Spider-Man 2 and the Death of Spider-Cop

There’s a joke in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that, if you’re at all tied into discussions about Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, feels pointed. It comes up during side-plot moments with Wraith, a vigilante who wants Peter Parker’s Spider-Man to help her put an end to a fire-obsessed killer cult. When Spider-Man asks Wraith if she has any tattoos, she quips, “Just the one of Spider-Cop’s gravestone.”

It’s a joke that requires some familiarity with the first Marvel’s Spider-Man. The 2018 game saw Peter constantly working with New York Police Department captain Yuri Watanabe–the character who, after the events of the first game and its DLC, becomes Wraith. When they worked together, Peter often jokingly pretended to be a hardboiled, Dirty Harry-like detective character he called Spider-Cop, much to Yuri’s annoyance. So on the surface, the “Spider-Cop’s gravestone” gag is a callback to their previous close relationship and a dunk on Peter’s dorky sense of humor, while also highlighting the dark turn Yuri has taken since.

Reinventing Character Development in the Sequel

But the death of Spider-Cop also references a larger discussion surrounding the first Spider-Man, and it’s a microcosm of character elements at work in Spider-Man 2. In the first game, Insomniac “turned Spider-Man into a damn cop,” as Deadspin’s Tom Ley put it. But in the sequel, the developer turned that criticism into character development that’s an essential part of the story. And, indirectly, it’s also one of the main reasons that Peter Parker chooses to step away from his superhero role and let Miles Morales take over.

The Transformative Role of NYC Policemen and Other Character Elements

Marvel’s Spider-Man saw Peter working with the NYPD a lot, something that rubbed many players the wrong way. After all, a big part of the character’s deal is the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” the conception of a superhero with close ties to his community. Meanwhile, the NYPD’s history of dealing with that community is, uh, not great, to put it very mildly. Spidey helped the police take on organized crime and break up muggings, but he also assisted in repairing surveillance towers, which echoed actual controversial surveillance technology used by the NYPD. These side quests left an uncomfortable and lingering feeling that Spidey works too closely and uncritically with the police, and had a seemingly pro-cop stance at a time when, in the real world, major protests focused on police brutality and calls for reform were taking place.

Things changed significantly with the Spider-Man games going forward. The Spider-Man: Miles Morales spinoff includes a Black Lives Matter tribute while also almost removing cops altogether–and, as Eliana Dockterman notes in an article for Time, side-steps a lot of the larger discussion in doing so. There are also fewer cops around in Spider-Man 2, with Peter and Miles relying on their own community-focused, Citizen-like app where people can request help from the Spider-Men directly, both for major developments like crimes and disasters, and minor acts of service such as assisting with a school project.

A Different Perspective

In an early mission in which you expand the reach of the app, Insomniac draws a clear line separating it from the surveillance criticisms. When Peter sees that Miles’ friend Ganke wants to use drones as part of the project, he says, “We don’t spy on people.” The moment makes clear that the Spider-Men use a much more privacy friendly system to find out where they’re needed.

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