The MCU’s favorite web-crawler will return to theaters in 2026. Spider-Man 4 will debut shortly after Avengers: Doomsday that year, with star Tom Holland confirming that production will begin mid-2025.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
“Next summer we start shooting. Everything’s good to go, We’re nearly there,” Holland said in an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this week. “Super exciting. I can’t wait!” Spider-Man 4, the follow up to 2021’s No Way Home, will officially release on July 24, 2026.
That puts it just a couple months after Avengers: Doomsday, which debuts on May 1 of that year, and stars Robert Downey Jr. as the titular Fantastic Four villain, as was revealed earlier this year at San Diego Comic Con 2024. That grouping recreates the previous one-two comic book punch when Far From Home released shortly after Avengers: Endgame, capping off the multi-year, multi-movie MCU saga.
The sequel will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who made Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and presumably have some tie-in with the greater MCU, though it’s not clear how exactly yet. “I’ve been speaking to [Robert Downey Jr.] a lot, especially about him making his [Marvel] return, which is super exciting,” Holland said on the Rich Rollpodcast earlier this month. “That was a tough secret to sit on because I have a reputation for ruining things and I strategically have done no press.”
The young actor, who also starred in 2022’s Uncharted, an adaptation of the hit PlayStation games, said the script for Spider-Man 4 had him excited. “We have a creative and we have a pitch and a draft, which is excellent. It needs work, but the writers are doing a great job. I read it three weeks ago and it really lit a fire in me,” Holland told the Rich Roll podcast. “Zendaya and I sat down and read it together and we at times were bouncing around the living room like this is a real movie worthy of the fans’ respect.”
Last summer, Marvel Comics boldly announced that it would return to “The Most Notorious Spider-Man Story Ever Told,” to which the world cried out “You’ll really have to be more specific!” After quickly clarifying that it was a sequel to Spider-Man: Reign, the world cried out again: “Oh. The one with the radioactive jizz?” Now, we know a little more about the hows and whys.
Exclusive First Look at Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Painting
Today, Marvel announced that Spider-Man: Reign II would begin this summer, a five-issue miniseries that sees Reign’s original writer/artist, Kaare Andrews (for whom Reign was his first major comics work), return to the world of his 2006 story—an alt-future tale that starred an older, grizzled Peter Parker. Peter grapples with a long life lived as Spider-Man, that, as previously mentioned, is now mostly remembered derisively for its revelation that in this continuity, Peter’s radioactive bodily fluids were responsible for giving his wife, Mary Jane, the cancer that ultimately took her life. Peter recounts this information to Mary Jane’s corpse, having just dug it up out of the cemetery.
It’s a lot—but Andrews recognizes that, and sees a return to Reign as a seasoned creative as chance to, well, reign in some of the impulsive tendencies of his younger self. “Reign was full of tragic and dark absurdity that only a young creator could come up with. A way to challenge the idea of personal power and responsibility,” Andrews said in a statement. “But as I’ve grown older, and after sitting with this story for so long, I started to ask myself this question, ‘What if there was a way to go back and change what happened? What if I could fix everything?’”
Image: Kaare Andrews/Marvel Comics
“Many call it the most infamous Spider-Man story ever told. But for me, what’s kept it relevant is the love behind creating that book,” Andrews added. “This is the character I grew up with, the one that taught me how to be a man, how to live with failure and keep standing back up, the unrelenting force of trying to make things better.”
Little else is currently known about Reign II, other than it will introduce older versions of both Felicia Hardy, aka the superthief Black Cat, and Miles Morales as a second Spider-Man. As you can see from the alternate cover art for the first issue above, the fact that Miles is replicating the infamous cover to Reign #1, this time hugging Peter’s grave instead of Mary Jane’s, suggests maybe there’ll be an even grimmer ending for Peter than, well, hugging his wife’s decaying body.
We’ll find out when Spider-Man: Reign II begins on July 3.
Happy Valentines Day, you lovely nerds! io9’s favorite tradition on this most romantic day is back, with another round of pop culture gag cards to send to your sweetie from some of the last year’s highlights in sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and more. As always, our thanks to G/O Media art director Vicky Leta for bringing our punny missives to life.
