History Headscratchers / SpiderManPS4

----

[[folder: Main story]]

* How and more importantly where did Peter Parker pick up his clearly-trained martial arts abilities in this game? Not only does Peter fight with clear, well-practiced and actual RealLife martial arts techniques, but the directors of the game have gone on record to state that this Peter is actually proficient in Capoeira and La Lucahdores Wrestling (in addition to the obvious self taught Le Parkour Free Running).

** Clearly he has a lot of control over how much strength he puts into any given motion. If he were naturally clumsy, he'd be breaking his phone and ripping his clothing all the time. Being as strong as he is didn't recalibrate what he thinks of as a "normal" amount of a strength, it just greatly increased the maximum force he's capable of using. He's much stronger, but he never has a moment of "not knowing his own strength."

* How can certain characters (i.e Mr. Negative, Taskmaster, Scorpion, Vulture, [[spoiler: Doctor Octopus]] etc. Take so many ''punches''?

** Norman Osborn consistently fails to take basic, common sense safety measures (like not putting dangerous research labs in Manhattan). At a few points people point this out, but he's too arrogant and unconcerned about others to take that to heart.
* When [[spoiler: the prisoners escape]], why don't they ditch their orange jumpsuits for normal clothes as soon as possible? I'm willing to bet most of them aren't eager to be going back, so why are they making themselves easy to identify and recapture? All it would take is one robbery of a department store to have regular clothing and be able blend back in to society.

** Also consider the particular limitations of most street-level heroes (Spidey being probably the top end of what a street-level hero can do, bridging the gap to Avenger level stuff) - people like Daredevil and Luke Cage can't move as fast as Spidey can across the city, for instance, and so while they might be around, it's likely that they're helping at a more local level and/or organizing as a support structure for Spidey where he takes the lead (off-screen) since he's the expert on the situation. After all, it's not like it'd be always practical to have a team meeting while a crisis is happening. (This not being represented in the game comes down to [[MST3KMantra problems with licensing, disc space, resource creation and sheer time and pacing]].)

** Possibly Norman Osborn's insistence that he has the situation under control keeps the Governor/President from activating the National Guard. Legally they might have the power but as NYC mayor and politically active oligarch Norman might be able to slow that down. [[spoiler: After the Devil's Breath is released the quarantine would keep everyone out, though the National Guard/Army might be enforcing it from the other side.]]

* That said: why the hell isn't there a much bigger Federal presence after the City Hall bombing, and with the Demons on the loose? Now, yes, this does have an answer (the need to keep the cast small enough to keep track of, and once again a non-desire to put Spidey at potential odds with actual government agents) but especially since the game is set in New York City, another terrorist act in NYC in TheNewTens would result in the city being ''swarmed'' with Federal agents and authorities, and if things got any worse, really, the National Guard should be in force.

* Why, exactly, does this version of Norman Osborn have a beef with Spidey? While having a vigilante running around doesn't look great (since it says the police can't handle things), Spider-Man isn't a threat and shares many enemies with Osborn. JJJ has apparently been ranting against the Oscorp surveillance system and raising (very legit) concerns about Norman's use of his office to help Oscorp. Mr Negative and the Demons are openly out to destroy Osborn.[[spoiler: Doc Ock is similarly motivated by a vendetta against Norman.]] Despite this, Norman has the Sable Agents focus on Spider-man rather than on the people trying to ruin and/or murder him. This seems personal and beyond just needing a scapegoat.

** Also from a pure political sense, he might be fine with Spidey in private but publically has to at least pretend to do something. At the heart, Spidey still is a vigilante and can potentially cause damage, at least to structures, which costs money. Can't be mayor if you don't get votes and I could imagine at least a little bit of a platform of "Spidey should at least be SOMEWHAT accountable" would grab enough votes.
* Where was the Shocker after Spider-Man arrested him? He’s not present at the Raft break-out (and Yuri confirmed that everyone at Raft has already broken out) when he could’ve been a useful ally for Doctor Octopus, but he basically disappeared from the plot the moment Spider-Man arrested him.

* In the last act, Spider-Man is severely injured by Doctor Octopus to the point that he can't even walk, and it requires Dr. Michael, Silver Sable, and the people at FEAST to heal him up. The question is, how did they do all that without actually removing Spider-Man's costume to look at the wounds? He definitely received some nasty head blows when Doc Ock curb stomped him, so his head undoubtedly needs to be checked. I know, if they remove his mask, then everyone at F.E.A.S.T. would know Spider-Man's true identity, but still... how'd they manage to heal him back to a functional state without actually checking him up thoroughly?

