Headscratchers / Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Headscratchers is for post-viewing discussion and is thus Spoilers Off. Beware of unmarked spoilers.

Why is Scorpion armed and dangerous at the Raft

• So we see from his death scene that Scorpion's stinger can absolutely be removed. It's just a mechanical bit, you can pry it off with a knife. So why, oh why, does the Raft keep him fully armed with his suit, his tail, and his stinger? Loaded with toxin no less.
  • Kraven is operating at an explicitly superhuman level against Scorpion, so it could be that it takes an explicitly superhuman person to get Scorpion's stinger off. Also, in the comics, Scorpion is bonded with the armor and can't take it off, so that could explain why he's left in armor.
    • Metal grinders, metal saws, water jet cutters are all things that exist to slice through metal which I guarantee will do a better job than a knife, no matter how strong the guy wielding that knife is. The notion that no technology possessed by the Raft or the US government cut through Scorpion's tail while a random guy with a knife that's not even implied to be special in manufacture is ludicrous. Like, Scorpion's tail had to be manufactured by someone, which means that person had to cut and machine the parts, which means Scorpion's tail can't be immune to power tools otherwise it'd never have been fabricated.
  • Perhaps it hasn't been removed due to being an actual part of Scorpion's body and it is illegal to "maim an inmate" for any reason.

Why wouldn't Rio help Peter?

• Why is Rio comfortable using her mayoral status to keep Miles out of trouble at school, but not Peter?
  • I would imagine that since Miles is her son, she feels more obligated to out of instinct since she's closer with him.
  • The bigger question is why not help Peter get a research job? In the comics, he couldn't make money from marketing his web fluid because he didn't want to compromise his Secret Identity. Just say he made a formula similar to Spider-Man's webbing and help him set up as an independent researcher to find its applications. She could essentially get the city to pay him to be Spider-Man. All Peter would have to do is to not make any regular web fluid or new gadgets at the lab.
  • I do agree that since Miles is her son she'd be more instinctually inclined to protect Miles. However, in none of the games has she ever been referred to as the Mayor, but rather just a City Councilwoman so there are probably limits to what she's able to do in order to help Peter to keep his job. Also, Miles is still a minor while Peter isn't so he has to figure out how to adult for himself while Miles is still 17 and can kind of get away with helping him to that degree.
  • Rio is a City Council member, not the Mayor. Going off of real life, she's one of 51 members of the New York City Council. To get Peter hired, even as an independent researcher, that'd likely have to go through City Council, which takes time, not only to create the actual position but for review and voting. Given that a chunk of his work history is working for the man who orchestrated a terrorist attack on New York, he'd be in for some awkward questions about what he knew when he was working for Octavius.

Does Mysterio have real superpowers?

• Does this universe's Mysterio actually have the superpower of illusion projection? Because in the final cutscene of his side mission, he's able to pull off some pretty impressive parlor tricks that go beyond mere special effects.
  • If you're referring to him seemingly teleporting, it's not that big a stretch to imagine he has some sort of invisibility cloaking device which he just combined with some sort of light effect. We already know that sort of technology exists, Silver Sable used it to hide her ship in the Silver Lining expansion pack from the first game, and the Hunters regularly use it on their tech in this very game.

Where are the other heroes?