The 1.3 million files leaked as part of the recent ransomware attack on Insomniac Games contain tons of confidential information, including Sony’s projected plans for all of the studio’s upcoming games on PlayStation 5 and beyond. Those alleged roadmaps include a standalone Venom game, a Ratchet and Clank sequel, multiplayer spin-offs, and multiple X-Men games by the year 2030 and beyond.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
It sounds like more than fans would have expected, even from Sony’s most prolific first-party studio. Two roadmaps are included in the leak, which was first reported by Australian cybersecurity site CyberDaily and is now widely circulating on social media.
The first one begins in 2023 with Spider-Man 2 and shows a Venom game arriving in 2025, Wolverine launching in 2026, Spider-Man 3 coming in 2028, a new Ratchet and Clank coming in 2029, and the studio’s first X-Men game releasing by 2030. That slate then culminates with a “New IP” planned for 2031-2032.
But video game development is messy and release dates are notoriously fickle and projects are often canceled, especially this early on. Another set of slides viewed by Kotaku, labeled “Insomniac Games Roadmap Extended” includes even more projects with slightly different dates. There, Wolverine is expected in 2025, followed by Spider-Man 3 in 2027, X-Men in 2029, a “New IP” in 2031,” X-Men 3 in 2033, and a second “New IP” in 2035. Multiplayer spin-offs are also sprinkled in there, with Spider-Man 2‘s online mode arriving in 2024, Wolverine’s online mode arriving in 2026, and X-Men’s Online mode arriving in 2028.
That’s a ton of projected games and dates, so here’s a quick summary:
2024: Spider-Man 2 multiplayer
2025: Venom
2025-2026: Wolverine
2026: Wolverine multiplayer
2027: Spider-Man 3
2028: X-Men muliplayer
2029-2030: X-Men
2031-2032: New IP 1
2035: New IP 2
Insomniac’s future seems clear: spawn an entire new Marvel Cinematic Universe on PlayStation. And while we don’t have tons of details for these upcoming projects, one slide does give a pretty clear rundown of what fans can expect from the standalone Venom game. The game will apparently continue the storyline of Spider-Man 2 and setup Spider-Man 3, briding the games the same way Miles Morales did between the first two. Venom and various Spider-Heroes will be swappable as they fight through “Carnage-infected” NYC boroughs. Insomniac is estimating the game will be about 8-10 hours total.
What fans can expect from the future of Insomniac’s Spider-Man series is murkier. Some of the materials reference the possibility of Spider-Man 3 being split into two parts. It seems like the studio will then shift fully over to X-Men by the end of the decade, though these plans are obviously subject to change. It’s possible the multiplayer spin-off will provide a live-service model for Sony to keep rolling out new missions and mini-story beats, though unless assisted by outside studios, that amount of post-launch work probably wouldn’t dovetail too well with Insomniac’s other ambitious plans.
How exactly will Sony be paying for all this? Interestingly, another slide from the leaks shows the apparent terms of the PS5 maker’s licensing deal with Marvel for the X-Men games. The franchise will be all but exclusive to PlayStation until 2035, with over $600 million in “committments.” It’s a huge bet on the comic book mutants. We’ll see how it pays off by the time the PS6 comes out.
Today, Sony and Insomniac confirmed that the PlayStation-5-exclusive open-world superhero action game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, will receive a big, free update in “Early 2024” that will add highly requested features.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5 is a very good game. One of the best of 2023! It features fantastic web-swinging, an even bigger New York to explore, new characters, and some wonderful side missions, too. But when it launched in October it was missing some features and options that players really wanted, including New Game+. Insomniac did suggest, before the game’s launch, that an update adding all this (and more) would be out before the end of 2023. We now know, though, that those plans have shifted ever so slightly.
On December 13, Insomniac Games announced that Spider-Man 2‘s next big update was being worked on, but it required “more testing” to “ensure the quality is up to [Insomniac’s] standards.” As such, the studio is aiming for an “Early 2024” release for the update, with a full list of what will be included coming closer to release.
Insomniac teased that this update isn’t just adding New Game+, but even more fan-requested features, including the ability to change the time of day in the city, swap tendril colors when using symbiote powers, and replay specific missions. And the studio says this isn’t even all of what it has planned to add to Spider-Man 2 on PS5 next year.
“We can’t wait to share more with you in the future,” Insomniac said. “In the meantime, we appreciate your patience as our team works to finish our next update for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2!”
While some fans might be disappointed that the update has slipped into next year, that’s only a few weeks away at this point, and I’d rather the people working on this game get some time off for the holidays instead of crunching to get an update out. Spider-Man 2 is fantastic already. I can wait a few more weeks to change the time of day.
Sony has proclaimed Spider-Man 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game in the company’s history. The PlayStation 5 exclusive sold 2.5 million copies on launch day alone.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
Released on October 20, Spider-Man2 is Sony’s first major first-party blockbuster to launch only on the PS5, rather than cross-gen on the PS4, which has over double the install base. With just over 40 million PS5s sold so far, that makes the initial sales success of the web-slinging sequel even more impressive.
Reviews have been glowing so far, including Kotaku’s. Despite some misgivings about bloat and a lack of experiementation, I mostly loved my time with Spider-Man 2. The game currently has a 91 on Metacritic, making it one of the most posivitively recieved of 2023. A post-launch update coming by December is expected to add more features like a new game plus mode.
The original Spider-Man released in 2018, selling 3.3 million units in three days. That narrowly edged out God of War’s record at the time of 3.1 million in the same period. God of War Ragnarok reclaimed the title of fastest selling PlayStation Studios game last year with 5.1 million sales in its first week. We’ll see if Spider-Man 2‘s 24-hour record leads to even greater sales over that same period.
Sony is currently aiming to sell 25 milion PS5s in the current fiscal year, which would itself be a record-breaking number of new console sales. It’s no doubt relying on Spider-Man 2 being a “next-gen” exclusive to help drive those sales throughout the holiday season, despite competition from a number of other stellar games this year. A new “slim” model dropping in November might also help, despite an increased price tag for the all-digital version.
Insomniac Games hasn’t yet revealed if Spider-Man 2 will be getting future DLC or a bigger expansion in the vein of Horizon ForbiddenWest’s Burning Shores adventure. The studio did say it’s checking fan feedback to the game as it plays around with the possibility of a Venom spin-off.
Update 10/10/2023 4:27 p.m. ET: Sony announced in its latest quarterly results this week that Spider-Man 2 went on to sell over 5 million copies in its first-full week. That puts it just behind God of War Ragnarok, but it’s a more impressive stat overall since the new game is only on PS5, where as Ragnarok on PS4 as well.
Miles Morales has a lot of stylish new suits in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Unfortunately, one of the new Miles suits is getting virtually tarred and feathered online for being one of his absolute worst superhero looks. Someone probably should’ve let Adidas know, because now the athletic clothing company is selling the much-chastised suit in its collaboration event with the game.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
Adidas announced its Marvel’s Spider-Man 2-inspired clothing collection back in October. At the time, the collection only featured a stylish shoe inspired by Peter Parker’s venomized Spider Suit. It’s got a pretty clean design, all things considered. Now, the shoemaker is selling compression tops, leggings, and running shoes inspired by Miles’ “Evolved Suit,” which just so happens to be the suit fans so dislike in the game.
The Evolved Suit, which you unlock toward the game’s finale, modifies the hero’s OG black and red spandex with Colgate-blue accent marks and an open-top mask exposing his starter locs. The consensus from a majority of Spider-Man 2 fans is that this new original suit isn’t his best look.
Here’s a closer look at Adidas’ Miles-inspired sportswear.
Image: Adidas / Sony / Marvel / Insomniac Games / Kotaku
Image: Adidas / Sony / Marvel / Insomniac Games / Kotaku
Image: Adidas / Sony / Marvel / Insomniac Games / Kotaku
Both the “moisture managing” top and the “3D-sculpted pouch” leggings cost $50 a pop. The “soft and comfortable” shoes will cost you a staggering $230. At the moment, the collection is only available to adiClub members and is set to launch on November 3. As you might’ve guessed, players aren’t taking a liking to Adidas’ Miles collab outfits either, and are now claiming that the in-game suit is just product placement for the clothing company.
“I was in the ‘it’s not that bad” camp before but yeah fuck blatant product placement,” one user wrote on the r/Spiderman subreddit. “I thought it was just the shoes, I didn’t realize that the whole suit was Adidas.”
