Marvel's Spider-Man, commonly referred to as Spider-Man, is an action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, based on the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man. Released worldwide on September 7, 2018, it is the first licensed game developed by Insomniac. The game tells a new story about Spider-Man that is not tied to an existing comic book, video game, or film, and covers both the Peter Parker and Spider-Man aspects of the character.
Peter Parker is 23 years old and has graduated from college. Peter has been Spider-Man for eight years and has settled into his role as protector of New York City. Assisting in his crime fighting is NYPD captain Yuri Watanabe. In addition, Peter is working as a lab assistant for Dr. Otto Octavius as he tries to perfect artificial limb technology. However, Mary Jane Watson, now a reporter for the Daily Bugle, has broken up with Peter. Finally, Aunt May is working as a volunteer for the homeless assistance group F.E.A.S.T., led by Martin Li.
Plot (SPOILERS)
Peter Parker / Spider-Man has spent the last eight years fighting crime in New York, particularly against Wilson Fisk / Kingpin who has always managed to avoid arrest due to his power and influence as New York's most powerful crime boss. After listening in on NYPD radio communications, Peter races to assist Captain Yuri Watanabe and the NYPD in arresting Wilson Fisk, with the authorities finally having enough evidence to serve a warrant. After a fierce battle, Spider-Man defeats Fisk and hands him over to the authorities, though the latter warns him that his absence will only bring about chaos. Peter soon returns to his job at Octavius Industries, where he and Dr. Otto Octavius work to develop advanced prosthetic limbs. After suffering technical difficulties with their equipment, Otto and Peter are confronted by the Grant Committee led by Norman Osborn, who are less than pleased with their lack of progress and disregard for safety protocols, and shut down most of Otto's funding.
After Otto lets him off early, Peter goes to visit his Aunt May at her place of work, F.E.A.S.T., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping New York's homeless. The organization, led by distinguished humanitarian Martin Li, has succeeded with getting a majority of the City's homeless people off the street and into their shelters where they are fed and housed comfortably. There Peter helps Li surprise May by throwing her an anniversary party with the help of Li and F.E.A.S.T. staff, celebrating her five years of service to the organization.
This peace does not last long however, as a new mask-wearing gang known only as the Inner Demons soon move in on Fisk's criminal activities in an attempt to take control of the former crime lord's assets. Peter combats the Demons and discovers that some of their members have the power to utilize energy, making them difficult to handle. After receiving an alert that someone has broken into Fisk's auction house showcasing his own personal artifact collection, Peter goes to investigate but finds the Demons have gotten there first. After subduing them he is confronted by his ex-girlfriend Mary Jane Watson, who is now an ambitious reporter for the Daily Bugle. Looking to do a story on Fisk, Mary Jane arrived at the auction house under false pretenses until the Demons arrived in search of a file pertaining to something known only as "Devil's Breath". Mary Jane manages to get to it first and offers to help Peter in uncovering the Demon's plans.
Meanwhile, the Demons continue to attack Fisk's properties and holdings. After several victories against them with the help of Officer Jefferson Davis, Peter attends a rally for Osborn's re-election with Davis, Mary Jane, Miles Morales, and Rio Morales also in attendance. Davis is awarded a Medal of Honour by Mayor Osborn, however Osborn receives an anonymous threat, promising to destroy him and his city, causing him to leave the rally early. The Demons then attack the rally with suicide bombers, killing many of the attendees including Davis, who is Miles' father. Peter witnesses Li, taking the alternate form of "Mr. Negative", leading the attack on the rally. However, he is knocked out by the blast before he can take action.
In the aftermath of the attack, Miles joins F.E.A.S.T. as a volunteer, meets Peter, and quickly befriends him. At the same time, Osborn hires mercenary Silver Sablinova and her PMC, Sable International, to take down the Demons. Sable doesn't trust Peter and constantly makes things difficult for him. Peter continues to pursue Mister Negative and the Demons, discovering that Li has a grudge against Osborn and seeks to steal the Devil's Breath, a bioweapon Osborn inadvertently created while searching for a universal cure for genetic diseases. Li manages to steal the Devil's Breath and attempts to deploy it in Grand Central Station, but is foiled by the efforts of both Peter and Mary Jane. He is subsequently arrested and sent to the Raft, a high-security prison. Meanwhile, Octavius becomes more obsessed with getting revenge on Osborn and begins further developing his artificial arms, turning them into large tentacle-like constructs and controlling them via an untested neural implant. Peter quickly grows concerned that the implant may negatively affect Octavius' mental state.
With his new arms, Octavius attacks both Ryker's Island and the Raft as "Doctor Octopus", releasing all of the prisoners within including Mister Negative, Electro, Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion, with whom he forms the Sinister Six. He also steals the Devil's Breath from police custody and releases it in Times Square, infecting hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, including Peter's Aunt May. With the combination of the outbreak and the mass escape of criminals, New York quickly falls into chaos, and Osborn declares martial law. Peter goes to apprehend his escaped enemies, quickly rounding up Electro, Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion while Mary Jane searches for the Devil's Breath cure Oscorp is seemingly working on. She breaks into Norman’s penthouse and learns that his son Harry (who is also Peter's and Mary Jane's close friend) is terminally ill and that the Devil’s Breath was actually designed as a cure for his condition. After discovering his secret lab, Mary Jane learns that Li was one of the test subjects for the Devil's Breath which granted him his powers. This however ended in tragedy as Li had accidentally killed his parents, sparking his grudge against Osborn. Mary Jane soon learns the location of the cure and informs Peter. After convincing Sable that he's trustworthy, Peter heads to the lab and defeats Li, but Octavius arrives and takes both Osborn and the cure, leaving Peter critically wounded.
With no other choice, Peter builds himself a new armored suit and goes after Doctor Octopus, who reveals he knew Peter was Spider-Man, defeating him atop Oscorp Tower while saving both Osborn and the cure. The amount of cure recovered, however, is too small to save everyone infected and Peter is faced with the choice of either using the limited amount to save Aunt May, who is on the verge of death, or allowing the doctors to study it and mass produce a cure to save everyone else. Peter ultimately chooses the latter and has a tearful farewell with Aunt May, who reveals she already knows he is Spider-Man before passing away. Silver Sable leaves New York to rethink her life choices following her encounter with Peter. Meanwhile, Miles is bitten by a spider that escaped Osborn's personal lab when Mary Jane broke into it. A funeral is held for Aunt May, who is buried next to Uncle Ben, and Octavius is thrown in prison at the Raft. Three months later, New York has largely returned to normal and Peter and Mary Jane decide to rekindle their relationship.
In a mid-credits scene, Miles reveals to Peter that he has gained spider-like powers, prompting Peter to reveal that he is Spider-Man. In a post-credits scene, Osborn returns to his lab where he has Harry kept in a holding tank with a black web-like substance until a cure can be found for his condition. As Norman places his hand on the tank, the substance reacts and copies him.
Downloadable content
On September 3, 2018, Insomniac released details about three story DLC episodes under the banner of "Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps" would be released in the three months following Spider-Man's launch.
The first DLC episode is called "The Heist", and will be released on October 23, 2018. It introduces Felicia Hardy/Black Cat into the game, focusing on how her return to New York impacts Spider-Man. Although Hardy's presence can be felt during the base game, the developers noted that players would not actually be able to encounter Black Cat without purchasing and playing "The Heist".
The second DLC episode, "Turf Wars", is projected for release in November 2018.
The third DLC episode, "Silver Lining", is slated for a December 2018 release.
The Verdict
Note: This review is on the initial release of the game from launch. I haven't played the game following it's recent update for New Game+ content and the addition of the first DLC episode.
From the moment, you start up the game, you're going to feel like Spider-Man. Peter grabs his breakfast and throws on the classic costume with the red and blue motif before racing out of the window to catch the bad guys.
