On Alien Archeology, Spiderman and Lost Youth

I'm not so cranky that I don't love Insomniac's Spiderman games

Once we completely fuck everything up and some civilization grows out of the wreckage or some species without the same idiot impulses to selfishness and destruction visits with an archeological team from their home planet one can only wonder how they’ll react to the Spiderman detritus found in the remnants of North America. Not just the proliferation of the character but the prominence of items associated with the lives of the very young; pajamas, action figures, shirts, bed sheets. Will the assumption be it was a totemic deity for the welfare of the rambunctious and vulnerable? Anansi as Mary Poppins? Miles and Peter as Cain and Abel except with cooperation replacing jealously?  

Point being that Spiderman and youth go together like The Intercept and bullshit, they’re inextricable from one another. My memories were of watching the 1967 cartoons every weekday at 3 pm on KTVU (which many times precluded my grammy’s viewing of Edge of Night), never getting to play Spiderman (I always got stuck with Hawkman) during recess at school and the massive disappointment at getting The Spiderman Web Making Kit that was advertised on TV to grant me the abilities to “catch criminals just like flies” but this gooey substance was too much for my manual skills and couldn’t catch flies or even dust mites just like flies.  

I think it’s the webs that are behind the appeal of Spiderman to really young kids. When you’re three years old Superman, Batman and Captain America require being adult size to beat the living shit out of other, bad adults. Spiderman overcomes this obstacle with webs that tangle up (bloodlessly) those pesky grown-ups that seem to have total control over your existence. Also, you don’t need a driver’s license to go out and swing everywhere.  

It’s that nascent connection to Spiderman that made the 2018 Insomniac Game such a revelation; it captured the essence of those childish fantasies and possibilities; the speed, dexterity and arachnid power that populated many a make-believe session. That it was Insomniac that finally pulled it off (sorry, as loved as some of those earlier Spiderman games are, they are products of nostalgia) was no surprise. One of the few developers who would eschew some eye-popping, over-promised and under-delivered hooks in favor of extremely solid and reliable controls then tested in every permutation for the duration of the game. They were quite possibly the only studio that had the experience and wherewithal to tame the myriad, fighting-game move set of Spiderman for the average player without sacrificing the essential need for near-absolute player agency in executing them.  

Where Insomniac also excelled in their treatment was utilizing their sublime control scheme in the service of something that actually felt heroic. Take a look around at major 3D game releases and notice that there’s very few (Zelda is all I can think of) that are about the pursuit of making things better in a manner that isn’t morally ambiguous. It permeates every aspect of the game, from taking time to help a homeless man and his pigeons, to saving civilians in car crashes to trying to genuinely trying to talk down even Mr Negative and Dr Octopus from their nihilistic pursuits before beating them to a pulp. Peter (and Miles in the follow-up) is a decent person at heart whose conflict is repeatedly having to create a hierarchy of where he can apply his attention. One of the smartest decisions in the Insomniac Spiderman games is minimizing the “secret identity” conflict which is tempting as a comedy of errors framework but is frequently used as a means to avoid the more interesting ethical conundrums around the characters. Both Spiderman games aren’t about “evil” so much as the ever-waiting slope everyone can slide down (especially those with ambition) to exploit frustration and impediments to our vaunted view of ourselves as an excuse to indulge in anti-social and vengeful behavior. 

Besides golden-hued nostalgia, besides Insomniac’s approach my other interest in the Spiderman video game is that it was the first game I sat down to play after my mother passed away. Suffice to say her death wasn’t quick and the entire, ugly process was one of three points of “unmooring” I experienced (the other two being the election of Donald Trump and the 2020 pandemic/lockdown) that facilitated my own widening gyre into increasingly angry and self-destructive behavior from which I emerged only recently. I played the game because it had just been released, and it was at the first moment of swinging through Manhattan that I realized how badly I needed to play that game. The unexpected recursive attachment to childhood (and my mother, by extension) and getting to play something positive created an almost compulsive need to keep playing, doing every activity, upgrading every skill and gadget, to hold onto to something that was dissipating in more ways than I realized. 

So now, after having run myself through an idiot gauntlet and getting shat out the other end in one miraculous piece (see below) Insomniac drops the proper sequel. 

And this sequel has Venom.  

Cheap-ass symbolism aside I was the target demographic for Secret Wars #8 back in 1984; 10 years old. We knew the new suit redesign was coming and when the Black Suit hit we, (me and 3-4 friends) reacted in a proto-Gen X manner; publicly appalled but quietly pleased. Remember, it’s the middle 80’s, the American economy is finally back, Regan is on track for a landslide, USA sweeps at the LA Olympics (because there’s no Soviet-allied countries, except Romania), branding has never been better. We thought the Black Suit was part of the same irrational exuberance, jumping on board the chrome-and-leather Nagel-print aesthetic, New Coke for the pre-pubescent. At the same time, it looked pretty cool. When the black suit was removed months later we considered ourselves responsible and acted as if we led a populist rebellion against the cultural powers-that be while laughing at the Pookie-level narrative contortions required to make it an alien entity sensitive to certain sonic blasts. And we bought all the issues.  