“[I saw] those shoes the very first glance & went “Is this an ad or something? These shoes look hella real’ Lo & behold,” wrote another.
“It makes even more sense when you change the suit colors, the shoes stay the same,” another said.
Kotaku reached out to Insomniac Games for comment.
My guess is that Adidas held off on revealing the Miles-inspired fits in its initial announcement of its Insomniac Games collab because it wanted to give players time to appreciate it in-game before revealing the physical product to the spoiler-averse public. If I were in charge of the collab, I would’ve gone all-in on making a fit inspired by Miles’ comfy-looking 10th Anniversary Suit instead.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
It’s not technically tofu per se, but that’s certainly what some players think it looks like. The strange bug sees a small cube you might associate with early development prototyping completely replace the titular superhero’s body. Spider-Block as some are calling it (me, I’m calling him that) can still do all the amazing things the neighborhood web-crawler normally does, like web-slinging through New York and comboing bad guys skyward. The weird glitch transforms the experience from cool comic book stuff to extra-surreal fever dream.
Social media is already full of players encountering the cube glitch:
Despite the bug’s prevalence, no one really seems to be sure exactly what causes it. The tofu slabs just appear any time either Peter Parker or Miles Morales’ suit model fails to load. Then it’s cube time. You can fix it by going back to the suit menu and swapping to a different costume. It’s smart to do that quickly, too, since there are reports of some cubed players falling through the map after their unexpected transfigurations. Perhaps therein lies a portal to the blockverse, but your best bet is just to reload from the last checkpoint if that happens.
Fortunately, my 40-hour experience with Spider-Man 2 was mostly bug free, though some players have reported game crashes or occasionally getting stuck on parts of the environment. A few players have even reported being unable to play the disc version of the game at all, with installations getting stuck at 36 percent. Insomniac Games hasn’t yet provided an official workaround, though the issue doesn’t seem to be too widespread. Hopefully it gets solved soon so those players can also experience the glory of Spider-Block.
Spider-Man 2, the highly anticipated sequel to Insomniac Games’ blockbuster 2018 action-adventure game, is out today, October 20. And though there’s plenty to be said about the impossibly fast fast-travel, the fantastic opening scene, and the story thus far, there’s one thing that I can’t get off my mind: Peter Parker’s muscles.
Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel
When I played through Spider-Man 2’s opening scene, which frequently has Peter and Miles Morales fighting side-by-side, I noticed that the former seemed more beefed up than in the original game. And I’m not alone: The replies in my post on X (formerly Twitter) wondering if Peter got on that protein grind are full of people remarking on his physique.
The term “caked up” is being thrown around, and not just when he’s in that skin-tight suit. Even when he’s not wearing the Spider-Man costume, Peter boasts a neck so thick he looks like a WWE wrestler. There’s certainly at least the illusion of a buffed-up Peter, but is this just the result of the sequel being a PS5-only release, and therefore able to make the most of the current-gen consoles graphical rendering power?
Or perhaps Insomniac, knowing that there are more tag-team fights in the sequel, decided to make Peter a bit thicker so you could better delineate between him and Miles mid-battle. Maybe Peter, despite struggling to keep a job, clean his recently deceased Aunt’s house, and otherwise live a well-balanced life, decided to up his creatine intake and start meal-prepping some ground turkey and rice.
But speculation without proof is irresponsible, especially for a journalist. So I tried to prove that Peter Parker is more muscular in Spider-Man 2 than he is in the original game. I’m an amateur weight-lifter myself, and I can recognize when a lat spread looks decidedly more spread-y than previous versions. But that’s not enough—I asked other journalists who are experts in the field (“a real twink to twunk moment IMO,” said io9’s James Whitbrook, who noticed Peter’s neck and chest definition the most). I texted an ex who once chided me for not mixing creatine into my diet. I pored over a video comparing the visuals from the first and second games, lingering far too long on his gluteal fold. That last one helped me see the differences in Peter’s base costume (color changes, adjustments to patterns, etc.) as well as the slight changes to his body, which could be the result of him aging, spending more time as Spider-Man rather than Peter, or a new workout regimen.
Screenshot: Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony / Kotaku
Here’s what I noticed. His neck is definitely thicker, which could be the result of an increase in weighted shrugs (both dumbbell and Kirk) and/or weighted neck extensions. His lat spread, or latissimus dorsi (which covers the width of your middle and lower back), is definitely larger and more defined, likely the result of lat pull downs and/or pull-ups.
