As of 2am last night I finished Spider-Man 2! It’s an incredible game and an incredible achievement, and I think I’m going to be writing a LOT about it in the weeks/months to come. I do have a few quibbles though. (Not least that my game erased the EMF missions after I got 6/9 of them, so I don’t think I’ll actually be able to complete the game, wah. Unless a patch is released soon?)

Here’s all my thoughts (some of them rather personal, sorry, that happens from time to time) on how this game portrays the subject of this blog. HUGE spoilers ahead, obviously!

Harry’s personality

The high school flashback scene with young Harry and Peter is adorable. We learn that Harry was in the glee club! Awww! He rickrolls some security guards! Double awww! He idolized his mother and can never let go of what she said about healing the world!… Not awwww. Harry’s love for his dead mom fast becomes dark and scary after his transformation into Venom.

Tell you what, this is the first adaptation I can think of where Emily has been really been used to her full potential as an inspiration for Harry. We ever get to hear her voice speaking to him, like when Harry would hear Norman speaking to him in the comics, but more benign. (Well, from Harry’s perspective.)

One thing this game absolutely nails is Harry’s frantic desire for approval and love. I said in the last post, his efforts to get Peter to join the EMF with him are really over the top, perhaps even bordering on manipulative, and an indication of just how very, very much he needs Peter. (You can take that either way, because the game sure seems to! But more on that in a moment.)

Harry and Norman

I think this is one of the areas where the game dropped the ball a little. We don’t see a whole lot of Harry and Norman’s relationship and then suddenly it’s pivotal to Harry’s “turn” when he feels rejected by Norman in favour of Peter. But there’s only been a few short scenes between all three characters, and this Harry has probably the best relationship with Norman that a Harry has ever had in an adaptation, so… It just fell rather flat to me.

I suppose some of Harry’s rather-too-quick downfall could possibly be attributed to something we learn later, though, that traces of the symbiote can stay in a person’s system even after they’ve supposedly removed it.

Harry’s love of basketball

I like that this game is keeping up a tradition of Harry and Peter playing basketball together! That’s happened in Spider-Man 3 and in the J.M. DeMatteis story “A Matter of Trust” before now.

Harry and drugs

There’s one scene between symbiote-possessed Peter and Harry where the latter is taking medication for his condition and Peter sneers at it, calling it “popping pills.” I think that’s a reference to Harry’s drug addiction from the comics.

And, of course, an indication of how corrupt and mean-spirited Peter has become.

Ironically I watched this scene during a time when I was sorting out my own pills and angsting about the amount of them, and oh man, if someone had been that casually callous about the ones that saved my life… jeez. A great scene but horrifying to watch.

Harry and Peter’s relationship

Jumping off from there to say that this is an amazing portrayal of the Harry-Peter relationship in all its complexity. It gets right to the core of what J.M. DeMatteis has said so often, that they love each other no matter what.

But I did wonder exactly what form that love is supposed to take in this particular story. (I mean… I run the Parksborn tumblr. Are you surprised?!) Harry’s love and devotion to Peter is the main thing that drives him throughout the game, both as his real self and as Venom. In fact, the entire plan to defeat Venom hangs on Harry’s desire to have Peter by his side, because that’s something no amount of symbiote corruption can erase.

Harry also shows no interest in women throughout this game. His relationship with MJ seems to be nothing more than platonic, there’s no indication they ever dated or wanted to, and no other women are in the picture. Harry does have a cute interaction with a blonde lady at Coney Island –

-I am 100% sure she’s meant to put us in mind of Liz Allan, by the way – but it’s not flirtatious, even though Peter and MJ joke about it being a “meet-cute.”

So does this Harry love Peter or is he in love with him? It’s a question that was constantly at the back of my mind throughout this game. I think there’s certainly enough evidence for the latter. In all honesty…

…I feel like the whole Peter/Harry/Venom plot is one of those stories that just works better as a queer story. I can’t explain it, it just does. (This is a feeling I get with a lot of media these days, especially stuff owned by Disney, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

I can’t even begin to explain the “Wait, they’re going there?!!?!” emotions I felt during the game’s climatic scenes. Directly after the symbiote is removed from Harry, he lies dying with Peter’s hand on his chest. Peter looks at him and whispers, devastated, “I love you.” Harry can’t speak, but he gives Peter a smile that very much indicates it’s reciprocated, and dies.

I don’t know if this was intentional or not but I love that right after Peter says those words, probably the purest words a human can say to another human, the particle reactor goes off and bathes the city in a white light that saves everybody.

Harry isn’t quite dead. Miles restarts his heart and he slips into a coma. Harry’s last word before he goes is, of course, “Pete.”

The doctors at the end of that sequence seem convinced that Harry will never wake up, but I’m pretty sure he will indeed wake up during whatever happens in Spider-Man 3. Or he’d better!

There’s another beautiful moment between Peter and (a pre-recorded hologram of) Harry during the post-game. Once you’ve completed all the EMF missions on the map, Norman leaves Peter a package with a note that says “Harry wanted you to have this.” Inside the package is a USB stick and snippets of the plants from Emily and May’s memorial garden. Once Peter’s fused the plants together and created new ones that will eventually cover the city’s green spaces, Harry’s hologram tells him that it’s to ensure Emily and May will live on “in the city, and of course, in us.” It’s terribly bittersweet. He then says, “I love you, Pete, I really do,” and gives Peter “one last thing” – a new suit, the Life Story suit (from the comic of the same name, of course), and signs off with, “Love ya.”

This all puts me in mind of Edge of Spider-Geddon #4, which also has a “love you” and a death. I wonder if the writers of the game read that one? (If so, can we have a Kobold suit for someone in the next game, pretty please?)

So the game didn’t exactly “go there” with regards to Peter and Harry, but I still think it’s a very valid interpretation. And either way, it had me sobbing. The whole damn game did.

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So, now you know the plot, but you still wanna play the game for yourself right? Well, you can buy a copy here!