Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is almost upon us, but you may need a refresher on the hero’s journey. We’ve played through the original, The City That Never Sleeps DLC, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Here is a recap of everything that happened so you will be ready when the sequel launches on October 20.
Marvel’s Spider-Man
In the beginning, you are not a Spider-Man in training. You are an older Peter Parker who has been around the block several times. When the police radio alerts Peter of a crime, we get a fun suit-up scene, ready for action. Along the way, we are introduced to Yuri Watanabe, a police captain who teams up with Spider-Man to stop crime in New York City. It’s a helpful and annoying friendship as Peter usually interacts with her in his deep Spider-Cop voice, showing that even though he is older, he hasn’t lost his humor.
Anyways, Spider-Man arrives at Fisk Tower to help the NYPD arrest Wilson Fisk, otherwise known as the Kingpin. Kingpin is a notorious and frightening crime boss who has undergirded most of the crime in the city. After a fierce battle up the tower and a boss fight Spider-Man and the cops successfully arrest Kingpin. The win backfired as several villains climbed out of the woodwork to control the city, Kingpin so tightly grasped.
Following the arrest, Peter investigates a possible break-in at an auction house, criminals drooling over the art Kingpin had stored there. However, things get awkward when Peter runs into his ex, Mary Jane Watson (MJ), who is also investigating the auction house. MJ is an investigative journalist who often risks her life for the story. In the past, her job and Peter’s overprotectiveness led to their breakup.
The two estranged lovers run into a group of men with white and black demon masks. They manage to get away with a file titled Devil’s Breath, the main MacGuffin going forward. MJ and Peter decide to endure the awkwardness and work together to figure out what Devil’s Breath is. Peter decides to talk to Martin Li, the employer of his aunt, May Parker, to see if he knows anything about the assailant’s demon masks.
Li became a billionaire through a shipping business in China and eventually moved to New York City where he decided to use his fortune to help the homeless. He set up F.E.A.S.T, a homeless shelter. The man draws selflish people to himself, including the incredibly generous May. What a nice guy. This Mr. Li.
Li connected the description of the masks to a group called the Inner Demons, calling them extremely dangerous and warning Peter to stop looking into them. At a stalemate in his investigation, Peter decides to be responsible and go to work. He works for Dr. Otto Octavius as a lab assistant. Octavius is Peter’s friend and mentor in smart things. The two are on the verge of a discovery in the field of prosthetic limbs, however, Mayor Norman Osborn, takes away his grant and closes down his lab, essentially putting a stop to Octavius’ work.
After continuing to work with MJ, Watanabe, and a new cop friend, Jefferson Davis, to stop different Inner Demon antics, the next turning point takes place. Mayor Osborn is holding a re-election rally, and because this is a superhero story, the rally gets attacked by the main antagonist group. Jefferson Davis is at the rally to receive a medal of honor while his wife Rio Morales, and son, Miles Morales, watch from the audience. Elsewhere in the audience MJ and Peter make a plan to meet up and talk about their investigation, using the circumstances to go on a date without calling it a date. It’s awkward.
At this point, the game takes a much darker turn. The Inner Demons use suicide bombers to attack the rally, and you play as Miles Morales, crawling through the rubble and overhearing cries of agony. He saved his mom but couldn’t save his dad. Miles watches as his dad dies in the attack. Also, Peter sees super nice guy, Mr. Li, leading the attack, because all billionaires are evil.
Two significant things happened in the aftermath of the attack. First, Miles started working at F.E.A.S.T and struck a friendship with Peter. Second, Mayor Osborne hired Silver Sable and her mercenary group to take the Inner Demons down. Sable and Peter’s relationship is rocky as she takes a more aggressive and militaristic approach to hunting down the group.
Eventually, we discover that the Devil’s Breath was created by Mayor Osborn as an antidote for all diseases. However, he accidentally created a bioweapon. With the newfound knowledge, the threat of the Inner Demons is significantly increased. Fortunately, Peter and MJ stop Li, now known as Mr. Negative, from deploying the bioweapons, and he is sent to the Raft, a super prison for the most dangerous of villains.
