The preorders for the long-awaited Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is just around the corner. While the game is slated for a fall release, eager fans can reserve a copy and get their hands on a few bonus goodies. Each preorder edition of Spider-Man 2 offers a different package of bonuses. The Standard Edition comes with two hooded skins clearly inspired by Spider-Man's run as Arachknight, and the Digital Deluxe Edition comes with a total of 10 skins—split equally between Miles Morales and Peter Parker.
Since a hero like Spider-Man has been in the business for over 60 years, his skins are typically drawn from iconic costumes over the years—such as his iconic Black Symbiote Suit. However, the skins packaged in the Digital Deluxe Edition appear to be almost entirely new inventions, most with surprising origins.
The Origins of Peter Parker's Digital Deluxe Edition Skins
- Aurantia Suit - Iron Spider
- Tactical Suit - Threats and Menaces comic run
- 25th Century Suit - Mysterio Perhaps
- Stone Monkey Suit - Sun Wukong
- Apunkalptic Suit - An Insomniac Original, perhaps as a nod to Captain Marvel
Out of all the suits, Peter Parker's Aurantia Suit seems to verge closest to a comic book inspiration. While the name is drawn from the run-of-the-mill yellow garden spider, the facial portion of the Aurantia Suit looks strikingly close to the Iron Spider from the comics with its more angular, bug-like eyes. The Tactical Suit looks distantly like his appearance in the comic run Threats and Menaces, where Peter Parker becomes a streamer on a Twitch-like platform. His 25th Century Suit outfits him with a bubble-head astronaut-like helmet that is more reminiscent of Marvel's Mysterio than any futuristic Spider-Man iteration.
The most easily traceable inspiration of all his suits is the Stone Monkey Suit, which is a nod to Sun Wukong, the hero of one of China's best-known novels, Journey to the West—a character that frequently appears in many games. The name Stone Monkey Suit comes from the fact that Sun Wukong, the visual inspiration for the suit, is born from stone. The majority of the costume is a subdued darker blue, with a tuft of fur forming a collar around his neck.
Finally, Peter's Apunkalyptic Suit is a cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic-inspired aesthetic—which explains the portmanteau of Apunkalyptic. It outfits Peter with a biker jacket of sorts and leather straps across his chest. Between the color scheme and jacket-like exterior, the skin could be meant as a nod to Captain Marvel but is likely just an original creation.
The Origins of Miles Morales' Digital Deluxe Edition Skins
- Tokusatsu Suit - Might Morphin Power Rangers
- Red Spectre Suit - Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider
- Agimat Suit - Filipino films
- Encoded and Biomechanical Suits - Robotic, Future, Likely Insomniac Originals
There's no mystery about the origin of Miles Morales' Tokusatsu Suit. The word refers to Japanese live-action television and film that relies heavily on special effects—with the most infamous example being the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Miles Morales' suit features a sleek look and angular visor inspired by the look of the Power Rangers' armor. His other suit with a fairly direct inspiration is the Red Spectre Suit—a nod to Spider-Gwen, or as she is oftentimes known, Ghost Spider.
Perhaps the most interesting suit of the entire Digital Deluxe Edition is the Agimat Suit. The name of Miles' suit is derived from the Tagalog word for "amulet," referring to the belief that amulets can possess magical power. In many Filipino films, the amulets imbue the wearer with exaggerated magical powers, and those films are likely the inspiration for Miles' costume. The Agimat Suit has a thick golden necklace-like structure built into it and is decorated largely in a vibrant purple, arguably the biggest departure from a typical Spider-Man costume.
Miles also gets two futuristic-looking costumes in the form of his Encoded and Biomechanical Suits. The former presents an almost entirely robotic look, with bright orange accents against a dark chrome exterior while the latter adheres closely to Miles Morales' original suit, with the black pattern of his suit being broken up to display exposed musculature underneath.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches Fall 2023 on PlayStation 5.