* "Need a date to the policeman's ball?" Are these actually a thing? Cause Yuri, when playing ball with Spidey's flirting, seems to indicate so. This is not a thing I have heard of. On a side note, I can totally picture Yuri taking Spidey to one just to fuck with her co-workers.

* Peter is shocked to find that the villain at the end of one of the side missions is... ''Screwball''! Okay. A) The plot of the mission was you taking "the Screwball Challenge", and B) She's been talking to you this entire time via phone. There should have been absolutely no mystery about who was behind this, Peter. Why are you surprised?

* Why does Oscorp keep a live sample of the Devil's breath around? With all the tech they could just store it digitally, on a massively secure, air-gapped server, and never have to worry about it some how infecting anything, allowing them to do digital experiments till they perfect it as a cure and not a toxin. As opposed you know having an easily stolen, live sample around?
** Harry's diary states he's being prepped for treatment with Devil's Breath. Presumably the live sample is somehow involved in that, or the destructive failings of it only became apparent in live tests on animals.
** Could also be that re-building the sample would be expensive. It's still being worked on. Besides, it's sort of a massive plot point that anything having to deal with Harry's cure is sort of a massive obsession of Norman's that blinds him to safety/ethical concerns (See also: Martin Li's incident). It's perfectly in character for Norman to refuse to have the sample disposed if their might be delays to have it recreated when/if needed to save Harry.

** He never claims to be going after Norman because of TheNeedsOfTheMany, he and Martin simply say they want him to face justice. They also view his political corruption to be a blight on the city, perhaps in their own minds this justifies their actions but it's pretty clear their motivations are entirely selfish ones. The other characters and story only treat him sympathetically in that they know he started out as a good and brilliant man, who could have done great things for the world with his intellect, before his ideas were stolen by Norman, he discovered he had a debilitating disease and the neural interface drove him insane. This is what motivates Peter to try and reach him at the start but by the end of the story Peter is severely disillusioned with him, disgusted at his waste of potential and has all but turned his back on him.
** His motives are also based in jealousy, as he keeps trying to do things the "right" way, while Norman keeps getting away with his corrupt methods. Everything he did for Oscorp, and he was bought out for a relatively small amount of money and no claim to anything he might have done while there. Norman keeps rising, and he's stuck where he started or worse.

** Hidden in plain sight before the Sinister Six are revealed, screens in the lab show the development of all the villains suits as Octavius worked on them, specifically Vulture's miniature jet engine and the injection tip of Scorpion's tail. Peter asks Electro where he got the new suit; it's not hard to think that Doc Ock made upgrades to all their suits prior to the breakout, and that Scorpion's tail has some aspects of the new prosthesis intergraded in it.
* What is the purpose of the anti-Ock suit? Peter claims he knows all the tentacles weaknesses and that the suit helps but you fight Ock the same way you fight anyone. Dodge, web, punch. Throw shit back at him. There doesn't seem to be any weakness exploiting going on.
** Ock built his main suit, so right off the bat this armor is not Ock's design. Secondly it's just armored and likely reinforces key parts of his suit.

** Replaying the game, it is clear that Mr. Li didn't know that Peter Parker and Spider-Man were the same person. When he traps Spider-Man in the Negative Realm he mocks Spider-Man for not showing up, despite everyone at FEAST knowing Peter was there and him getting injuried trying to help. What Li DID know was Peter helping his girlfriend Mary Jane investigating his Demon Gang. As far as he knew and cared the two of them were Nancy Drewing him independent of Spider-Man.
* Why does MJ's Spider Plushy have a white logo? Until shortly after the start of game he wore the traditional suit with the black logo; how can there already be toys made resembling the new suit?
** Because Insomniac is really proud of that Suit and treat it as Canon whenever they can. The Octavius designing the suit cut-scene only shows up the first time you play the game, when you +game it (and with they hope the Advanced Suit from the beginning and throughout) Spider just goes to the showing-off the Suit cutscene. There are after that a handful of scenes where Spider-Man shows up on TV in cut-scenes, and he is always in the Advanced Suit. Kind of the same thing with it showing up as a Plushie in a cutscene.
** Maybe she bought it in the game store just north of the Empire State Building -- if you look inside you see a shelf of Spider-Man plushies with a distinctive white spider on the front.
** The visit to MJ's apartment is quite late in the storyline and there are a couple of timeskips, at least 1 week after the city hall bombing so there's sometime for the plushie manufacturers to make the new design.
* Given that the fast travel is entirely based on the New York subway system (and entering them does open the fast travel menu) why aren't the subway stations fast travel points?
** Because then there would be like 50 of them. One per Area is surely enough--The Game is still about swinging after all.
* Based on what you see if you watch an enemy fall after being knocked off a rooftop it seems that the fail-safe Spidey uses to save them is based of the trip mine. With this in mind two questions come up. One: why could they be used before the trip mines were made available? And two: how could the fail safe save the Sable guys in the armour that neutralizes all the Spider Gadgets?
** In game, if you Perfect Dodge an enemy that had anti-webbing ability you could web them while their faces were covered. So maybe being in freefall for too long deactivates that suit ability?