Gameplay
I know a lot of people (me included) will be making comparisons with this game to Spider-Man 2 (the movie tie-in video game) and the Batman: Arkham series right off the bat. You have an open world representation of New York City to explore and navigate at your own discretion as you complete story missions, unlock side missions, stop local crimes, pursue some research activities, complete challenges (offered by Taskmaster in a clever sort of pun), and even hunt down collectibles (including backpacks scattered throughout the city, lost pigeons belonging to a homeless man that seems more like something Hey Arnold! would be assisting with, and even newspapers to boot), and even taking photographs in typical Parker fashion of popular landmarks across the city from both reality and the comics continuity that I'm sure a lot of people are going to enjoy hunting down. Not to mention that there's even "hidden" spots throughout the city to take "special" photographs for those looking to go the extra mile on stepping into Parker's shoes in terms of being a freelance photographer.
Yes, there's a Part 2 of this, too.
Gameplay is always fast and fluid, but I did manage to run into a few glitches, but nothing as hilarious or extreme as the two videos above. First of which, I had my game completely crash from doing one of the OsCorp Research activities. Another crash I had was towards the end of the game and it completely crashed after the one of the story missions wrapped up (one of those MJ/Miles stealth sections) and gave me control back of Spider-Man in free roam.
I think the coolest selling point on the game, even if you weren't a fan of the new costume was that you didn't have to use/wear it the entire game. The means to create and acquire different Spider-Man suits comes very early into the game and each one has their own unique skill/ability. One thing that I wish that they mentioned though (or maybe I didn't get the memo) is that those abilities aren't limited to JUST that particular suit. You can create and swap the abilities around at your leisure to customize your Spider-Man as you see fit to your unique playstyle. I honestly kept the fast Focus build-up ability throughout majority of the game, coupled with the slotted abilities for experience bonuses from combat and cutting down the amount of damage from enemy gunfire and explosions.
Out of all the costumes that were included in this game, I was shocked to see that the Spider-Man Unlimited costume wasn't in this. C'mon I KNOW I can't be the only one who thought that suit was cool.
Maybe we'll get this one as DLC down the road? Who knows...
It takes a little getting used to, especially if you're used to the older Spider-Man games where you simply either spam the buttons or hold it down, but the webswinging in this game is the best that it's ever been. It's hard to describe, but webswinging has a "rhythm" to it (as it should) that has to be picked up on by the player. That rhythm reminds me of so much of the movement of how Spider-Man traversed New York City in Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
Then there's moments like the freefalls/dive mechanic (used primarily to pick up speed for webswinging) where I immediately think of the first time I saw the webswinging in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. Say what we want now about those films, but goddammit the cinematography on following Spider-Man's movements in those sequences was stellar. The game manages to capture that exact feeling of being in a roller coaster when pulling off these stunts during gameplay.
I've seen people comment and review the game stating that they enjoyed the webswinging so much to traverse the city that they never used the fast travel points. I loved it but I'm not that crazy about it, y'know? I always get to a point in these open world games where I'm like "enough and let me finish this game and let me get from point A to point B without any extra BS" so bam, fast travel it is for me.
After games like Red Dead Redemption where traveling from different parts of the game to the next took anywhere from 20-30 minutes of real-time gameplay, I value that option for fast travel in these open world games.
Combat
Everyone is going to make the comparison to the Batman: Arkham series in terms of combat right off the bat. As someone who even went as far as writing guides and in-depth analysis on the combat for the Batman: Arkham series, I think this game does combat well in some areas akin to those games and not so well in others. I wouldn't attempt this game on higher difficulties just from the sheer frustration that crowd control is in this game at times. Plus Spidey never seems to target the right opponent when you do particular attacks (web zips to deal with gunmen immediately come to mind), unless it's a perfect dodge and counter situation. Even in those situations, I found Spidey prioritizing dealing with some random thug/bad guy next to him. It's hard to explain but the Batman: Arkham series' combat always had a sense where you always targeted the biggest threat or you always had the means to do so manually.
There were moments I could've sworn the Perfect Dodge mechanic was borderline broken...
Sadly, this isn't one them.
That being said, there was rarely times where I felt the combat was completely unfair in a sense. Maybe it's just me coming from playing the Batman Arkham games on the highest difficulty and my reactions are still tied to those games, but the lack of iframes (invincibility/recovery) on dodges irks me so damn much in this game. You can perfect dodge something and someone will still hit you regardless during that animation. Everything seems to come down to either perfect dodging and countering at the best moment while simultaneously using your gadgets and ground pounds to wheedle down the mobs' numbers. You always have the means to launch enemies up into the air for air combos/juggles, which is the best option against large number of enemies as there's little room to maneuver and/or means to breathe in a sense as you can't reliably count on Spider-Man's auto-targeting, especially against the tougher foes you fight towards the end of the game, like the powered up thugs working for Mr. Negative or Silver Sable's private army of futuristic soldiers and mercenaries. It's more annoying than flat out frustrating when it only takes a shred of stray gunfire from firearms to render Spider-Man to Swiss cheese, especially in the early moments of the game. It becomes tedious towards the end of the story campaign where almost every group of enemies has gunmen armed with rocket launchers (complete with homing missiles), machineguns, or futuristic energy rifles that don't take much to kill you, even with most of the health and armor upgrades. The perfect dodge and counter takedown on gunmen is a godsend in that aspect, coupled with the ability to throw rockets right back to the sender(s), but nothing is more annoying in this game than getting that perfect counter, only for Spider-Man to stand around like an idiot when you hit the corresponding button to follow up with the takedown. I've had that happen more times than I care to admit and it's just so annoying that something so minor in terms of combat aspect of gameplay was overlooked here. A simple fix/patch to prioritize follow-up on specific target after perfect dodges would be great in that regard.
When things go your way in combat, it's a thing of beauty like this sequence above.
I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I think the combat is horrible. Far from it actually, but I have gripes with it that I described above that prevent it from being a far cry from the excellence we've come to see in other action games, like God of War, Devil May Cry series, or especially the Batman: Arkham themed games. And good Lord do they give you far more skills and gadgets than you actually need. Spider Drones (these drones assist you in combat to keep thugs distracted while you focus on the biggest threats), Impact Webs (Instantly KO/takedown an enemy by webbing them to a surface), Trip Mine (instant takedown once triggered to web up an enemy to a nearby wall), and Web Bombs (instantly web up a group of enemies; sometimes sticking them to walls or the ground upon impact) do the trick against mostly everything you run into the game as long as you're quick to web up the opposition once you have them down on the ground or against the wall. Electric Webs are good too, but I honestly didn't gravitate to that gadget as much as I should have outside of the required uses in Story Missions or the bloody obvious moments where there's water on the ground as a clear clue for using that gadget to dispose of the opposition with ease. Those gadgets combined with your suit powers and basic combat takedowns should get you through the bulk of the game without much problems. I found the Concussion Blast and Suspension Matrix both fun to use but the tools required to upgrade them to max level are going to have you grinding sidequest activities for a while. It's worth it though as being able to instantly take Brutes off the playing field (by levitating them in the air with the Suspension Matrix, allowing for easier Focus build-up from aerial combos) in fights with numerous foes at once is a godsend, especially knowing how hectic those ordeals can be. I mostly found the Concussion Blast an asset on missions and sidequests/activities on rooftops as you can just run around, shooting this at your leisure to instantly knock foes off rooftops with ease. With all of those random activities around New York that have bonus objectives for knocking foes off rooftops, this is easily a go-to gadget for that aspect instead of relying on Web Swing Kicks.
(Laughs) I would be shocked if that dude isn't dead after that...
