Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (also known as Sony’s Spider-Man 2, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 PS5, or just plain The Spider-Man Game) is TANTALIZINGLY close but we know almost nothing about the plot! However I’ve seen a lot of fans speculate that Harry Osborn will, alas, probably not make it to a Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 if there is one. Are they right?! Well, let’s weigh up the odds of there soon being yet another Harry death to add to the list, shall we?

Does Harry die in the comics?

My friend, Harry dies in ALL the comics.

He has died twice in the main 616 timeline, and is currently dead in that universe at the time of writing. He also dies in the Ultimate universe and in Spider-Man Life Story. Adaptation-wise he died at the end of Spider-Man 3. And the thread that connects all his deaths is, Harry chooses to save someone else and that leads to his demise. His role in the narrative is to die so someone else might live, one might say. It’s very Shakespearean.

However! A character escaping their role in the narrative makes a great story in itself…

Is Harry already dying in Marvel’s Spider-Man?

If you’ve played the first Spider-Man Playstation game you’ll know that Harry is dying of a genetic illness inherited from his mother. His rich and powerful father Norman (who has not sold his son’s soul to the devil in this version) is doing everything possible to save him from death, but because it’s Norman, this involves some horrifyingly unethical experiments.

Norman has Harry in a tank surrounded by web-like tendrils that are, in fact, the Venom symbiote. So the conjecture Spider-Man fans have made is: in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Harry will bond with the symbiote, become the supervillain Venom (a role traditionally given to Eddie Brock, but he hasn’t showed up in the games yet) and go on some sort of symbiote-fueled rampage that Peter and Miles have to stop and that will end in his death. Probably. If he does die, chances are that like many of his counterparts he’ll have a heroic, I-will-not-die-a-monster type death, sacrificing himself to take out the symbiote.

There was actually a plotline very similar to this in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon! I have mixed feelings about that show, as I gather most people do, but I did like where the Harry-Venom arc eventually went.

In that story, Harry became the host of Anti-Venom and nearly died destroying it. (But he didn’t die, cos it’s a kid’s show!)

A plotline like this but with Harry actually dying would make a lot of sense. Don’t forget, something still has to push Norman over the edge to becoming the Green Goblin and what would do that better than the death of his son? And yet…

Could Harry actually survive the second game?

Maybe Harry deserves a time out from dying over and over in multiple universes! And there’s a lot you can do with a not-dead Harry. In the comics he goes on to have kids and Peter is the godfather to one of them. Or you could explore his mental health issues or his drug addiction perhaps. That’s heavy stuff of course, but I trust this game franchise with being able to handle it.

One of my favourite ideas I’ve seen online about the game version of Harry is, paraphrased, “Instead of the Peter/MJ/Harry love triangle we get all the time, why not just make Harry gay instead?” and I love that idea. I don’t think it’s likely at all, but I love it.

C’mon Harry. Escape your narrative!

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Hey, wanna actually play through the previous games before the new one comes out (hopefully in September?) Follow these links for Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales!