Insomniac's Spider-Man Games Are Fighting All The Wrong Villains
Despite the overall quality of Insomniac’s games, both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales have the same storytelling problem, as they depict Spider-Man battling to protect wealthy, corrupt business interests and politicians from those who would expose and destroy them. Peter Parker repeatedly defends Norman Osborn, the despotic mayor of New York City who was responsible for ruining numerous lives and careers to further his illegal and inhumane experiments. In the follow up game, Miles Morales similarly stands between his childhood friend Phin Mason and her plans to bring down the Roxxon Corporation and Simon Krieger, despite Krieger’s cover-ups and lies that put profit over human lives. Going into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Insomniac’s gallery of villains is diverse, but the developer needs to step away from the pattern of having Spider-Man acting as the unpaid defender of corrupt one-percenters and stop putting the character between the victims of corporations and the real evil masterminds.
The pattern of superhero media placing the heroes on the side of those who abuse power is widespread, and hardly unique to Insomniac’s Spider-Man games. Matt Reeves’ The Batman featured a version of Riddler who sought to expose those who misused a charity fund established by Thomas Wayne, using the Renewal Fund as a personal nest egg for criminals and elected officials alike. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series ended with Falcon confirming that his ideals align with the Flag-Smashers, a group that supported refugees and stood against nationalism, despite depicting the group as the villains for the bulk of the show. Although Mr. Negative was not Marvel’s Spider-Man’s villain, in the end, both he and Doctor
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