Peter Parker’s cupcake in Spider-Man 1 and his actual cake in Spider-Man 2.Screenshot: Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony / Kotaku
Most importantly, his butt and hamstrings are more defined and juicy, which could be thanks to Romanian deadlifts, sumo squats, and/or glute bridges. The fact that he’s a superhero likely contributes to him having a far easier time gaining and toning muscle than your average person—though you will definitely see some results if you start mixing the aforementioned workouts into your daily routine. You’re welcome.
I reached out to Insomniac Games for comment regarding Peter’s physique, but did not receive a response in time for publication. Despite this, I can say with some confidence that Spider-Man 2’s Peter Parker is a bit more of a beefcake than he was in the previous game. Case closed. I’ll await my Pulitzer.
Like Insomniac’s original Marvel’s Spider-Man, the studio’s new sequel, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, looks really good. It’s one of those games that just about anyone will look at and go “Wow, what a great-looking game!” But if you dig a bit deeper and compare the original 2018 Spider-Man and its 2023 PS5-exclusive sequel, you’ll discover an interesting mix of improvements and compromises.
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In case you’ve been living under a rock,Spider-Man 2 (out on October 20) is the bigger, better follow-up to the critically acclaimed2018 game and 2020’s Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In his review, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach said that the latest Spider-Man sequel is as good as the previous games, adding that in many ways it’s “even better.” And I’m inclined to agree after playing Spider-Man 2for the past two weeks. The sequel is likewise visually impressive, and at first glance seems to be a complete improvement over the prior two. But in reality…well okay, yeah, it’s mostly an improvement. Yet when you directly compare old and new you can spot some cutbacks and tweaks Insomniac presumably made to ensure the sequel’s performance is silky smooth.
Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony
Thanks to a fantastic direct comparison video from Youtuber Nick930, we can see just how Spider-Man 2 improves on the already-impressive graphics of the first game.
For example, the sequel sees a huge increase in traffic density. Comparing the new game with 2018’s, it’s almost laughable how few cars can be spotted in the original. NYC looks like a ghost town.
Screenshot: Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony / Kotaku
Main character models and textures also see a nice bump in quality, and improved ray-traced reflections can be found throughout New York. Something I noticed when playing Spider-Man 2 is how buildings now reflect other buildings, which helps the city look more real and less like a movie set or video game world. The rivers in NYC have also been improved, with better reflections and more lifelike physics when objects like boats are seen interacting with the water.
Smart cutbacks and compromises
But on the flip side, the number of people you’ll see milling about in the city that never sleeps has been reduced, with some areas of the game being more devoid of pedestrians than I expected. As suggested by Nick930, this change was likely made as a result of Insomniac adding more variety to crowds, and for the most part, I never noticed this when playing.
Screenshot: Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony / Kotaku
Another example of some cutbacks is that very small details—soda cans in trash bins, newspapers lying on rooftops—aren’t as nice looking up close as they were in the original game. Similarly, the level of detail of the city seems reduced. So when you climb up a skyscraper and look out you’ll notice, on close inspection, objects like distant radio towers, AC units, or trees are missing or much lower quality than in Spider-Man 2018.
These changes were likely a result of the game increasing its map size to include Brooklyn and Queens, nearly doubling the playable space. At some point, to keep performance from dipping, it’s likely that things most players barely notice were tweaked so resources could be spent elsewhere.
Update 10/19/2023 7:08 p.m. ET: Video creator Nick930 just tweeted that Spider-Man 2 may have a bug wherein the engine’s level of detail system might be misbehaving when the game is installed on a secondary drive, resulting in lower-than-intended detail in certain visuals. Sounds like more investigation will be needed to nail down exactly what’s happening there.
These tweaks are a good thing
Overall, the main takeaway shouldn’t be that Spider-Man 2 is a visually inferior game to the first entry. In fact, most of the cutbacks and compromises spotted in the video were tweaks or changes I didn’t notice in my 30 or so hours playing the game on a fancy 4K 120Hz TV. Instead, it seems Insomniac went through Spider-Man 2 with a fine-tooth comb and subtle hand, trying to balance impressive visuals and responsive, consistent performance. I personally didn’t notice a single dropped frame.
