industrial complex - the kid who loved their IP mostly through other media and was just waiting for the right confluence of circumstances to fall in love.
I have a lot of strong thoughts about Peter Parker, for someone who could count the number of comics he'd read on less than two hands if he could even remember their titles. He's at his best as a character between the ages of 17 and 24, he belongs with Mary Jane but Gwen ought to be teasing him for it and his stories will always, always be at their best when they capitalize on the core of Spider-Man's appeal.
Unlike other superheroes, Spider-Man is a broke kid from Queens who just so happened to get bit by a radioactive spider and become maybe the most effective, well-rounded superhero of all-time. That's a lot to put on a high schooler who's also just going through puberty and struggling to make friends, or a college kid who's too smart for his own good yet too goofy to realize he has massive sex appeal ('cause, y'know, he's ripped and mysterious at a smart kid school and all that). You take this central dilemma and pair it off against mentors, confidantes and office rivals and you've got the perfect template for taking wholly relatable troubles with coming of age and entering the world of adulthood and wrapping them up in a fantastic, larger than life shell (covered in gooey, icky webbing - subtext!).
Marvel's Spider-Man, more than any property aside from perhaps Sam Raimi's first two films, fucking GET IT. Peter is both certainly goofy looking (pre-patch, anyway) and undeniably hot, he's got a mess of a personal life but he can handle a supervillain like they're house chores. The villains aren't manifest evil or tyrants out to take over the world - they're his idols, the people who made him realize exactly what Uncle Ben meant when he said with great power comes great responsibility. In that case, it's also a story of systems crashing down on men who just can't deal with them anymore, of Peter having to watch those men fail to live up to his image of them...and then you do a lot of punchy punchy. Perhaps a silly resolution to weighty subject matter, but boys will be boys.
In other words, Insomniac's take on Peter Parker, let alone Spider-Man, ought to be considered absolutely perfect; I think back on 2018 and seem to remember I ranked the game third or fourth on my Giant Bomb Game of the Year ballot (user edition), baffled at my hubris. Yeah, God of War was stellar and Red Dead Redemption 2 was a monolith, but Marvel's Spider-Man is a top to bottom MASTERWORK. I can't possibly imagine Insomniac can match this portrayal of the character, but I'm so excited to see them try.
Oh, and the game plays pretty damn good, too. 100% New Game Plus on Ultimate difficulty, holler at me.
I have a lot of strong thoughts about Peter Parker, for someone who could count the number of comics he'd read on less than two hands if he could even remember their titles. He's at his best as a character between the ages of 17 and 24, he belongs with Mary Jane but Gwen ought to be teasing him for it and his stories will always, always be at their best when they capitalize on the core of Spider-Man's appeal.
Unlike other superheroes, Spider-Man is a broke kid from Queens who just so happened to get bit by a radioactive spider and become maybe the most effective, well-rounded superhero of all-time. That's a lot to put on a high schooler who's also just going through puberty and struggling to make friends, or a college kid who's too smart for his own good yet too goofy to realize he has massive sex appeal ('cause, y'know, he's ripped and mysterious at a smart kid school and all that). You take this central dilemma and pair it off against mentors, confidantes and office rivals and you've got the perfect template for taking wholly relatable troubles with coming of age and entering the world of adulthood and wrapping them up in a fantastic, larger than life shell (covered in gooey, icky webbing - subtext!).
Marvel's Spider-Man, more than any property aside from perhaps Sam Raimi's first two films, fucking GET IT. Peter is both certainly goofy looking (pre-patch, anyway) and undeniably hot, he's got a mess of a personal life but he can handle a supervillain like they're house chores. The villains aren't manifest evil or tyrants out to take over the world - they're his idols, the people who made him realize exactly what Uncle Ben meant when he said with great power comes great responsibility. In that case, it's also a story of systems crashing down on men who just can't deal with them anymore, of Peter having to watch those men fail to live up to his image of them...and then you do a lot of punchy punchy. Perhaps a silly resolution to weighty subject matter, but boys will be boys.
In other words, Insomniac's take on Peter Parker, let alone Spider-Man, ought to be considered absolutely perfect; I think back on 2018 and seem to remember I ranked the game third or fourth on my Giant Bomb Game of the Year ballot (user edition), baffled at my hubris. Yeah, God of War was stellar and Red Dead Redemption 2 was a monolith, but Marvel's Spider-Man is a top to bottom MASTERWORK. I can't possibly imagine Insomniac can match this portrayal of the character, but I'm so excited to see them try.
Oh, and the game plays pretty damn good, too. 100% New Game Plus on Ultimate difficulty, holler at me.