Speaking of knocking the bad guys off rooftops... I'm glad that this game didn't take itself seriously in the regard of trying to act like Spider-Man isn't killing people. It's a freakin' video game. If I had a complaint on the Batman: Arkham series as a whole in terms of gameplay, it was really limiting itself in that regard in terms of worrying about whether or not the Dark Knight was actually killing his adversaries in combat. Rocksteady really went out of their way to make excuses about that once you got the Batmobile added as the main feature of that game and could EASILY run over villains in your way or shoot them down with the cannons or minigun. Both of those weapons were explained as "non-lethal" rounds while contact to the Batmobile was explained as "shocked into submission" by a non-lethal anti-personnel device surrounding the vehicle... What did I think of that? Complete and utter... BULLSHIT. Insomniac didn't write themselves into a corner in that regard. What happens, happens in terms of combat in this game and that's perfectly fine. As long as Spider-Man isn't raining corpses down from the heavens and there's not a ton of bloody corpses in the streets below, I'm completely fine with how they handled that subject manner in terms of gameplay.
Boy, did this game have some underwhelming boss fights though. Outside of the final confrontations with Doctor Octopus and Mr. Negative, The Shocker boss fight, Taskmaster and Tombstone's optional encounters, almost every boss sequence in this game comes down to web throwing environmental objects at said boss until he's stunned/dazed (just like the game taught you how to do in the initial boss fight against The Kingpin). Once stunned, you web zip towards him and unload on him for massive damage, then rinse and repeat. You could tell that they tried to make these fun though with some obvious references/influences from the Batman Arkham games. You cannot tell me that Spider-Man's hallucination sequence from being poisoned by the Scorpion wasn't influenced by either the Mad Hatter sequences in Arkham City or the Scarecrow segments in Arkham Asylum. I'll still give Insomniac an A for the effort though. To be fair, given all of the Spider-Man games that we've had over the years, it's hard to do something new with these various villains that hasn't been already in previous games. C'mon, like how many times can we fight Shocker, Electro, Vulture, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, etc. in video games? I honestly groaned in disgust when I saw that the game was gearing up for a confrontation with the Sinister Six during the game's climax. I thought it wasn't fair to pull the rug out from underneath Mr. Negative in that regard, especially when he's the only one of those villains who haven't been done to death in a video game over the years. Not to mention, this was video game debut here.
From all of my gripes with the combat at times, I'll admit there wasn't a second during gameplay whereas I DIDN'T feel like I was Spider-Man. That aspect in gameplay Insomniac definitely made a home run on across the board.
Missions
These come in two flavors, story modes and side (optional) missions. I enjoyed the story missions for the most part, with the exception of the ones where the game switches you out from playing Spider-Man/Peter Parker to do it's best imitation of Metal Gear Solid with either Mary Jane Watson or an unpowered Miles Morales (later in the game) sneaking around to avoid detection. These sections are hit or miss at beset and ultimately ruin the excellent pacing of this game's narrative in my honest opinion.
I found the various sidequests in the game ranging from fun to downright tedious. I thought the combat challenges in the various criminal hideouts/strongholds were the best of the bunch, while the ones where you're simply chasing pigeons around New York to catch them or tracking down missing Empire State University students from a lone picture of a random location on the map was downright tedious. The latter kind of missions were few in number while the combat/stealth-oriented ones that I found myself getting the most fun out of my time with the game are plentiful in number. There's a bit of "hide and seek" of sorts in a diversion involving Black Cat, but she's nowhere to be seen in the main game until the Heist DLC drops (or already dropped by the time I post this review). At least you get a sweet looking costume for your efforts and you get to raid her hideout to see everything that she's been stealing as of late.
Once you get further enough into the game to trigger the Taskmaster activities/sidequest, then those missions will range from combat trials or simply tests of how well you can traverse New York in pursue of a specified target. The latter comes down to mostly how well you have a grasp on the webslinging mechanics at that point of the game. In the combat sections for the Taskmaster activities, I never ran into anything that I felt that I couldn't handle as they were either entirely pure combat or half-combat, half-stealth sections.
The Octavius Industries laboratory activities open up early into the game but they all won't unlock until you've completed majority of the game's story missions. It's a nice little diversion with these "science projects" of sorts for easy experience for solving these puzzles. I cannot recommend to players effort that they should get these done as soon as they pop up as you're missing out on quick and easy experience for upgrading your skills and gadgets from this. There's also OsCorp Research side missions too, but these vary in content. It's the only thing that I didn't bother finishing during my Redbox rental of the game, especially after being "scared off" from that complete crash of the game after completing one of them.
On top of the various sidequest/side missions, there's optional activities as well, including the random crimes that occur throughout New York that Spider-Man is able to detect from the police communication network that he's hacking into regularly. Yeah, there's even an activity/sidequest to activate all of the police radio towers to uncover the entire map of the city. I never see any harm in doing quests like these as it's in the same vein as those type of quests in the Assassin's Creed games, where you navigate to the top of a look-out point or enemy tower, synchronize the location with the Animus and it opens up all of the sidequests and points of interest in that immediate vicinity. Besides, it makes traveling throughout the city towards the end of the game much more easier when you have all of the fast travel points unlocked.
Visuals
This game is a literal "marvel" (no pun intended) to look at and watch in action. Everything from landscapes and skylines in the distance look absolutely stunning. Even though I was a little freaked out at how scary detailed that the realistic models for the unmasked Peter Parker and his entourage of friends and colleagues that make up his universe look in this game, I got used to it over time and embraced this look for the character models.
From the initial E3 trailers for this game about a year or two ago, I'll admit that I wasn't too thrilled about the new costume for our Friendly, Neighborhood Spider-Man. I warmed up to it over time after seeing that Parker dons the traditional Spider-Man costume for the opening chapter of the game. Thanks to the narrative, it makes perfect sense why he had to upgrade his costume on two separate occasions and I was completely fine with that. Besides, if you don't like the new costume(s), you can swap them out at any time for any of the unlockable suits that can be acquired over the course of the game.
Screenshot taken from my PS4 after clearing one of the many hideout side missions scattered around New York.
The game's Photo Mode fits into this visuals category as another showcase of this game's visual excellence. I was glad that a lot of attention to detail was put into that mode, along with the landmarks (as well as the "special" photograph locations) across New York. I didn't play around with the mode much in the early moments of the game, but once I got into the thick of things, I really made a habit of going into Photo Mode after missions, snapping a photo of my handiwork and swinging off into action to stop more crime.
This isn't visuals-related per say, but can we talk about the "social media" tab on the options menu? That was pretty awesome to have like hundreds of Twitter-style comments buzzing about Spider-Man's activities and the effect of his good deeds throughout the city. Stuff like that, coupled with a 3-D look at each of the individual backpack collectibles, adds a layer of believability and immersion to this game's world.
Narrative (**SPOILERS**)
I loved that Insomniac weren't tied to following a story from the comics nor basing this around a film/TV show. They created their own world here and it just works to reinvent/reintroduce the Spider-Man mythos. There were some parts to the story that I can easily nitpick for being for being bloody obvious, such as Otto Octavius' transformation into becoming Doctor Octopus and Martin Li's transformation to being "Mr. Negative" as how J. Jonah Jameson dubs him on his radio show. Even those points I can forgive them on as this game was entirely their own creature without having to tie to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or anything that came before it. I thought this game served as an excellent formal introduction to Mr. Negative to a mainstream audience. He's one of Spider-Man's more modern rogues in his entourage of villains, so he's not that well-known, unlike his older adversaries.
Insomniac had balls to do something not even any of the Spider-Man films has had the balls to do. For that, I tip my hat at Insomniac.