Screenshot: Nick930 / Insomniac / Sony / Kotaku
In an era when it seems like every other big gamereleasedthese daysis launching in a dismal state, with numerous performance issues or game-breaking bugs, it’s nice to see a studio taking the time and effort to ensure its game arrives in a rock-solid state. I mean, one look at how snappy fast travel is in this game, and I’m sold on whatever minor, hard-to-spot tweaks had to be made to get this thing running so well.
Maybe some of these changes mean cups and soda cans in Spider-Man 2’strash bags don’t look as good as before. But if the tradeoff is I get a 60fps open-world Spider-Man game featuring two playable characters and hours of side content and RT reflections everywhere, I’ll live!
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If you plan on playing Spider-Man 2 and haven’t finished the first half-hour yet, you should go do that first.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
Spider-Man 2 stars Peter Parker and Miles Morales, so naturally the first mission features both of them working together like a well-oiled superhero machine. Miles is a high school student and Peter is teaching his class. When dust starts coming in the windows and an emergency breaks out downtown, the two bounce out of the building and strip down to their uniforms as the game’s hip-hop theme (“Swing” by Atlanta-based duo EarthGang) plays.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The opening cleverly makes use of Spider-Man 2’s bigger New York City map, which adds t Queens and Brooklyn on the other side of the East River. The first thing Peter and Miles do is web-swing across the Brooklyn Bridge to get to Manhattan’s Financial District where another villain is once again on the loose. It’s immediately clear just how much more expansive the game looks and feels, with glistening skyscrapers in full view across the shimmering water.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The villain in question is none other than Sandman, probably my least favorite entry in the Spider-Man rogues gallery. His shoehorned inclusion in 2007’s chaotic Spider-Man 3 did little to help that. But there’s no origin story here, just Flint Marko transformed into a 40-story-tall sand monster rampaging through the Financial District. He’s massive, but not so massive the Spider-Men can’t web his eyes shut and punch him in the face. It’s absurd but immensely gratifying.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The initial slugfest is just the start. The fight also takes Peter and Miles inside a nearby building, battling armies of mini-Sandmen while they run through the halls saving civilians and scrambling to get to the water tank on the rooftop as everything around them breaks apart. It’s an incredibly elegant sequence of real-time action and quick-time cutscenes that’s visually stunning and feels seamlessly stitched together.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
This intro alone, topped off with a final boss fight sequence that looks better than most Marvel movies, would be enough to make it one of the best setpieces ever in a first-party PlayStation game. But then there’s something Insomniac does just because it can: fling Miles halfway across Midtown and back again in a 20 second shot that never cuts.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The entire encounter feels like some of the best tricks from Uncharted and God of War blended into Insomniac’s unique spin on cinematic comic book choreography. It even uses the action-packed chain of events to introduce the web wings, Spider-Man 2‘s best new trick which lets Peter and Miles glide through the air like Batman.
Gif: Insomniac Games / Sony / Kotaku
The opening scene takes less than 20 minutes and succeeds at both reminding players how to play a Spider-Man game and proving why Spider-Man 2 is more than just more Spider-Man. Some games start with drawn-out conversations or extended cutscenes. Others have you rigidly go through a tutorial bogged down in explanations and button prompts. Spider-Man 2 is like getting dropped into a rocket that’s just started counting down to lift off. More games should do that.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out soon and looking very good, with a ton of hype surrounding the PS5 exclusive open-world superhero game. But now, even years after Sony made clear it would be giving Spidey a new look, fans keep grumbling about the loss of Peter Parker’s old face, last seen in the original PlayStation 4 version of the first Spider-Man game. And Peter Parker actor Yuri Lowenthal has a message to those fans: Get over it.
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WhenMarvel’s Spider-Man, originally released on PS4 in 2018, made its leap to the next-gen PS5 in 2020, it came with a bunch of changes and graphical improvements. One of the changes that got the most headlines didn’t involve ray-traced reflections or 4K textures. Instead, a lot of people got very upset that developer Insomniac Games decided to change the face of Peter Parker, making the character look younger and more like Tom Holland in the process. Since then fans have been talking about it a lot. And Lowenthal is “tired of talking about it after all this time” and just wants fans to move on.