• Where were the Avengers during the 3rd act? One would think that an Alien Invasion would at least draw their notice.
  • Probably busy fighting something else. The Avengers don't just protect New York, they travel all over the world to handle different threats, since they have the means to do that. In Spider-Man Unlimited Infinity #5, where 616-Peter and Insomniac-Peter meet directly, Insomniac-Peter mentions that the Avengers are "always gone", so this is probably a regular occurrence.
    • What about the Fantastic Four and X-Men? Pretty convenient for all three major superhero teams to be absent at the exact same time.
    • If we go by the comics around the game's development, it's very likely the mutants are doing mutant stuff far away in Krakoa. And the Fantastic Four are adventurers. They might be fighting aliens in the 5th dimension or something.
  • Maybe everyone was still in Nepal, and Dr. Strange and Wong are the first to get back?
    • I don't think "everyone" was in Nepal. Wong's note was probably referring to Kamar-Taj (implying the game's Kamar-Taj is in Nepal like the MCU's instead of Tibet like in the comics) rather than some multi-team crisis.
  • Doesn't the whole Symbiote invasion occur in about a day or two? It's entirly possible that the Avengers were in the middle of a crisis on the other side of the Earth and can't get back in time, as for the New York based heroes it's entirely possible they were doing their part, just that they were in different parts of the city to where Peter and Miles were, the Spiders knew where to go because they knew what was going on, since it never occured to them to reach out, the other heroes didn't know where to be the most effective, and just tackled Symbiotes near whereever they were.
  • On that note, most of New York's local heroes that aren't part of the Avengers or X-men are street-level in power and would not survive a 1v1 with Venom. The only one who comes close to Peter and Miles is Daredevil, and given we can find his seemingly abandoned legal office during the game, he's clearly dealing with problems of his own at the moment. The best Luke Cage and the others can probably do is indeed just focus on taking out Symbiote mooks and protecting civilians.
• With all of the above information, we might be able to come to the conclusion that the Avengers generally designate Spider-Man as the "local garrison" who normally stays in New York, allowing the rest of the higher-tier heroes to handle stuff abroad or offworld. Venom, despite his plans for global infestation, only managed to become a city-level threat. Had he managed to successfully defeat Peter and Miles, and then spread his Symbiote infection beyond the bounds of New York City, then might have been the point where he would've been necessitated some or all of the team to drop what they're doing and rush home to put him down. Ironically, this probably saved Harry's life, as otherwise he would've almost certainly been killed by whoever was sent to fight Venom.

Why didn't Peter give Harry Anti-Venom?

• Harry's livelihood is one of Peter's top priorities throughout the game. So in the game's falling action, why did Peter never consider giving Harry his Anti-Venom suit, or at least a portion, after it survived the meteorite's destruction? The Anti-Venom suit is explicitly established as having all of the benefits of the original Venom suit, with none of the corruptive hive-mind voices that caused concern. It seems strange that only Miles even attempted to try and use his powers to resuscitate Harry, with him reasonably admitting he didn't know if it could work. Even if Peter couldn't remove his suit, which isn't addressed as a possibility without a mind of its own, he's witnessed that Venom could infect others with his own touch.
  • It's probably because it wouldn't have been enough to save him to the point it would've been futile. When Harry had his Agent Venom suit, the Symbiote was comparable in size to Peter and Miles's costumes, but by the time Peter broke free of it after it bonded with him, all that it absorbed of course made Harry become Venom when it reattached itself, who is enormous. Since the Anti-Venom Suit is just regular sized, it might not have been enough to repair the toll taken on Harry.
  • Also, Peter seemed to be quite faithful in the "new cure" that Norman was working on, and symbiote medicine has had a track record of being... volatile at worst and suspect at best. Peter probably wouldn't want to give the Anti-Venom suit for fear of this suit also having negative effects upon Harry since the suit is still somewhat unknown.
  • There wasn't anything to suggest that the Anti-Venom suit has the same healing properties as the original Venom symbiote. It has the same fighting powers as Venom and is super effective on other symbiotes, but it still gets torn up like any other suit during the final battle, which the Venom symbiote never did.
  • It's possible he doesn't know how. He wasn't able to transfer back the Venom symbiote, and while that likely was partially due to it not wanting to go back to Harry, the point stands that Peter never successfully transfers a symbiote to someone else. The only person we see capable of doing that was Harry himself, and he's obviously not able to teach Peter how to transfer it in his current state.

Symbiote camouflage

• Why don't the Venom symbiote or Anti-Venom suit give Peter his own camouflage ability? That is a power symbiotes grant their hosts.
  • This is likely one of the differences between the comic and video game symbiotes, much like how Insomniac's Venom isn't shown to be weak to fire like the Earth-616 variant. Additionally, not many adaptations portray the symbiotes with that ability to begin with.