So, I was justly curious about how Venom was to be incorporated into Spiderman 2 and from pretty much the game’s beginning you get the foreshadowing that trouble is on the horizon because everything It’s just so nice. Like ridiculously nice, this vision of New York City is filled to the brim with gratitude, young people giddy with ideas, even complex ideas at times, everything is dappled in a magic hour golden glow. It’s such an over-the-top multicultural utopia of harmony and tolerance (I assume NYU Law has a circumcision festival) that it’s a shame the game reduces the role of NYPD in the sequel as the presence of competent, socially beneficial cops in this fantasia is sorely missed (I assume the boneheaded hysteria that the first game engaged in cop propaganda held sway, please see my reference to fantastical young people and “complex ideas” earlier in this paragraph). In fact, I read some bizarre piece “not complaining” about how Brooklyn in Spiderman 2 has no bearing to Brooklyn in real life which is about the most Brooklyn way to make me thankful that that insufferable borough's wishes were not indulged.  

But I digress. It’s a wonderful place worth protecting which isn’t a nominal motivation for Spiderman to impose his will on everyone to keep the peace. Yes, Sandman really can fuck the joint up but so can a handful of bullies harassing good people with something to offer society; both demand Spiderman’s attention if we’re going to prevent NYC going the way of San Francisco.  

How better to illustrate that threat than with Kraven, the name alone signifies some Larry Ellison-type who sees normal people as caterers at his municipal fete which he pretty much does as he treats the city as his playground because he possesses both the resources and the will. With the introduction of the symbiote suit Parker is merely going tit-for-tat with Kraven's unnatural advantage all the while providing the player an excuse to see their well-honed Spiderman skills start looking even more badass.  

What I felt was essential to make the inclusion of Venom work as a fine-print Faustian bargain is that the player really enjoys it. As far as I’m concerned, it worked but the fact it worked, without changing or simplifying the controls, is a magical feat. The introduction of Kraven’s international coalition of annoying minions presents a significant difficulty spike much earlier than expected in the game, especially given that the game is far less tolerant of the player using the same moves in rapid succession.  I found the combat to require far more attention and endurance...which leads to frustration. Then like a steroid concoction in a Russian gymnasium, the symbiote suit attaches and things get...easier. This process of building tension through challenge and then the release nails the appeal both the narrative and utilitarian appeal of Venom and the player is hooked. 

Of equal interest to me was how you then remove the power and not leave the player feeling lacking. Of course, the world around you is expressing concern that your mood and interests are changing, even the extremely chipper podcast girl doesn’t feel like you’re being yourself when you hurt people. But that’s not enough to make the player want to let go.  The game takes the answer out of addiction 101 by serving up a fight that’s too easy, there’s no frustration anymore, there’s no release, there’s no pleasure. Now you’re Venom just to get through the day. 

 I was a little disappointed with the introduction of the “anti-venom” powers that maintained a status quo, I love to think of the sheer audacity of Insomniac depriving the player of their hard-earned skill points in order to stop Peter being a complete asshole. As the finale of the game played on, keeping an equivalence to the Venom skills was worth it to take on Mary Jane as Scream as she lets loose her own frustrations and regrets as she lays into every insecurity of Peter’s. Just as the first game presented enemies who were seduced by the human need for acceptance and moral equivalence the “good” characters in Spiderworld are presented as just as fallible with equally awful and awesome results in the sequel.  

The one exception to all this is Miles who carries so much of the game by continuing to be decent and getting so little satisfaction from it.  I enjoyed playing him more than Peter in the side missions because it was both more challenging as well as endlessly pleasant to hear his surprise at every moment of success in the game. Miles embodies the child we were watching Spiderman however we did, never even questioning that those powers would be used for anything but good and never considering that doing the right thing comes with its own cost because the world isn’t exactly fair and where doing the wrong thing doesn’t require a special moral deficiency but merely exhaustion and desperation to rig the system a little more in your favor, just this once. For an adult it’s more satisfying to play Miles because the fantasy is getting to go back there one more time knowing we’ll be in Peter’s shoes soon enough.  

Things of Interest Last Week: 

The Bone People – Keri Hulme 

First Physical in Ages (Fun Fact: I am not going to die soon) 

Thanksgiving Ham  

Zombie Holocaust 4k 

Mario Wonder is the Best Thing from Nintendo in a Decade