You’ve played Marvel’s Spider-Man, mastered Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered, and earned your well-deserved “Be Greater” trophy for your heroic efforts. You went back for seconds and proved you were worthy of the webs with spinoff Spider-Man: Miles Morales. And you’ve pre-ordered Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (out October 20), the next chapter in Insomniac’s own Spider-Verse, which unites Spider-Men Peter Parker and Miles Morales against such formidable foes as Kraven the Hunter, the Lizard, and Venom. As any Spider-fan knows, knowledge is power — and with great power must come great read-sponsibility.
Before you swing back into Marvel’s Gamerverse, we’ve thwipped up this Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 guide to the comics set in the game universe canon, plus a list of accessible stories for new readers featuring the game’s core cast of characters: Peter Parker (voiced by Yuri Lowenthal), Miles Morales (Nadji Jeter), Kraven (Jim Pirri), and Venom (Tony Todd). Note: there are no Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 spoilers in this article.
Spider-Man: Peter Parker
Gamerverse Spider-Man of Earth-1048 made his comic book debut in Spider-Geddon #0 (2018), a multiversal crossover and sequel to the 2014 Spider-Verse event that united every Spider-Person ever against the Spider-killing Inheritors. After defeating Doctor Octopus and saving New York City during the Devil’s Breath Crisis that claimed the life of his Aunt May, Peter Parker returned in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Velocity.
Set between the events of Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the five-issue limited series revealed the origin of Spider-Man’s armored Velocity suit. After feeling the sting of the living hive of bees that is the villain Swarm, Spider-Man and Daily Bugle reporter Mary Jane Watson investigated a suspected “ghostly attacker”: a super-speedster named Haley Harvey.
The Spider-Man of Earth-1048 trained his universe’s Miles Morales as a web-slinger (in Spider-Man: Miles Morales) before being drawn back into the Spider-Verse in Spider-Man #2 (2022). When the ancient wasp totem Shathra returned to the mainstream Marvel Universe — subsuming Spider-People from across the Spider-Verse into her hive to dominate the multiversal Web of Life and Destiny — the Miles Morales Spider-Man of Earth-1610/Earth-616 joined forces with a Spider-Army to save the corrupted Spider-People, including Earth-1048’s Spider-Man (Spider-Man #7).
Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Miles, flying solo, defeated the Tinkerer and thwarted Roxxon executive Simon Krieger’s plot to destroy Harlem in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In the prequel comic Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 #1 (2023), set between the events of Miles Morales and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the Spider-Men of Earth-1048 battled Tarantula when he challenged Spider-Man to a rematch after his defeat (in Spider-Geddon #0).
Peter moved into Aunt May’s house and struggled to keep up the mortgage while he pursued his teacher’s certificate, and Miles, on the verge of going to college, was torn between picking science or music as his major. With an assist from MJ, the Spider-Men intercepted a smuggling ring that involved Parker Robbins, a.k.a. The Hood — a seemingly supernatural “wizard” whose goons repurposed the Tinkerer’s cloaking technology to steal the mystical Lifeline Tablet — and a mysterious smuggler known only as “The Foreigner.” In the end, crusading podcaster J. Jonah Jameson sold The Fact Channel to buy back The Daily Bugle (Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 #1.)
Kraven the Hunter
Kraven the Hunter, a.k.a. Sergei Kravinoff, is a game hunter and mercenary who becomes obsessed with hunting his greatest trophy: Spider-Man. Called to America by his half-brother, the identity-thieving masked criminal called The Chameleon, Kraven’s first hunt for Spider-Man ended in defeat in 1963’s Amazing Spider-Man #15. Kraven joined forces with Doctor Octopus, the Vulture, Sandman, Mysterio, and Electro to form the Sinister Six and get their revenge on a recently de-powered Spider-Man, but this plot also failed (Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1).
Driven mad by his obsession with his elusive prey and determined to restore his honor, Kraven stalked the black-suited Spider-Man, drugged him, and buried him alive in a grave marked: “Here lies Spider-Man. Slain by the Hunter.” To prove his superiority to Spider-Man, Kraven then assumed The Spider’s identity and hunted down his final test: the sewer-dwelling beast known as Vermin. When Spider-Man clawed himself out of his grave after two weeks to find that Kraven usurped his life and name, he hunted down Kraven, who gloated over his long-awaited victory over Spider-Man. Vowing to never hunt again, Kraven put a rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. (Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt.)
Venom
Spider-Man’s symbiote costume turned out to be a living alien, which tried to bond itself to him permanently (Web of Spider-Man #1). The scorned symbiote bonded with disgraced Daily Bugle reporter Eddie Brock, who blamed Peter Parker for ruining his life. Together, their shared hatred of Spider-Man and Peter Parker made them Venom, and their first act of vengeance was terrorizing Peter’s wife, Mary Jane (Amazing Spider-Man #300).
Venom’s vendetta and his knowledge of Peter’s personal life made them a recurring enemy of Spider-Man, but the villain attempted to start life anew on the west coast after realizing that Spider-Man “protects innocents.” As an anti-hero and defender of the defenseless, Venom stalked the streets of San Francisco as its Lethal Protector (Venom: Lethal Protector #1—#5). When Venom spawned Carnage, the blood-red symbiote that bonded with blood-thirsty serial killer Cletus Casady, they begrudgingly joined forces with Spider-Man (Maximum Carnage).
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