Fireproof symbiotes

• Why are symbiotes fireproof?
  • They have to survive getting through a planet's atmosphere and not burn up in the process.
  • Also in all the Spider-Man games thus far, there tends to be a lot of explosions, it'd be kind of anti-climatic if Venom were to be all like "Argh! Fiery explosions, my one weakness!" Or I guess it's other weakness.
  • From an out-of-universe reason, the writers felt it was simply easier to pare down the symbiote's weaknesses to just sonic waves for simplicity's sake

Midtown prank tailored to Spider-Man

• In the senior prank mission of Brooklyn Visions, how did the Midtown kids expect anyone BUT Spider-Man to be able to find Lance with the way they set things up?
  • Two reasons that I can think of. One, that was probably the point. Midtown thought that they came up with an elaborate scheme so diabolical that only Spidey could have solved it because they were going to mess up Lance anyway once they were shown to be the superior school. Or two, Brooklyn Visions is a school for gifted students so they figured someone, anyone from BV would have been smart enough with enough gung-ho to possibly solve it, since they refer to Spider-Man as "cheating."

When Harry met Ganke

• If you look closely, the drone launchers used in the second mission ("One Thing At A Time") have the EMF logo on them. That in mind, how did Ganke miss that the CEO is the son of Oscorp's CEO despite talking to him directly?
  • In fairness, at that point, Ganke and Harry had never met, and the EMF wasn't really a part of the narrative yet, so it was likely that Ganke talked to a secretary who probably routed him to Harry without really putting any kind of significance to how those two had a conversation.

Boricua Suit

• The Boricua Suit is given to Miles by Brooklyn Visions as a gift after finishing all their sidequests. It's a really nice gesture and the suit looks cool, but what gets me is the Puerto Rican flag on it. If the students don't know Miles is one of the Spider-Men, how exactly did they know he was part Puerto Rican if they've never seen him unmasked? Did Hailey or Ganke say something?
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation. Or maybe Spider-Miles has accidentally let it slip that he's Puetro Rican at some point.
  • Miles has been known to slip some Spanish into his quips, along with showing strong connections to his neighbourhood, even while in costume, it's possible, being that it's a school for the gifted, they probably made the connection.

Why does MJ look older?

• She's a regular human, working a stressful job, and having to worry about Spider-Pete's (and to lesser extent Spider-Miles) health and well-being. She's also sneaking about to "Get the scoop" on possibly breaking stories, and also being employed by 3J. Yeah, all of that is going to wear and tear on the body.
• In real life her face model was in a bad car wreck and needed multiple reconstructive surgeries.

Why does Kraven hate Chameleon?

• Why does Kraven hate Chameleon enough to want him dead? I get that Kraven doesn't care about the rest of his family, but even by his standards, such enmity towards his half-brother seems a bit extreme.
  • It's likely that Chameleon was also subject to the Kravinoff clan's Darwinist mindset, and Kraven probably decided at one point to see if his brother, his hunting partner, would be badass enough to put him down. Chameleon likely instead decided he was having none of that business and fled, permanently terminating what little familial bond they still had.
  • Also, since Chameleon is "only a half-brother," his enmity could also just simply stem from the fact that he's not a "pure-blooded Kravinoff" since one of Chameleon's parents isn't the same as his parents are.
    • This is pretty close to why their situation is the way it is in the comics. Kraven accused his father of dishonoring his mother by remarrying, so by extension, he wasn't fond of Chameleon. Chameleon is also notably not a fighter, he's dangerous because of his skills as an actor, and given Kraven's characterization, it makes sense why he wouldn't be a fan of that.

Why is MJ so open about her relationship with Spider-Man?

