Spider-Man fans are currently enjoying a lot of incredible Marvel content featuring the web-head. Ever since Marvel’s Spider-Man came out, fans have been encouraged to look forward to more games from Insomniac that are colorful and finally offer the superhero experience that has been desired of the character. Then, Sony released Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which became an emergent part of Spider-Man’s cultural history, if not animation in general. The Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise has since drawn inspiration from Into the Spider-Verse to great effect, and that trend could continue in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Now, for as many Marvel’s Spider-Man games and animated Spider-Verse movies are being made in the future, fans can expect them to feature a collaboration or explicit reference between one another. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ skin inspired by Into the Spider-Verse was fantastic, and it will be exciting to see what skins could be in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. However, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will hopefully have taken more than just cosmetic inspiration this time around, and feature one of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s main antagonists: the Spot.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Has a Hilarious Antagonist in The Spot
It seems as if Miguel O’Hara’s Spider-Man 2099 will be a primary antagonist in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but the movie has also teased that the Spot will have a significant role. If Spider-Man fans are uninitiated, the Spot is distinctly ‘costumed’ in a white body with interdimensional black holes plastered all over him, which he can also remove at will. These black holes are all portals leading to one of his other black holes, and can therefore make landing a punch on him difficult. If Spider-Man’s fist enters into a portal, for example, it might come out through another and hit himself.
Across the Spider-Verse’s Spot is also a hilarious interpretation that seems uncertain how to use his abilities, since he can be seen reaching into a black hole that he placed on an ATM, while his hand can be seen coming out of another portal near a shelf with his hand grasping about. There are infinite gimmicks to be made with the Spot in Across the Spider-Verse, and a boss fight against the Spot in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 could be equally engaging.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Should Strike While the Iron’s Hot and Include The Spot
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 already has a couple confirmed antagonists, and there's many more that fans would like to see in the sequel, but now would be the perfect time to give the Spot more of a limelight as a niche and unconventional character. It would be more difficult to design a boss fight around the Spot than choreographing animations in a movie, though it would undoubtedly be fun trying to decide how to approach a fight against him.
Players could attempt to fire Spider-Man’s web-shooters at him, for example, and black hole portals could send the webbing right back at them, tangling them up. The Spot could be a villain players chase through interdimensional portals as well, but Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will hopefully not stick too closely to the boss fight designs its predecessor had.
Moreover, it would be nice if a lot of set pieces and boss fights were not heavily committed to QTEs, even if it would be difficult to cinematically orchestrate these kinds of sequences otherwise. The Spot would certainly not be an easy fight for Insomniac to design, but it would demonstrate its excellence as a developer and give it another fun connection to the Spider-Verse movies.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is scheduled to release in fall 2023 for PS5.