** Li has a personal fortune? I can't say about Shocker but the demon gang don't actually need the money, they're just heistimg everything to cause unrest, undermine law & order and causes mayhem to make the Mayor look bad when he can't stop them. There's also a certain amount of segregation between the main story and the side quests.

* When Li was exposed as the Demon's leader after the City Hall attack, why did no one tell Aunt May? You think she would be the first person the police talk to.

*** Actually when he's looking around just before the bombing Peter ''did'' see Li, he just wasn't knocked out. Meanwhile Miles actually didn't see Li, Li called out to his men from a distance and Miles was focused first on the guy about to kill him, then on the corpse of his dad, aft GCT he specifically mentions contemplating quitting when he found out, if he'd seen Li he'd never have agreed to work for FEAST.

** The science labs were a pet project of Harry and his mother. Harry's mother is dead, and by the time the game opens, Harry is unconscious in suspended animation in Norman's lab. No one else knows that Harry sent the messages to Peter Parker, and if Harry wakes up in a sequel then he probably will put 2 and 2 together.
* It's well established that webbing only lasts an hour or so before turning into powder, unless Peter loads specialized webfluid. How can there still be webbed-up backpacks from years ago? And don't go telling me that in this universe webbing lasts forever, because that is provably false.
** In-universe: He must have used special long lasting webbing. For some of the backpacks, he obviously intentionally left them there long term (Sandman), but most he seemed to genuinely forget he'd left them there. The real answer is, of course, Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation, the game wanted collectibles whether or not they make sense.

* In ''Silver Lining'', Peter's plan to catch Screwball is to ambush her at the subscriber milestone party and needs Miles to find the location when he eventually realized that she would only reveal the location to her subscribers. Why didn't he just subscribe himself, as Peter Parker? It would bring her 1 subscriber closer to her goal, so she'd throw the party and he'd have a window to track her down and, as she doesn't know who's behind the mask, it'd ensure she'd send him the location herself (if memory serves the goal is 50 million + subscribers so it's not like it'd be a major risk to his secret ID). Honestly it feels like they just wanted something to make you take time off the screwball plot line and give Miles something to do.

** the visit to MJ's apartment is quite late in the storyline and there are a couple of timeskips, at least 1 week after the city hall bombing so there's sometime for the plushie manufacturers to make the new design.

** Li wasn't exposed after the city hall attacks. Only spidey saw him and he only told MJ and Yuri. May clearly does know after the GCT attack though when Li is jailled.

* how does doing the science lab missions not blow Peter's secret identity? He does them and is noticed doing them as Spider-Man as per JJJ's podcast. But Harry gave Peter the codes to the labs, and presumably he's making the case for keeping them as Peter. It wouldn't take much to put 2 and 2 together there.

* Have Spider-Man and Hammerhead met before in this continuity or not? I played the entire game but I couldn't find anything either confirming or denying whether Spidey knows him in any way besides by reputation.

* How and more importantly where Peter Parker would pick up his clearly-trained martial arts abilities in this game? Not only does Peter fight with clear, well practiced and actual RealLife martial arts techniques, but the directors of the game have gone on record to state that this Peter is actually proficient in Capoeira and La Lucahdores Wrestling (in addition to the obvious self taught Le Parkour Free Running).
** In Ultimate Spider-Man he was asked by a heroic Triad vigilante why he does not possess refined combat techniques, to which Peter answers “I would LIKE to not fight like a mental-patient; but if I go to a Dojo, with my strength I will definitely hurt people during training.” Ever the NiceGuy, Peter for the last 50 years refuses to learn martial arts so he would never worry about potentially hurting classmates. So, without a proper teacher, much less a Wu-Guan/Dojo/Gym with training partners to practice with, how the heck does Peter Parker in the [=PlayStation=] Four Universe become such a precise, skilled and elegant martial artist trained in proper Capoeira and La Lucahdores wrestling and even a bit of boxing?
** The only logical explanation is that he's either self taught by watching instructional videos or has had one of his superpowered ilk teach him over the years.