• There are a lot of points in the story that raise a few eyebrows with how open MJ is, but the ending is especially egregious. She's propping up Peter with Miles next to her in plain view of Norman Osborn. Norman not only knows MJ, but is also aware of her relationship with Peter. You have to wonder why Norman didn't interrogate her for Spider-Man's identity, or even how he hasn't realized it himself.
  • To be fair, with the last example, it's not that out of the question for her to be there. Harry's one of her best friends, of course she'd want to help. Even if it is a little questionable that she's there helping the Spider-Men, Norman's focus is scattered during that scene, because he's freaking out about Harry. He's not in a state where he'd be able to think about the implications of the situation.
  • Additionally, it's never a smart move for a civilian like pre-Goblin Norman to play hostage-taking with the loved ones of a hero with Super-Strength and punch their Berserk Button hard enough to make them toss The One Rule out the window. Spider-Man in particular generally doesn't react well to that scenario. On top of that, Norman considers Peter a second son and probably doesn't want to even think about the possibility of him being Spider-Man, because then he'd be losing one son to avenge another.

So why didn’t Venom just do this?

• We know from Scream that he can just infect people by touching them and turn them into symbiote hosts. Okay, so why the didn’t he do so for Harry before Peter were separated? Peter was a jerk at that point but he did still want Harry to survive. Doing so would’ve ingratiated itself to Peter even more and Peter would use it as proof that the symbiote is better for all of them. Look at how it helped Harry too! How could they want him to take the suit off?
  • The symbiote didn't start infecting others until after Harry willingly rebonded with it. Doctor Connors later mentions that the bond is so strong that Harry would need to be killed to destroy the symbiote, so it's possible a certain level of bond with the symbiote is needed to start spreading. It's just that it didn't manage to get to that point with Peter.

Why did the Symbiote start out so docile?

Similarly to the above, Venom seemed uncharacteristically content to be Harry's life support and bio-armor for most of the game's second act. Additionally, the symbiote was apparently docile throughout all of the acclimation process Harry underwent during the first game. Even Spider-Man's presence only made the symbiote mildly erratic at worst, with it following Harry's commands in combat up until it apparently chose to interpret "save Peter's life" as an invitation to switch hosts. Venom clearly figured out early on that Peter was a much more interesting host than Harry, but didn't do anything substantial about it until a convenient excuse was provided. And even then, it merely twisted Peter into a more antiheroic (and antisocial) mindset, rather than instantly seizing control and going wild.

• Considering how it only began acting seriously aggressive when it came in contact with the meteorite it came in on, it might be due to the symbiote finally remembering what it was supposed to do on the new planet. Meaning that when it crash-landed on earth, it got quite the hit on its noggin and spent the whole time amnesiac with its original mission forgotten. Until it saw the stone and started remembering things again, as that is the point its hosts started acting much more defensive/aggressive.
• We also can't rule out the possibility of Venom being sedated by drugs. We know Harry's health was being closely monitored and that he was on a strict diet, and while he wasn't seen taking medication while wearing the symbiote, we do see him taking pills while separated. It's possible that part of his medication was crafted by Connors to subdue the symbiote. Since Peter obviously isn't taking Harry's medicine, the symbiote becoming more aggressive could be indicative of the sedatives wearing off over the following days and Venom more literally "waking up".
  • Given that Harry's first Venom form was Agent Venom, and if I recall correctly, this is what Flash and the military initially used to control Venom, that's where my mind went, there's also the theory that fresh from the tank, new lease on life Harry simply lacked the darkness to really fuel Venom's fires, while mess of doubts and self-hate Peter had plenty, then Harry, having suffered a sharp turn for the worse in his condition, now had the rage Venom needed.