Now we can all hold hands and walk into the sunset. Just kidding, Octavius messes everything up. Continuing the trend of nice guys being evil, Octavius is overcome with revenge and finishes his prosthetic limbs invention; only he turns them into four metal tentacles controlled by a neural implant. To Peter, this is a magnificent discovery, but he is also concerned with how the implant affects Octavius’ brain.
We will find out later that Octavius and Mr. Negative share hatred for Osborn, and, completely overcome by revenge, Peter’s mentor goes to the Raft and breaks out Mr. Negative and several of Spider-Man’s past foes. It’s hard to tell in a written recap, but the deterioration of the relationship between Octavius and Peter is one of the emotional highlights of the game. It’s this emotional resonance and future bold storytelling that escalates Marvel’s Spider-Man’s plot to another level.
Alongside breaking out the villains, Octavius also steals the Demon’s Breath and releases it on the streets of New York. This is the lowest point of the game. Thousands of civilians are terminally sick and villains are running amuck in the town. As you free roam around the game gets darker and you hear explosions in the distance.
Also, Sable used the opportunity to militarize New York City, try to stabilize the city, and hunt down Spider-Man. I guess she does this because she doesn’t like him. It’s a little unclear why Sable is so antagonistic to Peter. One possibility is that her employer, Norman Osborn, put a hit out on Spidey. Oh yeah, Aunt May is also vulnerable to the bioweapon and lies terminally ill, grasping for life.
Peter must round up all the escaped villains, including Electro, Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion, which doesn’t do much for the story, but it does give the player several fun boss fights before the game ends. While Peter is taking on the Sinister 6, MJ breaks into Oscorp to try and find the cure for the bioweapon’s deadly effects. Revelations incoming!
MJ finds out that Osborn was originally trying to develop a cure for his son’s illness. Osborn’s son is Harry, a childhood friend of MJ and Peter. After contracting the disease, Harry separated himself from his two friends, not wanting to burden them with the news. It turns out, that Li, now Mr. Negative, was a test subject for the cure, but it gave him uncontrollable powers, causing him to inexplicably kill his parents in an explosive blast from his body. Essentially, most of the villains were created because they hate Norman Osborn.
Thanks to MJ, Peter knows the location of the cure and goes to confront Mr. Negative. He runs into Sable on the way and plays the enemy of my enemy is my friend card, and Sable agrees to help him stop Mr. Negative. After an intense boss fight where Mr. Negative turns into a giant Shisa-like monster, Peter gets the upper hand and takes him down. However, Octavius shows up, knocks out Spider-Man, takes the cure, and abducts his nemesis, Norman Osborn.
Sable finds a heavily injured Spider-Man and takes him to F.E.A.S.T. per his request. After barely recovering, Peter heads out to save Octavius and save the day. He has an emotional encounter with his former mentor on Oscorp tower, eventually beating him. Octavius revealed that he knew Peter was Spider-Man the whole time and tried to get Peter to help him before the cops came. They would take his arms and he would be stuck with his worthless body, but Peter walks away from his former friend, cure in hand.
Back at F.E.A.S.T, Peter learns that he has a devastating choice. Use the cure to heal May or let doctors mass produce it. He didn’t pull a Joel and tearfully handed the cure to the doctors. Peter then had a tearful goodbye with Aunt May who was proud of him, both parts: Peter and Spider-Man. The story ends on a melancholic note and teases many things for the future of the franchise. Peter and MJ decide to try dating again. Sable leaves New York. Miles gets bitten by a spider from Osborn’s lab and gets Spider powers like his friend. Lastly, and most importantly for the sequel, Norman Osborn approaches a tank with a floating body inside. His son, Harry, is in the tank surrounded by black sentient ooze.
The City That Never Sleeps DLC
The DLC takes place after the events of the first game. The conflict centers around a turf war between the Maggia crime families. Each of the families are fighting over five USB drives, and together they unlock the assets of the crime families. Whichever family gathers all five drives can bankrupt the others. Black Cat, a grey character with martial arts expertise and several handy gadgets is hired by Hammerhead, one of the five family dons, to find all the USB drives.