I thought it was one hell of a ballsy move for them to kill Aunt May during the game's finale though. I know that the comics did that on a few occasions before rebooting his canon, but damn, that was a shock for the first game in what I'm going to believe as a franchise for Insomniac Games. I felt that Miles' backstory was a little rushed and a bit too predictable here. When the cop was killed and it was revealed that he had a son named Miles, I knew exactly where they were going with this narrative. Someone needs to explain to me how that spider stayed on Mary Jane for so long without biting her first and giving her superpowers instead? That was downright insane that it was clung to her for that long after Spider-Man came to her rescue to pull her out of the hot water she found herself into after sneaking into Osborn's penthouse. Harry Osborn being out of the picture gave Norman a rare opportunity to come off as a father who actually cares about his son (there's a lot of clever clues and evidence about this in his penthouse from the lengths he's going to keep his son's true condition a secret), rather than the arrogant prick that we have all come accustomed to from films, cartoons/animated television series, other various Spider-Man-themed video games, and comic books have painted the picture of him as across other media. Osborn is still hated as a corrupt politician in this game (Isn't that hitting home a little hard there from America's current political landscape?) and that's rightfully justified given his actions in this game, once they brought to the surface.
Even though I loved a lot of Insomniac's redesigns for most of Spider-Man's noteworthy rogues/villains in this game, I gave a groan of boredom when I knew where the plot was going in terms of involving the Sinister Six towards the game's final moments.
My biggest complaint is that majority of the Sinister Six outside of Mr. Negative and Doc Ock just felt like minor roadblocks than actual "major" threats in the narrative. It just came off too convenient that they were all in the Raft at the same time as the Kingpin at the start of the story and just fit nicely into the timing of the story for Doc Ock to break all of them out to assist with his schemes. Not to mention that they were coupled up in tag team style boss fights that didn't do much in terms of gameplay that regard either. Insomniac could have easily adjusted the narrative to say that Mr. Negative used his powers on all of Spider-Man's villains that were imprisoned in the Raft and manipulated them in that fashion. The whole twist about Otto Octavius and Norman Osborn were former colleagues and actually founded OsCorp together was a nice diversion from the traditional mythos, but was still predictable enough to see coming that Octavius' obsession with his technology was going to lead to him becoming Doc Ock by the end of this game.
Outside of those very minor gripes, I'm glad that this game didn't feel compelled to stay one hundred percent faithful to the Spider-Man comic book mythos and/or the canon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It seemed like they had free reign to do their own thing here with this game and that was a good thing.
Play It or Don't Bother?
Spidey approves of this game.
Definitely play this. It's a no-brainer at this point. This is arguably the best superhero game to date based on a Marvel Comics based character and while I feel that it's nowhere as polished as what I feel is the best superhero game to date - Batman: Arkham City, it serves true to what fans (old and new) have come to love about the Spider-Man character.
If you want to check out me playing the game, feel free to check out the Twitch Collection that I posted here.
Hayley Lovitt stands in for a young Janet van Dyne, reprising her role from the first film; she had been cast for the first film, before Pfeiffer's involvement, due to her "saucer-like, Michelle Pfeiffer eyes" according to Reed. Laurence Fishburne as Bill FosterLangston Fishburne, Laurence's son, stands in for a young Bill Foster. Michael Douglas as Hank Pym
Dax Griffin stands in for a young Hank Pym, having done so for the first film as well.
Additionally Stan Lee, co-creator of the titular heroes, has a cameo in the film as a man whose car gets shrunk by accident. Michael Cerveris appears as Ava's father Elihas Starr while Riann Steele plays his wife Catherine. Tim Heidecker and Brian Huskey appear in cameos as a whale boat captain named Daniel Gooobler and a teacher at Cassie's school, respectively. Sonny Burch's team of men includes Divian Ladwa as Uzman, Goran Kostić as Anitolov, and Rob Archer as Knox. Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster of The Best Show make brief appearances as Burch's SUV drivers.
Plot:
In 1987, Janet van Dyne shrinks between the molecules of a Soviet nuclear missile, disabling it but entering the sub-atomic quantum realm. Hank Pym raises their daughter Hope believing that Janet is dead. Years later, former criminal Scott Lang takes up the mantle of Ant-Man and discovers a way to both enter and return from the quantum realm. Pym and Hope begin work on repeating this feat, believing they may find Janet alive. Lang and Hope also start a romantic relationship and begin training to fight together as Ant-Man and the Wasp, until Lang secretly helps Captain America during a skirmish between the Avengers in violation of the Sokovia Accords. Lang is placed under house arrest, while Pym and Hope go into hiding and cut ties with Lang.
Two years later, Pym and Hope briefly manage to open a tunnel to the quantum realm. Lang receives an apparent message from Janet, who he is quantumly entangled with. Despite having only days left of house arrest, Lang decides to call Pym. Hope kidnaps Lang, leaving a decoy so as not to arouse suspicion from FBI agent Jimmy Woo. Seeing the message as confirmation that Janet is alive, Pym and Hope work to create a stable tunnel so they can take a vehicle to the quantum realm and retrieve Janet. Hope arranges to buy a part needed for the tunnel from black market dealer Sonny Burch, but Burch has realized the potential profit that can be earned from Pym and Hope's research and double-crosses them. Hope fights Burch and his men off, until she is attacked by a quantumly unstable masked woman. Lang tries to help fight off this "ghost", but she escapes with Pym's portable lab.
Pym reluctantly visits his estranged former partner Bill Foster who helps them locate the lab. The ghost restrains Lang, Hope, and Pym when they arrive, and reveals herself to be Ava Starr. Her father Elihas, another former partner of Pym's, accidentally killed himself and his wife during a quantum experiment that caused Ava's unstable state. Foster reveals that he has been helping Ava, who they plan to cure using Janet's quantum energy. Believing that this will kill Janet, Pym refuses to help them and the trio manage to escape.
Opening a stable version of the tunnel this time, Pym and Hope are able to contact Janet, who gives them a precise location to find her, but warns that they only have two hours before the unstable nature of the realm separates them for centuries. Burch learns their location from Lang's business partners Luis, Dave, and Kurt, and informs a contact at the FBI. Luis warns Lang, who rushes home before Woo can see him breaking his house arrest. This leaves Pym and Hope to be arrested, and for their lab to be taken by Ava.
Lang is soon able to help Pym and Hope escape custody. Lang and Hope distract Ava while Pym enters the quantum realm to retrieve Janet, but the pair end up fighting Burch and his men which allows Ava to begin taking Janet's energy. Luis, Dave, and Kurt help apprehend Burch, so Lang and Hope can stop Ava. Pym and Janet arrive safely from the quantum realm, and Janet voluntarily gifts some of her energy to Ava to temporarily stabilize her.
Lang returns home once again, in time for a now suspicious Woo to release him at the end of his house arrest. Ava and Foster go into hiding. In a mid-credits scene, Pym, Lang, Hope, and Janet plan to harvest quantum energy to continue helping Ava. While Lang is doing this in the quantum realm, Pym, Hope, and Janet all disintegrate.
The Verdict:
Looking back at some of my older articles on here and I noticed that I never did a write-up of the original Ant-Man film. I enjoyed that film too, but I felt that this was better than the original in every way, even though I wanted Luis' story to be longer like how it was in the first film when he was recapping everything. C'mon now, we all needed something like this to lighten the mood after getting our hearts torn from out of our chests from the finale of Avengers: Infinity War.
From start to finish, this film seems shorter in comparison to Infinity War or even the original Ant-Man film, but maybe that's because this film handles it's pacing in an excellent manner. There wasn't not a single moment where I felt the film dragged on excessively or without purpose. The ball was always rolling without any interruptions, keeping me engaged from start to finish.
Evangeline Lily's transformation into a heroine as the Wasp for this film was incredible. Every single one of her action sequences looked incredible from her mere presence and how she was able to hold her own. My only fear is that when the Avengers add more heavy-hitting females, like Captain Marvel - who immediately comes to mind with her solo film debut right around the corner in March 2019, is that she might fade into the background in comparison. Then again, Infinity War managed to make Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Mantis, and Okoye hold their own among all of the other heroes in that film, so I have confidence that they will continue to make her hold her own. What's even more amazing is that she didn't underwhelm Paul Rudd's Ant-Man in the least; they were exactly what this film had set out to make them as - a team.