Venom's size

• What is the potential reasoning for Venom being so massive after fully bonding with Harry? Harry is roughly the same size as Peter, but when the symbiote bonds with the former, he's gigantic. This also doesn't occur with any of the citywide symbiotes that Venom creates out of various civilians. In the comics, the symbiote's size tended to correlate to the host, and Eddie Brock, the most iconic Venom host, was a bodybuilder with the physique of a strongman, which explained why his incarnation of Venom was always the size of a large refrigerator.
  • Actually the Symbiote Brutes are much larger than their hosts, indeed it's been a week or so since I finished the game but I believe, even the normal Symbiotes are taller than their hosts, furthermore I believe even in the comics, and certainly in the movie, Venom does still provide a noticeable boost in size, which is why he tends to be similar in size and shape to Hulk; Eddie's big, he's not that big, honestly the question's more why Peter retains his body shape when bonded.
  • Alien Behemoths are basically Degraded Boss versions of Venom with the same build despite containing normal humans, and Shriek is likewise much larger than Mary Jane. It seems these giant forms are just standard templates for symbiote beasts, which is understandable since they have no problem generating additional mass.
  • We learn that Symbiotes feed off of negative emotions, so perhaps their size is tied to how strong those emotions are in the host.
    
    Initially, whilst bonded, Harry was full of happiness and joy about his second chance at life, there wasn't much negativity for the symbiote to latch onto, perhaps only his sadness about his mother's passing, so the suit was only a little bigger than his own body.
    
    When he gets it back, however, he's not quite so cheery. He's dying, he's feeling useless to his friends. He's just had Peter, his best friend, yelling at him and MJ about how he's the hero. Peter won't give him the suit, which he needs to live, and on top of that, he's just heard his own father telling Peter he's like a son to him. So he's got a *lot* of negative emotions. So there's a lot for the suit to feed off of and thus grow larger.
    
    As for why Peter didn't grow any larger... When he's bonded, he's likely using the suit's biomass instead of his webshooters, so every swing through the city or gadget used in a fight or hunter tied up and hung from a girder is removing the excess size.

Easily forgiven Tombstone

• It's great that Tombstone is apparently so sincere about his rehabilitation, and I get that Spider-Man is a relentlessly positive force for good who is willing to go out on a limb for people, even his former enemies, but he's guilty of some pretty serious crimes. We saw him beat a man to death in the previous game, while also trafficking in deadly narcotics that essentially turned users into low-level super soldiers. However strongly one believes in rehabilitation for criminals, isn't two years an awfully short turnaround time for someone with Tombstone's record? Murderous drug kingpins don't usually get two years in jail, followed by parole.
  • Parole plus community service, also almost certainly with the caveat that Lonnie is not allowed to even give the time of day to any of his old gang goons or be in the same room as chemistry equipment. It's also possible he sold Grave Dust's formula to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury used some pull to reduce his sentence. On top of all this, it's entirely possible that Tombstone is under house arrest when not at work. The Hunters likely tore off whatever monitoring equipment he was wearing to prevent the police from locating him.
  • He might have made a plea deal. His underworld ties would likely have given him lots of valuable information he can bargain with, and his durability may mean he's less worried about reprisal for doing so.

Why "Venom"?

• The name Venom in both the comics and in the meta makes a kind of sense. For the comics, Eddie Brock used it because he hated his new job working for Tabloids spewing "venom" all over them. For the meta, its a fun play on how spiders use Venom to kill. The same way that Venom is a dark consequence/challenge for Peter Parker. By how did the symbiote and Harry settle on using the name Venom in this universe? Did I miss what their reason for it was?
  • After Kraven stabs Peter he says Spider-Man is "not as venomous as they say." At that point you can just imagine the rest was history.
  • The symbiote has the research designation "VNM-252", which could easily be pronounced as "venom" by researchers (after all, they have the "whimsy" to call "GR-27" Devil's Breath).
  • Over the course of Harry's deterioration from his declining health after the symbiote leaves him for Peter, his jealousy and resentment gradually bubble to the surface and give way to full-blown malice and spite, or in other words, venom.

Suit damage

• How is Peter's regular Spidey-suit completely undamaged upon separation from the symbiote?

Harry's Symbiote Memories

• When Harry becomes Venom, it's implied that the Symbiote takes over his mind and leaves him dormant within itself, as indicated by his confusion and horror in the final battle. Yet, Harry himself appears in his human form to MJ and Peter at May's house, and seems to have embraced the symbiote being part of him. Why is the portrayal so inconsistent?