Thanks to MJ’s superior journalism skills, Spider-Man is also on the case, trying to stop the Turf wars before they cause too much damage. Peter reunites with Black Cat after a history of romantic interest. Of course, it didn’t work out because Peter is a goodie two shoes, and Black Cat doesn’t mind some criminal activity now and then. She tells Peter that Hammerhead has her son and that she was forced to work for him. Peter agrees to help Black Cat because he loves working with past lovers to stop crime.
Black Cat has a possible lead for one of Hammerhead’s vaults where her son might be being held. While investigating the vault, Peter makes two revelations. One is that Hammerhead has stolen some high-tech Sable technology, and the second is that Black Cat doesn’t have a son. Black Cat shows up and comes clean. She lied so Peter would help her. She has all the USB drives and has given Hammerhead fakes. Learning of Black Cat’s betrayal, Hammerhead has her penthouse blown up with the conniving thief inside. Good thing cats have nine lives.
The turf wars are getting more violent and extreme with the use of Saber technology. Looking to end it, Spider-Man and Watanabe infiltrate Hammerhead’s base in the hopes of finding him. The attack is not successful, and Hammerhead slaughters Watanabe’s entire crew. The police captain will leave the encounter forever changed.
Next, in Hammerhead’s schemes, he captures the other family leaders and plans to kill them. Spider-Man intervenes and finally beats Hammerhead in a one-on-one fight. Right after the final blow, Watanabe shows up with determination in her eyes. She traps Spider-Man and shoots Hammerhead repeatedly in his chest, trying to get through his Sable armor. She eventually points the gun directly at his head and pulls the trigger to the dismay of Spider-Man and the onlooking police.
However, when Hammerhead is taken away by ambulance, a paramedic disguised henchman puts a taser to Hammerhead’s neck, which revives him…somehow. MJ and Peter find out about this while the villain’s mafia continues to increase in Sable firepower. Hearing the news, Sable, herself returns to New York to put a stop to it. Then she is captured. Good job Sable.
In the kerfuffle that lead to Sable’s capture, we see that Hammerhead is now completely cyborg, his body infused by advanced Sable tech called Project Olympus. Spider-Man and Hammerhead fight on top of Sable’s jet, and the cyborg gets the upper hand. However, Black Cat jumps in to save Spider-Man and drag him away from the fight. She says she did not die from the explosion because she is Black Cat, gives Spider-Man intel on how to beat Hammerhead, and much to MJ’s joy, leaves before it gets more than platonic. With the newfound knowledge, Spider-Man saves Sable and defeats Hammerhead.
I don’t foresee the Hammerhead storyline being important for Spider-Man 2’s plot, but the DLC does have important developments for Watanabe, Black Cat, and Sable that may be important to know before the sequel.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales
It’s a year after the first game, and Miles has been training with Peter. He is now a full-fledged Spider-Man. In this spin-off, you control Miles. Along with Spider powers, he can also turn invisible and emit an electrical surge. Since the first game, Miles and his mom, Rio moved to Harlem.
The story starts with Peter and Miles working together to stop a rampaging Rhino. It was an epic battle where Rhino ran straight through buildings and the Spider-Men saved civilians from his destructive path. The heroes eventually stop Rhino and hand him over to an incredibly nice man who is definitely not evil, Simon Krieger. Krieger is the head of the Roxxon Energy corporation and is heading up a clean energy project called Nuform.
After the battle, Peter pulls a fast one on Miles and says he and MJ are going to Symkaria. He entrusted Miles to protect the city and then peaces out. It was a bad time to leave because a new group of bad guys called The Underground emerged. Miles’ friend and side-kick, Ganke, informed him of a break-in at Roxxon Plaza. Here, he learns that Simon Krieger’s project, the Nuform reactor, could power all of Harlem and that The Underground, led by the Thinkerer, is searching for Nuform.
With a new plot unfolding, Miles heads home for Christmas dinner. Rio, Ganki, and Miles all sit down for a nice dinner surrounded by Christmas lights. To Mile’s surprise, Phin, his old childhood friend, was invited. During the feast, we learn that Rio is running for city council and that Phin has a brother who worked for Roxxon.
Ganke shows Miles an app he created that allows New York citizens to ask for Spider-Man. The app, thankfully, makes a return in the sequel. Miles accepts a job from his uncle, Aaron Davis, where he has to get the trains working again. Even though Spider-Man tried to hide his identity by altering his voice, Aaron immediately recognized his nephew. He promised to keep Mile’s secret to himself and encouraged Mile’s to reach out if he ever needed any help.