In terms of storytelling, my only issue that I could honestly nitpick at is the "glitches" in Pym's new Ant-Man suit for Scott Lang. That could have been easily remedied if Lang simply just wore the original suit that he hidden away, but later obtained back later into the film that he used back in Captain America: Civil War. In that regard, I can't complain too much as there was too much hilarity to be had at Scott Lang's misfortunes of his usage of the new Ant-Man suit.
Following in the wake of Black Panther's Eric Killmonger and Avengers: Infinity War's Thanos, the Marvel Cinematic Universe are on a roll in terms of introducing great new villains this year. Ava Starr/Ghost rounds out 2018's line-up of marque MCU villains (at least on the silver screen). She's not a murderer nor antagonist by choice as she merely serves as the primary antagonist of this film as she is desperate for a cure to her condition. This throws echoes out to me to Clayface from Batman: The Animated Series (at least in his earlier appearances) or Mr. Freeze, where those villains only committed crimes to further their progress towards finding a cure to either their own conditions or to cure the disease eating away at a loved one. Ava Starr's supported by Bill Foster (commonly known as Goliath in Marvel Comics lore), portrayed by Lawrence Fishburne (who more than happily escaped the DC Extended Universe it seems...), who cares for Starr as if she is his own daughter. He doesn't condone her villainous actions, but merely wishes to help her obtain a cure to her condition. Even after Janet van Dyne successfully escapes the quantum realm and "cures" Ava, he stays by her side, promising not to abandon her after her villainous actions.
Their relationship is one of many powerful, yet emotional parent to child relationships in this film - Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne to Hope van Dyne, Scott Lang to Cassie Lang, and the aforementioned Bill Foster to Ava Starr. Scott and Cassie's relationship was already adorable in the initial film. That was stressed even more here as Cassie shows wisdom beyond her years in her understanding of her father's ongoing quest to do good (while occasionally stumbling at it) and have a hand in making a better world for his daughter. That parallels over in the relationship between Hope and her parents, carving her to be the hero that her parents were in their youth. Her hardened exterior hides her fragility of a child doing her best to live up to her parents' legacy. Ava and Bill's relationship is a little more unconventional, but still touching nonetheless as Bill wants to end his surrogate daughter's pain and suffering.
It was great to see Michelle Pfeiffer back in a superhero film. What was the last time, back in Batman Returns as Catwoman with Michael Keaton? In retrospect, that's pretty nuts that both Batman and Catwoman from that film are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe now. Back on topic though, I found her to be the perfect fit for portraying the better half of Michael Douglas' Hank Pym. I honestly was surprised to see Sonny Burch show up in this film as that character is usually used in association to Ironman's lore and mythos. To be honest, they could have used him in Ironman 2 and 3 to similar results of the villains' schemes. To this day, I still think that them wasting Justin Hammer in one-off appearance was a massive blunder in terms of my personal issues with the MCU at the start. This was one of those films where the casting from top to bottom just works. I absolutely have no complaints about everyone's performances here.
I loved the clever uses of size manipulation to display Ant-Man's powers in his first film and they really knocked it out of the part here in the sequel alongside Wasp's powers to boot. The effects used to showcase Ghost/Ava Starr's powers worked to a stellar degree - I dare say it looked eerie and disorienting to an effect, but that's a good thing. It reminded me a little of the "twins" from The Matrix Reloaded in that sense. I wouldn't be surprised if Marvel Studios were influenced by that effect in some manner. I regret that we didn't get to see more of the quantum realm though, even though we've been only treated to about two or three sampler platters of how it looks visually, but not even to warrant a firm foothold to garner a solid opinion on this for the future of the MCU. Much like other savvy filmgoers and Marvel fans, I think the quantum realm has a pivotal role to play in Avengers 4,
I can't speak for anyone else, but holy cow, they got me good with the mid-credits teaser. I shouted "OH SHIT!" in the middle of the movie theater when I realized what happened to Hank Pym, Janet and Hope van Dyne when they panned back to them back at the controls and they were completely "dusted" due to the infamous snap. I know people are speculating left and right that Ant-Man will play a hand in Avengers 4, but I wouldn't be surprised that Dr. Strange put some sort of time travel contingency plan into motion before he handed the Time Stone over to Thanos that Ant-Man can lend a hand with due to his displacement in the quantum realm.
Watch It or Don't Bother?
Don't worry. You don't have to pull a rabbit out of your hat to enjoy this MCU outing.
Definitely watch this. After the events of Avengers: Infinity War left a somber mood in the air among the majority of MCU fans, we all need a pick-me-up with a light-hearted film like this. Much like the original Ant-Man film, this film continues that trend of stressing the bonds and values of family - especially those between parent and child - along with means one
I seriously doubt the English dub of Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin will show this, but man, that "tease" that interrupts the ending credits at the end of Episode 12 of Season 3 was insane. This isn't a "spoiler" so get out of my comments with that.
It just falls back to why I love this anime so much in terms of adaptations from the manga's source material. If you haven't kept up with reading the manga, you'll have NO context on that scene but to say that showed that off before going on their reported hiatus prior to finishing this season up is definitely going to have people talking.
Now if you want to know what happens in this scene in its entirety without waiting until 2019 when Season 3 of the anime continues, then read below.
*** SPOILERS BELOW -- YOU'VE BEEN WARNED ***
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Okay, here we go. That scene is DIRECTLY from the manga where Eren and Mikasa both flip out at the end of the next story arc where the Survey Corps are almost entirely wiped out in a bold kamikaze move to provide a distraction that allows Levi to get close enough to nearly slay the Beast Titan in the process. Levi found himself in an unique situation as he could've pursued the Beast Titan and killed, but he opted to retreat and tend to the dying Commander Erwin on the battlefield. Meanwhile on the other end of the battlefield, Armin's elaborate plan got him nearly burnt alive after getting in close quarters against the Colossal Titan, using himself as bait that allowed the Corps to deliver the finishing blow while Eren fought with the Armored Titan. The Armored Titan managed to escape with the Beast Titan, allowing what remained of the Corps to realize what happened to both Erwin and Armin during these pivotal battles.
Both Erwin and Armin laid in critical condition with the remainder of the Corps screaming that they need to make a decision on what to do with the injection of Titan fluid that was taken from the corpse of Kenny Ackerman. An argument breaks out between Levi, Mikasa, and Eren, where the latter two of the three are begging Levi to save Armin's life instead of Commander Erwin, who Levi is dead set on saving. Time is of the essence as whoever becomes a Titan will have to eat the maimed body of Bernholt before he is able to recover from his injuries and become a Titan Shifter like Ymir and Eren before them. Mikasa is willing to go as far as killing Levi to save Armin's life.
When the smoke clears on this ordeal, it's Armin that's given the injection to the surprise of EVERYONE at this point and he's left to eat the remains of Bernholt to become the new Colossal Titan.
Unlike most people I had NO issue with Melissa Rauch aka Bernadette from The Big Bang Theory voicing Harley Quinn in Bruce Timm's Batman & Harley Quinn earlier this year. She doesn't come off sounding like she's trying to imitate Arleen Sorkin's original iconic voice for the character and did her own twist to how she sounds. Now here with Kaley Cuoco, I can say the same thing, but I swear I'm hearing nothing but Penny from The Big Bang Theory here - not that's a bad thing. I think this show could work if they are going for a Daria/Stripperella type of vibe here with the comedy/humor.
I honestly don't have any plans in investing in a DC Universe streaming account, but I'll have my eye out to check this out by "other" means whenever it drops.
I recently got into reruns of Saint Seiya on CONtv's weekly anime marathon streams on Twitch TV. Goddamn that's SOOOO awesome that Namco are really digging into the well of characters for this game instead of just going with the "usuals" like J-Stars did. Not to mention that this game is looking AMAZING with these effects.