** New York is a pretty diverse place, and Peter had already been Spider-Man for at least eight years when the game begins. That's plenty of time and opportunity to learn formal martial arts. Also, the [=PS4=] game is in a distinctly different setting from Ultimate Spider-Man, so Ultimate Peter's motivations don't necessarily carry over to the game Peter.

** The DLC clears up this mystery. Spider-Man tells Sable he learned to fight by watching movies.

* Why, exactly, does this version of Norman Osborn have a beef with Spidey? While having a vigilante running around doesn't look great (since it says the police can't handle things) Spider-man isn't a threat and shares many enemies with Osborn. JJJ has apparently been ranting against the Oscorp surveillance system and raising (very legit) concerns about Norman's use of his office to help Oscorp. Mr Negative and the Demons are openly out to destroy Osborn.[[spoiler: Doc Ock is similarly motivated by a vendetta against Norman.]] Despite this, Norman has the Sable Agents focus on Spider-man rather than on the people trying to ruin and/or murder him. This seems personal and beyond just needing a scapegoat.

* In the last act, Spider-Man is severely injured by Doctor Octopus to the point that he can't even walk, and it requires Dr. Michael, Silver Sable, and the people at FEAST to heal him up. The question is, how did they do all that without actually removing Spider-Man's costume to look at the wounds? He definitely received some nasty head blows when Doc Ock curb stomped him, so his head undoubtedly needs to be checked. I know, if they remove his mask, then everyone at FEAST would know Spider-Man's true identity, but still...how'd they manage to heal him back to a functional state without actually checking him up thoroughly?

* "Need a date to the policeman's ball?" Are these actually a thing? Cause Yuri, when playing ball with Spidey's flirting, seems to indicate so. This is not a thing I have heard of. On a side note, I can totally picture Yuri taking Spidey to one just to fuck with her co-workers

** It's also an easy set up for Spider-man's black and white suit.

* Peter mentions that he never managed to give his prototype [[TrackingDevice spider-tracer]] a useful effective range. Okay...except that he's planted "tracking dots" on every single backpack he's left webbed up over the years, which we use to track them down now...

-->"I'm sure you and May have nothing to worry about... as long as you stay away from places you're not supposed to be." ''[sicks brainwashed homeless people on Peter]''

*** Li's character bio claims that he was a billionaire shipping magnate before he opened FEAST.

* In Silver Lining Peter's plan to catch Screwball is to ambush her at the subscriber milestone party and needs Miles to find the location when he eventually realized that she would only reveal the location to her subscribers. Why didn't he just subscribe himself, as Peter Parker? It would bring her 1 subscriber closer to her goal, so she'd throw the party and he'd have a window to track her down and, as she doesn't know who's behind the mask, it'd ensure she'd send him the location herself (if memory serves the goal is 50 million + subscribers so it's not like it'd be a major risk to his secret ID). Honestly it feels like they just wanted something to make you take time off the screwball plot line and give Miles something to do.

* In Silver Lining Peter's plan to catch Screwball is to ambush her at the subscriber milestone party and needs Miles to find the location when he eventually realized that she would only reveal the location to her subscribers. Why didn't he just subscribe himself, as Peter Parker? It would bring her 1 subscriber closer to her goal, so she'd throw the party and he'd have a window to track her down and, as she doesn't know who's behind the mask, it'd ensure she'd send him the location herself (if memory serves the goal is 50 million + subscribers so it's not like it'd be a major risk to his secret ID). Honestly it feels like they just wanted something to make you take time off the screwball plot line and give Miles something to do.

** In-universe: He must have used special long lasting webbing. For some of the backpacks, he obviously intentionally left them there long term (Sandman), but most he seemed to genuinely forget he'd left them there. The real answer is, of course, Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation, the game wanted collectibles whether or not they make sense.

* It's well established that webbing only lasts an hour or so before turning into powder, unless Peter loads specialized webfluid. How can there still be webbed-up backpacks from years ago? And don't go telling me that in this universe webbing lasts forever, because that is provably false.

