Having finished watching Spider-Man PS4’s story I was finally able to read Spider-Geddon #0, a comic I purchased solely because it has PS4 Spider-Man in it.
My big take away?
Christos Gage very obviously had help when working on the video game.
SPOILERS if you’ve not read the comic or finished playing the game.
Okay there are some good points here. As in five. There are five good points.
· Cain’s beautiful artwork which I’ve bee fond of ever since he did Venom vs. Carnage in 2004.
· Miles and MJ’s appearances just because I love the game’s versions of the characters.
· The raw brilliance of the idea of PS4 Spider-Man meeting Superior Octopus after the events of the game. MUCH MORE could’ve been done with it. But the moments trying to do something with that idea were not bad per se and it’s such a compelling concept given how Peter just lost his father figure in Doc Ock by the game’s end.
· Peter’s comments about how if his Otto hadn’t gone off the deep end he’d have maybe become like Superior Ock is a nice highlighting of what made PS4 Otto great. He was truly a reflection of Peter and so had he not gone evil the idea that he might’ve become a literal Spider-Man in his own right is a neat idea, even if Superior Ock himself is unworthy of the comparison.
· The redesign of La Tarantula. He was NOBODY’S favourite villain but the comic filtered him through the game’s aesthetic and came up with something that looked way better and made for a more intimidating foe.
As for the rest of the comic. I mean if you like Superior Octopus then I guess you’ll like this compared to me who fucking despises the character because he’s a rapey scumbag!
But there are other problems big and small with this comic.
Small stuff would be the clunky dialogue at points which would’ve been fine if they were thought balloons but instead people say this stuff out loud because thought balloons are just not ‘done’ these days.
The bigger stuff is the presentation of Superior Ock in juxtaposition to PS4 Spidey and PS4 Spidey’s characterization over all.
Basically gage here writes Peter similarly to how he normally wrote him when he was Slott’s ‘understudy’ writer. Which would almost be forgivable if you go with the idea that he’s just trying to have synergy with Slott’s take.
Except when you read Gage’s Spider-Man stories outside of ASM or when he is doing arcs of his own (like his Avengers Academy tie-in arc of ASM) he kept writing Spider-Man like that.
And now he’s doing it again (albeit not AS badly) in this comic book which is both literally a separate version of Spider-Man and one he (allegedly) defined himself.
So clearly it wasn’t that he was just trying to have synergy with Slott, he just genuinely thinks this is what Spider-Man is supposed to be like.
And what is that you ask?
In a nutshell it’s less competent and more rash and impulsive than the Spider-Man of the actual PS4 game even though this is literally supposed to be that exact same version.
And this is used to contrast Superior Ock’s greater resourcefulness, tech and calculating attitude. PS4 Spidey even says as much when he says he would’ve just waded in and Ock responds that there is something to be said for his more analytical approach whilst Peter is impulsive and rash. And he is speaking of every version of Peter btw.
Oh sure he says Peter is brave too but it’s obvious in context of the issue, Gage’s wider work and the fact that Gage is going to be writing Ock that Ock’s words are reflective of how Gage himself sees Spider-Man.
And THIS is why I do not think Gage himself is really all that responsible for the video game being as good as it is in terms of story and characterization.
I think it’s more than probably the case that:
a) people within Insomniac put a lot of time and thought into the characters and world of the game and did something like a Bible for all that stuff and then gave it to Gage to follow in coming up with the story or just fleshing out the story they had in mind
b) Gage worked on it WITH other people, sort of like how certain TV scripts have input from multiple people in a writers room as opposed to being the product of ONE person.
c) Some combination of the above
P.S. I would’ve appreciated the meta commentary on there being too many variant Spider-People running around if it wasn’t in a comic book event series specifically about that and written by the main writer of said event.
Man look at how heroic and obviously redeemed and not clearly still a piece of shit Doc Ock is now.
What with his hiring known dangerous criminals, paying them with his probably illegally obtained and embezzled funds and dressing in the outfit of the fucking Neo Nazi terrorist group.