I'm even more blown away that the Saints are able to use their Gold Cloths in this as well.
If there was any character that got me hyped for this game from the trailers so far, it's seeing Yugi Muto in this game. I was bummed out that Light Yagami from Death Note wasn't playable (for obvious reasons as he would be ridiculously overpowered in terms of his powers), but seeing the King of Games himself here with the Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl (and even throwing down his mighty Egyptian God Card to boot) at his side in battle just screams all kinds of awesome to me. I'm begging for Dan Green to record his lines in the English dub of this game. Knowing my luck, Namco Bandai will be cheap bastards and not even do an English dub release of this game like they've done for all of the recent Gundam-based games lately.
I wouldn't be surprised for a second to see Seto Kaiba show up in this game as well.
No, I'm not doing a full blown review on Venom, not when there's folks like The Angry Joe Show and other outlets that pretty much put into words what's the general consensus about that film is. What I will do though? I'll offer some brief thoughts coming out of it Thursday evening.
Like I said on my personal Facebook account, Sony Pictures needs to just scrap this whole idea of a Spider-Man-centric cinematic universe and just leave all live-action handlings of that character and his corresponding associates and secondary characters to Kevin Feige and the rest of the folks at Marvel Studios. I shudder at the thought that Sony Pictures still have films on Kraven the Hunter, Black Cat, and Silver Sable up in the pipeline. Silver and Black, the rumored Black Cat and Silver Sable team-up film, was reported to be cancelled earlier this year in favor of solo outings for those two characters.
Everyone seems to point to Upgrade as a better symbiotic relationship expressed in a film in comparison to Venom for the views who left this film with a sour taste in their mouths. I finally had a chance to check out that film Wednesday evening (10/9/18) online and I'm inclined to agree with the critics on that comparison. Whereas Upgrade was in the vein of "body horror/cyberpunk fantasy" in terms of the mesh-mash of genres, Venom comes across as superhero comedy. And don't get me wrong either, that film has just as many plot holes as Venom does, so it's far from perfect even though it has a lot of ambitious ideas. Not to mention Upgrade is predictable as all hell in terms of its narrative. I just applaud how STEM and Grey's relationship is portrayed in that film in terms of the whole "control" issue that seems to pop up in Venom. Eddie has more control over Venom in the end, but (SPOILER ALERT!!!) STEM ends up controlling his host completely by the end of Upgrade. That's the sort of "wicked" twist I expected coming out of something that is billed as a horror film and didn't want to see in Venom, especially if they were gunning to stay at least somewhat faithful to the source material.
In all honesty, I went into Venom expecting nothing (exactly what I mentioned when I saw the first few trailers for this) and go exactly what I expected from it; that's why I'm not as outraged and angry as most people leaving the theater.
In terms of tone, this film was all over the place. One minute it's hella serious. A few seconds later, they are dropping punchline after punchline with Eddie and Venom's relationship and I'm sitting in the theater wondering should I even take this serious or just chuck this film into the same vein as Deadpool's level of humor (or at least a poor attempt at it). Most of the humor fell flat, but I found myself laughing at a lot of things in the film, even if the delivery and punchlines weren't on the mark. It just amused me that there are quite the few "clever" references to Venom's 90's comics and lore (Seriously, who saw that She-Venom/Bride of Venom cameo coming?) while at the same time, this film seems to have little to no idea on the pure essence of this character. Venom and Eddie Brock were more than just an alien costume on auto-pilot while Eddie watches and begs his symbiote partner not to eat the brains of his victims. No, they are a team a perfect symbiosis - no pun intended there. From the moment Eddie got the symbiote to the end of the film, I never got the sense of that. It was like Eddie was a human meat puppet while Venom got to cruise around in his skin when he liked.
I'm not even going to dwell on the sheer amount of plotholes that weren't addressed in the film, ranging from what damage was the symbiote doing to Eddie Brock's body that the doctors explained that their bond was "killing its host" by consuming his organs to the whole ordeal of Venom "changed his mind" about wanting to conquering the planet and Eddie helped him do that. Tom Hardy expressed in pre-release interviews that his favorite parts of this movie were roughly 40 minutes that were completely cut out of the theatrical release. I'm guessing those scenes would have filled in the gaps and MIGHT have left a better impression on those who checked out of morbid curiosity (like myself), but I guess everyone would be left to wonder about that until an inevitable "director's cut" is released on DVD/Blu-Ray in a few months.
Should you go out of your way to see this? Nope. For many, this will be the Catwoman on the end of the Marvel Comics side of things like how that film was for DC Comics. Trust me, this will be on Netflix/Redbox soon enough. I only went on Thursday night for the premiere out of morbid curiosity to see if it was as bad as the early reviews pegged it for.
I will give Sony Pictures credit as they are geniuses in the marketing for Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse. They showed a five minute clip of that film during what many superhero filmgoers (especially Marvel Studios' fans) sit through the ending credits in hopes of a teaser for something better in the pipeline of what is yet to come. I was so impressed by that sequence - the animation style, the narrative, and the action - that I completely wiped my mind with that trash that I saw from Venom and left the theater with a smile on my face. I know I'm definitely going to see that come December.
By the way, that's NOT the Black Panther chasing Miles Morales around like how most people in the theater were convinced that was in the teaser trailer. That is The Prowler, someone in Miles' continuity that is VERY important to his origins and how he got bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his powers in the first place.
I wrote about what I thought about Marvel's The Defenders in a review about a year ago and it pains me to see that these Netflix Marvel Cinematic Universe-centric shows are still treading the same waters and repeating the same mistakes that plagued that crossover/team-up series.
I keep getting asked by friends, peers, and acquaintances about what do I think of the shows that followed The Defenders - Jessica Jones Season Two, The Punisher Season One, Luke Cage Season Two, and more recently Iron Fist Season Two. I felt like that it wasn't worth my time and effort to discuss those shows individually because I keep getting the sense of deja vu watching each of these shows. It's nowhere as bad as the CW's writing and handling of their DC Comics-based properties at times, but goddammit the writing here frustrates me to no end on how a lot of these shows are handled.
*** MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD ***
Don't read ahead unless you have seen every
Marvel Netflix series up to this point following The Defenders - The Punisher (Season 1), Jessica Jones (Season 2), Luke Cage (Season 2), and Iron Fist (Season 2)
The Good
Colleen Wing and the potential of a Daughters of the Dragon spin-off
The tail end of Iron Fist Season 2 finally got things right as Colleen Wing was gifted with the power of the Iron Fist as it was revealed during the finale that she was "destined" for this power all along and not Danny Rand - who somehow manifested a new variation of the power after having it stolen away from Davos/Steel Serpent. Critics and fans alike (me included) have agreed unanimously that Colleen Wing/Jessica Henwick was the best thing to come out of everything else that was awful in Iron Fist Season 1 and I'm glad that the writers of this show had the sense to make her the focus and key titular player here instead of Danny Rand. I can't speak for anyone else but when I think of Iron Fist, I think of this being like one of those old school "kung-fu" TV dramas like from days of old or something along the lines of the wandering samurai who slays evil when they encounter it, thanks to their own code of bushido (something that Colleen Wing herself has mentioned on multiple occasions in both seasons that she has studied and practiced in her life).
The best moments of Iron Fist Season 2 were the "buddy cop" moments between Misty Knight and Colleen Wing. The MCU has something special here and I really hope that they don't squander this opportunity. Remember it was Colleen Wing who pulled Misty Knight out of the gutter when her life was spiraling out of control in Luke Cage Season 2 following her recovery. Colleen was there for Misty as a friend when she needed it to find and renew her resolve to badassery and Misty returns the favor here in Iron Fist Season 2. To say that I'm still not too crazy about Simone Missick's casting as Misty Knight, I can't deny that her and Jessica Henwick's Colleen Wing have chemistry in every scene that they share together to make this partnership and friendship work on multiple levels. Hell, I dare say it clicks more than Danny Rand and Luke Cage's "friendship".