* how does doing the science lab missions not blow Peter's secret identity? He does them and is noticed doing them as Spider-Man as per JJJ's podcast. But Harry gave Peter the codes to the labs, and presumably he's making the case for keeping them as Peter. It wouldn't take much to put 2 and 2 together there.

* A large portion of the mystery could've been solved a lot faster if Mary Jane had done what she does in her two subsequent stealth missions, and taken pictures of the Devil's Breath file back at the art gallery. Then she'd've had the pictures and could've given up the file to the Demons without losing anything. I get it was for story pacing, but why not at least have her try and just find the file was corrupted later or her camera broken in the fight, rather than making her look dumb?

* How come Li doesn't also hold Ock responsible for his accident? He was working with Oscorp at the time, but instead Li not only works with Ock, but acts as a subordinate?

* When Li was exposed as the Demon's leader after the City Hall attack, why did no one tell Aunt May? You think she would be the first person the police talk to.

* Based on what you see if you watch an enemy fall after being knocked off a rooftop it seems that the fail-safe Spidey uses to save them is based of the trip mine. With this in mind two questions come up. One: why could they be used before the trip mines were made available? And two: how could the fail safe save the Sable guys in the armour that neutralizes all the Spider Gadgets?

** Replaying the game, it is clear that Mr. Li didn't know that Peter Parker and Spider-Man was the same person. When he traps Spider-Man in the Negative Realm he mocks Spider-Man for not showing up, despite everyone at FEAST knowing Peter was there and him getting injuried trying to help. What Li DID know was Peter helping his girlfriend Mary Jane investigating his Demon Gang. As far as he knew and cared the two of them were Nancy Drewing him independent of Spider-Man.
* Why does Mj's Spider Plushy have a white logo? Until shortly after the start of game he wore the traditional suit with the Black logo, how can there already be toys made resembling the new suit?
** Because Insomniac are really proud of that Suit and treat it as Canon whenever they can. The Octavius designing the suit cut-scene only show up the first time you play the game, when you +game it (and with they hope the Advanced Suit from the beginning and throughout) Spider just go to the showing-off the Suit cutscene. There are after that a handfull of scenes where Spider-Man show up on TV in cut-scenes, and he is always in the Advanced Suit. Kind of same thing with him showing up in a Plushie in a cutscene.
** Maybe she bought it in the game store just north of the Empire State Building -- if you look inside you see a shelf of Spider-Man plushies with a distinctive White spider on the front.

* Based on what you see if you watch an enemy fall after being knocked off a rooftop it seems that the fail-safe Spidey uses to save them is based of the trip mine. With this in mind two questions come up. One: why could they be used before the trip mines were made available? And two: how could the fail safe save the sable guys in the armour that neutralizes all the Spider Gadgets?

* Am I missing something that was stated about Ock's past? His hatred for Osbourne all stems from how Osborne screwed him out of the money and prestige of their inventions, yet he keeps ranting about how taking Osborne out is TheNeedsOfTheMany, and the story and characters treat him pretty sympathetically, even though his motivations are purely selfish.

* Why, exactly, does this version of Norman Osborne have a beef with Spidey? While having a vigilante running around doesn't look great (since it says the police can't handle things) Spider-man isn't a threat and shares many enemies with Osborne. JJJ has apparently been ranting against the Oscorp surveillance system and raising (very legit) concerns about Norman's use of his office to help Oscorp. Mr Negative and the Demons are openly out to destroy Osborne.[[spoiler: Doc Ock is similarly motivated by a vendetta against Norman.]] Despite this, Norman has the Sable Agents focus on Spider-man rather than on the people trying to ruin and/or murder him. This seems personal and beyond just needing a scapegoat.

** Possibly Norman Osborne's insistence that he has the situation under control keeps the Governor/President from activating the National Guard. Legally they might have the power but as NYC mayor and politically active oligarch Norman might be able to slow that down. [[spoiler: After the Devil's Breath is released the quarantine would keep everyone out, though the National Guard/Army might be enforcing it from the other side.]]

* How can certain characters (i.e Mr. Negative, Taskmaster, Scorpion, Vulture, [[spoiler: Doctor Octavious]] etc. Take so many ''punches''?

** The DLC clears up this mystery. Spider-Man tells Sabel he learned to fight by watching movies.

** the visit to MJ's apartment is quite late in the storyline and there are a couple of timeskips, at least 1 after the city hall bombing so there's sometime for the plushie manufacturers to make the new design.