Highlights

  • Insomniac's Spider-Man franchise has the creative freedom to tell a wild story, with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 pushing the boundaries by introducing a symbiote invasion and changing the symbiotes themselves.
  • The classic weakness of symbiotes, high-frequency sound, is represented in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 through the use of a church bell and Mary Jane's modified taser. However, the weakness to fire is omitted, likely to make the character of Carnage more compelling and to fit with his cult backstory.
  • The decision to make Carnage unaffected by fire allows for scarier visuals and enhances the presence of the cult as an enemy faction in future appearances. It also aligns with the character's nature and future development, making the lore discrepancy more logical.

The beauty of Insomniac’s Spider-Man franchise is all the luxury of a creative universe it could offer. It’s difficult to tell how many story restrictions Insomniac is given or how far out it would like to branch anyhow, but realistically Insomniac might be able to tell as wild of a story as it would prefer. So far, Insomniac hasn’t taken the Marvel’s Spider-Man continuity down any unfathomable paths, with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 coming the closest to truly turning New York City on its head in a symbiote invasion. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s symbiotes, however, have undergone a huge change.

Kraven killing almost all of Insomniac’s Sinister Six was an impressive decision, as was the choice to flip Mysterio and Tombstone into reformed citizens, regardless of how absurd it would be for Quentin Beck to be allowed to construct Mysterium illusions given his past. Either way, because the symbiote was introduced in the original game and only now explained in the sequel, there were a lot of presumptions put on it in terms of what its role would be. Insomniac oddly chose to omit an iconic weakness from the symbiote, and the reason why seems incredibly obvious when Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Carnage was teased.

RELATED: Why One Death Fake-Out in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Fails to Stick Its Landing

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Carnage Wouldn’t Make Sense if the Symbiote was Lore-Accurate to the Comics

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Symbiotes are Only Weak to Sonic Frequencies

The classic weakness of symbiotes is high-frequency sound, with the most traditional means of representing that weakness being shown through the ringing of a massive church bell. Of course, these sounds don’t need to come from bells exclusively and there have been many ways that sound has been weaponized to harm or disrupt symbiotes effectively. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 represents this in a number of ways, including its own church bell.

Mary Jane’s taser also gets modified with a sonic device for her to defend herself against a horde of symbiote enemies. However, another classic symbiote weakness in Spider-Man source material is fire, but that weakness wouldn’t have made any sense considering how Insomniac’s Carnage host unironically has a particular inclination toward fire.

The Flame Being Weak to Fire Would’ve Been Too on the Nose

If Cletus Kasady—known as The Flame in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2—was eventually weak to fire when he inevitably dons his own symbiote sample in the future, it would be absurd for him to lead radicals in branding people and setting fire to everything if he himself couldn’t go near fire. It is made plain that Insomniac made Cletus’ cult backstory a priority in the sequel and that’s a boon because his character is now much more intriguing than if he was a basic serial killer like he was in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but now Insomniac needed to make exceptions in its symbiote lore to accommodate for how neat its cult aesthetic is.

Having Carnage relish a sea of flames will look much scarier, giving the cult a bigger presence as a Marvel’s Spider-Man enemy faction in their next appearance as well as allowing Carnage to wade around in the fires they create and not be affected. If Cletus’ cult didn’t revolve around fire then it would’ve been more likely that such a change was arbitrary or unnecessary to the lore, but knowing who Cletus is and will become makes this lore discrepancy much more logical.

It’s still unclear whether Carnage is going to be immediately dumped into a DLC or half-sequel, too. But with how Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 ends it would make for a tremendously captivating third chapter if Spider-Man’s main antagonists were Green Goblin and Carnage.