Screw a Heroes for Hire spin-off, let's just get a Daughters of the Dragon spin-off green-lit and going.
Impressive fight choreography in Iron Fist Season 2 and The Punisher Season 1
Looking at the fight scenes between Season 1 and 2 of Iron Fist is like looking at day and night in terms of differences. That's not a bad thing that's a great thing that they changed the fight choreography for the better here. No excuses this time as Finn Jones had plenty of time between the end of The Defenders and the filming of this season to get his combat/martial arts training down instead of learning it on the set as he cited in interviews after critics tore into his performance in Iron Fist Season 1.
Great performances from returning cast members
Jessica Jones in Jessica Jones Season 2
Out of the three Defenders left in the wake of Daredevil's sacrifice at the end of that series last year, Jessica still comes across as my personal favorite. She knows she's a flawed person, but still strives to do the right thing. She's not "addicted" to her powers (Iron Fist/Danny Rand) nor does she try to present herself as to being something bigger than she is (Luke Cage).
Krysten Ritter continues to impress in this role and still has that extra "weight" on her that looks healthy on the character (I mentioned this briefly in my write-up for The Defenders) instead of how scrawny she looked in the first season. Allegedly, Jessica Jones Season 2 was filmed almost immediately following The Defenders, so that's why she looks the same here as she did in that series.
Kilgrave in Jessica Jones Season 2
You have to sit through the bulk of Season 2, but Kilgrave returns in the tail end of Jessica Jones Season 2 after Jessica finds herself forced to kill an adversary who was mere seconds away from ending her life. She instantly regrets the decision, seeing it as her own devolution into becoming "the monster" that her mother has become, thanks to the same experiment that she underwent to obtain her powers. Kilgrave appears to her as a hallucination, much like The Joker did to Batman during the events of Batman: Arkham Knight, despite being already dead. Kilgrave exists as the dark side of her psyche, taunting and reminding her that she's destined to be just like him.
How can you hate Kilgrave when he reminds us of how much he enjoyed Trish's "I Want Your Cray-Cray" music video?
From as much as I felt that she wasn't a strong enough villain to fill in the void left after Cottonmouth's demise in Luke Cage Season 1 as the head of his criminal empire (no pun intended...) in Harlem, I thought she came into her own as a villain here in Season 2. Her stand out moments were her "hoodrich" moments where she seems to instantly drop her PR face and show her true colors; oftentimes belittling and berating those around her, especially Misty Knight and her underlings.
That awkward moment in Luke Cage Season 2 whereas they acted like Danny Rand was a completely new/different character in contrast to his pre-Defenders state.
The reveal that Alisa was the mother of Jessica Jones was one of the better elements of Jessica Jones Season 2, highlighted by the fact that actress Miriam Shor portrayed her with a lot of chemistry with Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones to believe that she was her mother in all of their scenes that they shared together.
You could feel the tension in all of the scenes when she lost her grip on her sanity and her raging emotions until she gave into the monster that the experiments done to her made Jessica's mother into.
Such a shame that we won't get to see her return in Season Three, but at least there's a possibility in flashbacks as all of the questions concerning the origins of Jessica's powers after being experimented on by IGH
Only downside is that she's a piss poor "final boss" of sorts for Jessica at the end of Season 2. Then the narrative allows Trish to kill her instead of Jessica to just throw a wrench into everything up to that point
Effin' Bushmaster. A character who I honestly wrote off as being a cannon fodder when I read the casting news for this season, but I was glad to be wrong. That dude could have be nice to see in a Black Panther sequel TBH. Mustafa Shakir already got the accent and fighting style (Capoeira) down.
The guy doesn't just beat Luke Cage once, he defeats Luke Cage or manages to hold his own against the super-powered hero multiple times over the course of Luke Cage Season 2.
My only issue with Bushmaster was that after all of that hype and time spent on this guy the entire season, we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing him get a definitive end of his journey this season.
One of the minor characters just calmly state that he went back to Jamaica off-screen. I wouldn't be surprised that he died from that concoction of potions and voodoo nonsense that he was hyping himself up on finally did him in. If it doesn't happen in the next season of Luke Cage, then I wouldn't be surprised that it happens in the rumored second season of The Defenders with a spin on Marvel Comics' Dark Avengers with a sort of Dark Defenders to stand against the heroes.
I can promise you that after most people are done watching Iron Fist Season 2, the only thing people will be talking about is this character instead of Davos or the Meachum Family in terms of "antagonists" for that season.
It was excellent on how Alive Eve was able to juggle both roles flawlessly. The shy and timid Mary while Walker was calm and collected, yet prone to violence. I'm very anxious to see what the writers have in store for this characters' future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Just about all of the newcomers and reprising cast members in The Punisher
I've never been a fan of The Punisher character in comics, but everyone from Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle / Punisher, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as David Lieberman / Micro, Ben Barnes as Billy Russo, Amber Rose Revah as Dinah Madani, Daniel Webber as Lewis Wilson, and even to Jason R. Moore as Curtis Hoyle contributed to making the initial season of The Punisher worth a watch, even though I felt like the series dragged on excessively at points. Pacing hasn't a strong suit for any of these post-Defenders Marvel Netflix shows. I can't stand Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page since the first season of Daredevil and I continue to feel like she's a waste of space in this series - along within Daredevil to boot; so for those wondering, she's the lone exception to my statement here.
The Bad
The Lack of Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson)
I don't know if they could afford to keep Rosario Dawson on payroll after these shows got into full swing, but the lack of her as the glue that kept all of the Defenders working like a well-oiled machine is painfully glaring at this point. At the same time, I wonder if her disappearance is on purpose to symbolize that the Defenders came together when she was present in all of their shows while they fall apart when she walks out of their lives. If that's the case, then that's some genius-level foreshadowing and symbolism.
Then when you see articles like this floating around online, it doesn't give any high hopes that she's coming back to the MCU in any capacity.
The Meachum Family drama was just awful
It was bad in Iron Fist Season 1 and I don't understand why they continued it in Season 2 with Joy's motivations making little to no sense at all for first plotting with Davos against Danny then siding against Davos to foil his plans.
We don't see enough of Ward's "addiction" to care so his whole therapy arc kind of fell flat right off the bat. Adding a pregnancy towards the end of the season didn't do it any justice either. Seriously though, what was up with the writers trying to tease that him and Misty Knight could have a thing though? I'm STILL trying to wrap my head around that one...
Luke Cage is just so damn corny
This article right here put this much better than I could have in any shape or form.
In terms of character evolution/development following The Defenders' events, a lot of these heroes have taken steps backwards. I can't include The Punisher in that conversation as his series was off in it's own little world, separate from went on during The Defenders since he wasn't in that series at all, despite playing a part in foiling The Hand's plans at the end of Daredevil Season Two.
Jessica Jones falls back to her anti-social tendencies after learning to open up and function as a part of the team during The Defenders, thanks to her time bonding with Matt Murdock/Daredevil. She comes around by the end of Season 2 by bonding with Arocho's family, but she's still disconnected (more than she ever was) to her "sister" Trish Walker and "business partner" Malcolm Ducasse, despite their "help" over the course of the season on her case(s).
Luke Cage ends up becoming what he was fighting against all of this time for two seasons - the head of the criminal empire, claiming that it's the only way to maintain "order" in Harlem.
Danny Rand loses the Iron Fist to Davos, mostly thanks to his own self-doubts and imbalance with the power that led to him becoming "addicted" to the thrill that using it provides under the excuse that he was fighting for justice. He hasn't learned anything from Matt Murdock's sacrifice in The Defenders and continues to attempting to walk the path others have carved out for him instead of making his own. What's really frustrating is that when we see Danny in Luke Cage Season 2, he seems like he's mellowed out and actually enjoying life while at the same time finding the balance to master his powers. When we return to following his adventures in his own show, it's like all of that was thrown out of the window to revert back into the adopted boy yearning to be accepted by his K'un L'un family by following their teachings without question.