After this, Miles goes on a friend date with Phin. It’s a sweet scene where the two reminiscences about the past, but it is obvious to both that the old-time friends are keeping secrets from each other.
Next, Miles attends his mom’s campaign rally, but The Underground ruins the event by hacking the screen and calling Simon Kreiger a murderer. (I wonder if the next game will feature a campaign rally that gets interrupted by the bad guy.) Members of The Underground started to attack the Roxxon guards, and an explosion rocks the ground. Miles swings to the source of the explosion and encounters Underground soldiers trying to steal Nuform.
Spider-Man meets the Tinkerer face-to-face. Amid the battle, another explosion rips the face mask off the Tinkerer, revealing his friend, Phin. Phin escapes, and Miles accidentally causes an explosion by combining his Venom, electrical powers with Nuform. That night, Spider-Man turned into enemy number one for Roxxon and The Underground.
Determined to learn more about his old friend’s identity, Miles visits Phin’s repair shop. He finds a secret room where he learns that Rick, Phin’s brother, was Nuform’s project lead, but everyone on the team got severely sick, including Rick. In response, Phin and Rick tried to shut down the Nuform project, but something went wrong. Later, while investigating Roxxon labs, The Prowler shows up and reveals himself to be Aaron, Mile’s uncle. The two learn that Phin and Rick snuck into the lab to try to destroy the Nuform lab, but Krieger kills Rick before they can succeed. Spider-Man finishes their work and destroys the lab.
Per Aaron’s suggestion, Miles approaches Phin as a friend and asks to join the Underground. Phin takes her long-time friend to the Underground base. Thanks to a secret passageway and Mile’s camouflage ability, he learns that Phin plans to use Nuform against Roxxon.
In the next Mission, Spider-Man tries to steal the Nuform, which leads to a chase with the Thinkerer across New York City. It ends after Spider-Man unmasks himself, revealing his identity. However, Aaron leaked Phin’s location to Kreiger, leading to the capture of both Phin and Miles by a Rhino wearing Roxxon armor. Aaron intended to stop Phin from executing her plan to destroy Roxxon and keep Miles out of danger, Kreiger but disobeyed and captured both of them.
They work together to escape, download proof about Krieger’s secret villainous identity, and beat Rhino. After Rhino teased Phin about Rick’s death, she almost kills him, but Miles intervenes. Fueled by revenge and angry at Miles for lying to her about his identity as Spider-Man, Phin beats Spider-Man so he won’t get in the way of her revenge. You see, Miles wanted to publicize the truth about Krieger, but that wasn’t enough for Phin. She wants to use a Nuform bomb to destroy Krieger and Roxxon.
Injured and distressed, Miles goes back home to his family. He confides in Ganke and reveals his identity to his mom. Supportive, Rio formulates an evacuation plan just in case Phin sets off the bomb, which is powerful enough to destroy not only Roxxon but also Harlem.
Harlem soon becomes a battleground between The Underground and Roxxon, but before Miles can stop Phin, he is captured by The Prowler, leading to an argument between the two. Miles is mad that Aaron is stopping him from helping people, but Aaron wants to keep his nephew out of trouble and stop Phin his way. The two eventually fight with Miles coming out victorious.
Miles confronts Phin and tries to stop her from setting off the reactor. Prowler also shows up to help evacuate citizens and decides to aid Miles instead of being a stumbling block for him. Miles and Phin continue to fight, and when the bomb gets critical, Miles tries to absorb the energy with his powers. Realizing that the act would kill Miles and realizing the extent of the bomb’s radius, she picks up the bomb and flies it into the sky, sacrificing herself.
Miles is unmasked in the struggle, but the residents refuse to give his identity to the press, naming Miles Harlem’s Spider-Man. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Prowler went public with the information about Krieger, leading to jail time for both him and Aaron.
That’s it! We are finally all caught up. One important note from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 prequel comic is that Miles decided to pursue a major in the Music Technology Program at Empire State University. Now the stage is set for Spider-Man 2, and we’ll finally see what happens with good old Harry inside that tank.
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