In an interview with ComicBook.com published Thursday, Lowenthal said that he got over the change as soon as Insomniac explained to him it would help improve Parker’s facial animation, telling the studio “I’m all in” after learning about why the change was being made.
PlayStation / Insomniac Games
“The performance was the same for me,” said Lowenthal. “I don’t care if he looks like a goblin, if my performance is better, then I’m in. I’m kind of tired of talking about it, to be honest, because I think everything that needs to be said has been said.”
The Spider-Man actor acknowledged that it will take longer for some fans and players to get comfortable with the face swap. And he also admitted that he understands some people will likely “never” reach that point. However, he does see one positive to all the backlash and continued demands for the original face to return.
“People connected emotionally so hard and so deeply in the first game that they’re mad when they feel that person changes,” said Lowenthal. “I can only be so mad about that because it worked—not the [face change]—but you connected with the character which is great.”
But the actor did have a final message for those still struggling with the new face of Peter Parker: “Now, get over it!”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on PS5 on October 20.
Just in time for Pride, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse moviegoers think the summer box-office phenomenon offers some pretty compelling evidence that one of its heroes, Gwen Stacy, is trans.
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While the film never explicitly raises the issue of whether or not Gwen Stacy is trans over the course of its two-hour and twenty-minute runtime, some Spider-Verse viewers feel that her character arc, which includes a painful coming-out of sorts to her father, functions as a trans allegory. And the visual motifs that the film employs during this pivotal scene only serve to drive home that interpretation.
Throughout the film, the watercolors lending their hues to the background of Gwen’s universe shift to match the emotions she’s feeling. It lends her whole world a similar look to that of Robbi Rodriguez’s cover art for her 2015 comic book, Radioactive Spider-Gwen.
However, during a pivotal scene where Gwen reveals to her father, Captain George Stacy, that she’s Spider-Woman, the entire backdrop of the Stacy household is awash in white, blue, and pink watercolors: the same colors that make up the trans pride flag. The tri-color art direction during Gwen’s anguished confession about an aspect of her identity she fears her father won’t accept underscore a conflict that resonated with many trans viewers.
“I truly thought the ‘Gwen is trans’ stuff in ATSV was just Twitter doing its usual thing but no it’s AGGRESSIVELY loud about it,” Twitter user Blankzilla wrote. “Being draped in the trans colors while giving a speech about having to hide half of yourself from the people you love is as subtle as a brick.”
“Thinking about Trans Gwen Stacy and her entire plot being about centered around her father’s struggle to believe her and accept her identity,” tori_af said.
“Mfs be like ‘gwen stacy isn’t trans’ and then they have a four minute sequence in the movie where she’s just the trans flag colors,” Moshy_Maybe wrote.
Aside from Gwen’s confessional with her father feeling akin to a trans person coming out to their family for the first time, eagle-eyed Spider-Verse viewers also spotted a bunch of items scattered about her house as evidence supporting their ongoing fan theory. For example, one Twitter user pointed out that Gwen has a trans pride pin on her jacket and a “Protect Trans Kids” sticker on her wall, and her dad has a trans pride flag on his police uniform.
Kotaku reached out to director Kemp Thompson and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller for comment.
Sony Pictures Animation
Gwen Stacy’s visual motif is like a ‘mood ring’
Spider-Verse fan theories about Gwen Stacy being trans might not be entirely off the mark. In an interview with Cinema Blend, Gwen Stacy actress Hailee Steinfeld revealed that Spider-Verse director Kemp Thompson and producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller described the watercolors of Gwen’s world as “like a mood ring.”
“It will visually change as her circumstances change, and the emotions she feels we will feel in the audience on screen,” Steinfield told Cinema Blend, adding, “I’m biased, but Gwen’s world is pretty beautiful.”
If the filmmakers had the wherewithal to drop a visual hint that Miles altered his fate from becoming Prowler back in Into The Spider-Verse, who’s to say they didn’t also deliberately drop the most obvious artistic clue that Gwen is trans in Across The Spider-Verse?
Whether or not Gwen is trans, Twitter user RawbertBeef perfectly encapsulates what Spider-Gwen means to the trans community by saying, “even if the movies never outright confirm it…if she can make somebody feel represented, who are you to tell them they’re wrong?”
