Insomniac Games is sharing a new promo for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, that yeah, we were all anticipating.
In a tweet, Insomniac shares a picture of Peter Parker wearing the black suit, with this simple caption:
“The Suit you’ve all been waiting for.
Wear it on October 20th, 2023.
#SpiderMan2PS5 #BeGreaterTogether”
So what is the mystique of the black suit? Some fans may immediately think it’s just about Venom, but there was a time when that suit was not a villain in the making.
The black suit was originally an idea from a Marvel Comics reader named Randy Schueller. His much simpler idea was for Peter to get a new black stealthy suit similar to what Reed Richards wore, that would have the same unstable molecules.
After Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter purchased the idea from Randy, the look of the costume was refined by Mike Zeck. However, writer / artist John Byrne came up with the idea of a costume with self-healing abilities. He was to use it to explain why Iron Fist’s costume would repeatedly get repaired, but later, another writer, Roger Stern, asked permission to use the idea for the black Spider-Man costume.
Roger Stern would plot the story but left the comic book, leaving it to writer Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz to add the final elements of the idea, that the costume was a sentient alien that could be harmed by sonic energy. That’s six people who each had their input in the Marvel bullpen, to create one costume, and they didn’t even come up with Venom! That would come from writer David Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane.
The black suit was originally introduced in Marvel’s 1984 crossover event, Secret Wars. Spider-Man’s original costume is damaged, and approaches a machine that releases a black sphere. That sphere envelopes Peter and automatically turns itself into the black costume.
The famous story of Peter discovering the powers of the suit, only to later realize it was an alien trying to take over him, and that he needed to get rid of it, is one of the classic Spider-Man stories of all time. In the comics, this story was covered in The Amazing Spider-Man issues numbered 252 to 259. It has been collected and reprinted officially as The Alien Costume Saga.
We saw a lot of that story recreated many times, perhaps most infamously in the Sam Raimi film Spider-Man 3. Insomniac added a twist to this story by making it a story between Peter with Miles, and we suspect they could add a few more plot twists along the way as well.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be releasing exclusively on the PlayStation 5 on October 20, 2023.