Without even seeing Daredevil Season 3, we can deduce from the teaser trailer that Matt Murdock is spiraling further down the rabbit hole as he wants to abandon his responsibilities as Murdock altogether and solely be Daredevil. To be fair, Murdock has been dealing with the struggle to juggle both parts of his life to tragic results since Daredevil Season 2, so I wasn't expecting a fix for that issue when he basically put the costume back on devoted to be martyr to save both the city and Elektra from The Hand.
The heroes are only as "smart" as the narrative deems "appropriate" or necessary for the plot to move forward
A lot of this is across the broad for majority of the Marvel Netflix shows, but Misty Knight is the biggest culprit to this crime. In professional wrestling, fans have come to call this "stupid babyface syndrome" in that medium's narratives. Misty Knight comes off extremely stupid at times (she's three for three if you add up all of her fuck-ups between both Luke Cage seasons and The Defenders), even after that same stupidity got her arm chopped off - hence repeating the ever present issue plaguing these narratives that the heroes are only as "smart" as the narrative deems "appropriate" or necessary for the plot to move forward the narrative.
The a lot of these subplots for minor characters either not making sense or falling flat completely.
Tilda Johnson's introduction and character path/journey over the course of Luke Cage Season 2 was just all over the place.
It ultimately didn't make not one lick of damn sense. If she just wanted peace with her life and not to be caught up with her "mother's" shady dealing then why did she make a deal with Bushmaster to begin with? Plus we already know that she's set to become a villain (Dr. Nightshade) in Season 3 due to the titular actress spoiling that in an interview, so I'm just throwing my hands up at this point on this fuckery. You could say that she was doing this to save her own skin in that situation but she could have easily killed Bushmaster in the same manner that she poisoned her own mother.
She had plenty of chances to walk away from the world that the Dillards/Stokes drew her into but didn't. She has herself to blame more than anything else. Anyone with a fully functioning brain could tell that Mariah was using the "relationship" with her daughter as bold PR move.
I'm sure that the revelation of how she came into this world was the thing that threw her over the edge, but after that outburst of how Mariah didn't want her, why was she surprised that her mother would leave her anything in her will? You're trying to tell me that her own pettiness for her mother that she didn't really want nothing to do with at that point anyway is the reason she wants to become a super villain out of spite to Dillard leaving Harlem's Paradise to her? That's as lame of a motivation as Lex Luthor's hair falling out from that lab accident with Superman on Superfriends...
While Shades and Mariah Dillard's "romance" will more likely be the talk out of most things that happened in Luke Cage Season 2, no one would have guessed that his noteworthy role in this season would be a gay subplot.
Poor Shades ends up being the victim of horrible lazy writing in Luke Cage Season 2.
All season he had his actions and motivations downplayed as merely the actions of a lovesick puppy trying to impress his lady (Mariah Dillard/Stokes) with a homosexual relationship with his former prison mate, Comanche, hinted at between the lines of a homosexual relationship between the two. I know I'm not the only one who caught that throughout the course of the season as it's pointed out in one conversation between Comanche and Shades that they were "lovers" in prison, but Shades merely brushes it off as comforts of the circumstance. Between juggling his extreme loyalty to Mariah and his "friendship" to Comanche, Shades' insecurities led him to kill his own best friend and frame the murder on one of Misty Knight's fellow officers who also died at the scene of the crime. It didn't take much for Misty Knight to get a confession out of him in order to save his own skin when Mariah Dillard was getting locked away. To say that guy spent all of this time embedded into Mariah's servitude as part of her "empire" of sorts, it didn't take much to make him sing like a bird to save his own skin once shit hit the fan. To be fair, this was one of the better "sexual identity/discovery" subplots on one of these superhero TV dramas, but ultimately ends in the same Hollywood cliches with the homosexual partner ending up dead and nothing really resolved on that front, leaving audiences wondering "what if?" after it's all said and done.
How the mighty have fallen... Shades was one of the best written characters in Season 1 and they just fucked him all to hell here. By this point, I felt that Shades should have had some higher goals for himself instead of being content on being a lackey.
Trish's journey in Season 2 to get superpowers seemed more like after-school special "Don't Do Drugs" PSA than anything positive. It just painted the picture that she was always jealous that Jessica had powers and never really wanted them, but she did out of envy.
Jessica Jones Season 2 content involving Trish Walker that led to her getting superpowers that were "teased" at the end of that season was a little in bad taste I felt.
I understand that Trish did it to help protect Jessica Jones at first. Later on, it turns into an addiction that turns into an obsession to have what Jessica has. I thought they already did the redemption story on the consequences of drug abuse with Malcolm in the last season while Trish gets caught up doing the exact opposite here. If they are going to make Trish a heroine off the result of her drug addiction then that's going to rub a lot of people the wrong way in my honest opinion.
The filler/unnecessary baggage that each of these shows (except for Iron Fist Season 2, which only spanned 10 episodes) to stretch out to justify that episode order of 13 episodes.
This unnecessary baggage hurts both seasons of Luke Cage more than it hurts the other two series as let's be honest, there's not that much compelling storytelling nor action on his end of the spectrum on this side of the MCU. How many times can we just watch him stand still and shrug off bullets and just throw guys to the ground like they were nothing? Or the off chance of him getting drugged and getting his ass kicked? At least Bushmaster spiced things up a few times in Season 2, but the bulk of the action in Luke Cage is poor.
The Ugly
Narrative across the board is still muddled. No cohesive thread/bond like found in the feature films. Each show is written as if there's no regard nor recognition that the same outcomes and themes are recycled in show to show.
At this stage, there's NO excuse for this, especially when all of this stuff is supposed to be "connected" in a sense. The more people say that the more it's lost in translation when it comes to these Marvel Netflix properties.
Every single one of these shows have fallen into the same pattern and it's infuriating that the writers and more people in general haven't picked up on this.
The obligatory sex scene in the first six episodes to justify the R-rating on Netflix
Everything in the first half serves as either filler or fluff to build up to a catch-22 twist at the halfway point of the season where everything and anything hits the fan to set the stage for the last act
Season Finale serves as climax against the season's "final boss" of sorts while providing an epilogue to explain and elaborate on everything that either didn't make sense, wrap up loose ends, and/or tease the next season on what's to come. i.e. Pretty much dumbs down last episode of the season as "let's just try to wrap everything up SAW style with details you might have missed to make us look smart" but not really because it's lazy writing
Insert random super-powered obstacle or villain that we're going to drag out motivations that has family ties/prior relationship to main cast
BS filler until roughly Episodes 6-9
Oh and cameo from other Netflix hero/minor-cast member (optional)
I KNOW I can't be the only one who has picked up onto this pattern... It drives me nuts to no end in terms of frustration to see that EVERY SINGLE ONE of these Marvel Netflix shows follow the same patterns and tropes, honestly to the same effect. It paints the picture to me from series to series and season to season that the writers aren't watching each others' shows and a lot of this is recycling and rehashing the same territory. Y'know how people complain about how many times Spider-Man/Batman movies and cartoons have been rebooted and/or remade over the years? That's how it feels here. It's like almost no one looks at what came before and just throwing shit against the wall to see what works.
Closing Thoughts
We still have Daredevil Season Three to hold out for in terms of hope that the Marvel Netflix end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe spectrum could turn things around. There's times where I'm watching these shows and wondering if they should even continue them in this state if they are going to continue rehashing the same material over and over with different players (namely a new villain of the month). That series drops within the span of the next couple of days, so we'll see whether or not that my opinions will change on this matter after the devils of Daredevil Season 3.
