Things to Watch While Waiting for Spider-Man: Miles Morales October 16, 2020

Posted by Maniac in Editorials, Things to Watch While Waiting for Spider-Man on PS4.
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The wait for the next game in PlayStation’s Spider-Man GamerVerse has been absolute agony and whether you’re planning to get it on either the PS4 or a PS5, if you’re like me you’re probably counting the days until it is released. How to pass the time? If you’re a regular to this website you might remember we were in a very similar agony while waiting for the release of the previous game on the PS4 (and later its DLC) and you might think we would just recycle some old links from the previous article. That isn’t happening, there’s been tons of great independently produced content over the past two years, and plenty of great Spider-Man content we missed.

So pull up a chair and sit back as we highlight some great independently produced Spider-Man videos. If you’re trying to pass the time like we are, you might want to check some of these out. We’ve decided not to have spoilers for the game in this article. Whether you’ve played the game or not, you may read on with full confidence.

First off, I want to highlight the guys over at the YouTube Channel Theme Park History, who have already proven themselves capable of creating incredible original history videos about famous Theme Park Rides that I would argue are superior to most documentaries that air on paid cable! In this video, he talks about Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, one of the major rides over at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure.

I remember visiting the park shortly after it opened in the year 2000 and the line for this ride was so long we could not ride it. My cousin and I would eventually about a decade later and we had a blast. As mentioned in the video, it has been upgraded to 4K video in the last few years so if you haven’t gone on it this decade, it deserves a reride. Just a small thing to mention, 4K is considered ULTRA High Definition, not High Definition.

Next up I want to highlight the YouTube Channel Wait in the Wings, which covers the history of Broadway’s biggest flops and successes. I have to admit having a low opinion of musicals in general (with the exception of 1776), but WITW’s videos are so good, they can be enjoyed by anyone (including people with no interest in theater)!

Nearly a decade ago, Spider-Man prepared to make his Broadway debut. It was not looking good,, production costs were through the roof, the director was fired, and early reviews were terrible. I remember being glued to Ain’t-It-Cool-News daily for the latest previews and on-set drama. Well, the show eventually made it to an audience and the reaction was, “meh”. So how did this Broadway travesty make it in the first place, and was it successful in any way? Watch this and find out.

It was too watered down to appeal to comic book fans, and the story was too convoluted to appeal to general audiences. That plus the story was terrible, adapted by a team who just didn’t understand the core characters. Still, I regret not seeing it. Ticket prices were not cheap, and I simply didn’t have the expendable income for a day trip to NYC to go see the show. I’ll never have the chance to talk about my experience watching it for myself.

Next up, we’re highlighting one of this site’s favorite online creators, Linkara. He is the host of Atop the Fourth Wall, a weekly comic book review series we have featured on this site many times before. While there are no shortage of Spider-Man comic reviews he’s created we’ve already featured a ton of them on earlier parts of this video. That said, there was a video review of his that he produced recently that sort of ties into the Spider-Man expanded comic universe featuring an alternate take on a villain we haven’t seen in the games yet…but it is very likely we will see them appear in a future game, Green Goblin.

Now, when I say this comic was produced about the Green Goblin, I do not mean it features Norman Osborne, the original Goblin and the most well known. He was dead at the time. It also doesn’t feature Norman’s son, Harry, who would also become the Goblin at some point. I’m pretty sure he was also dead at the time. No, the Green Goblin that received a 13-issue comic series in the heart of the 90s was actually played by Phil Urich, the nephew of Daredevil supporting character (and colleague of Peter Parker) Ben Urich.

So who was this 90s Green Goblin, how did he end up getting the Goblin’s powers, and was his series any good? Watch this video retrospective/review and find out!

Honestly after seeing this review I’m pretty disappointed the series had ended as abruptly as it did. My guess it had to be cancelled once the Marvel editors realized they had to bring Norman Osborne back from the dead to bring ANY sense of purpose to the Clone Saga, and they didn’t want someone else going around calling himself the Green Goblin at the same time.

Next up we are going to highlight a short film from YouTube Channel Door Monster. They’re mostly known for Dungeons & Dragons parody videos, (which are quite hilarious and you should totally check them out) but they’ve also parodied video games and Super Hero related content. So we are going to check out their take on the original PS4 Spider-Man game.

As far as I’m concerned, this probably happened in the game, we just didn’t see it.

Next up, I feel like it wouldn’t be a true compilation of Spider-Man videos if I didn’t feature the hilarious work of GodzillaMendoza. A self-proclaimed Deadpool fan who developed a huge following for his views on the wall crawler, this guy has produced several fantastic videos on the history of Spidey’s previous video games, and even was able to definitively prove that Peter Parker could have created his own comic quality costume, despite his lack of skill and low budget.

In this video, GM looks at the various Spider-Man costumes that were produced over the years. I know that may sound like an impossible task, but the truth is that before the Raimi films were made, very few Spider-Man costumes needed to be professionally produced, and the circumstances under which they were needed were pretty interesting. If you wanted a history lesson on the wall=crawler, or wanted to learn about what could become one of the biggest controversies in the history of comics, give this video a watch.

I have to say, I was pretty happy to see the costume worn in the Voter Spidey VHS commercial featured in this video, but as someone who watched the entire video, I have nothing but questions about that campaign. In the US, you have to be 18 years of age to vote. The VHS tapes that the commercial appeared in had its featured content produced for 6-12 year olds, who were clearly ineligible to vote. So who was the commercial for?

Did the producers assume the video was going to be watched by the parents of the kids watching the video? That wasn’t going to happen, most parents of the day would not be interested in a 90s cartoon made for kids Did they think the kids would grow up thinking “I can’t wait to vote just because Spider-Man told me to!” I would be shocked if they even remembered the commercial after several years. Remember, fast forwarding past commercials was a possible with VHS tapes at that time. Typically if a person is motivated to register to vote, its due to the issues of the day. Sorry about that tangent, it was just something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is coming November 12th, 2020 to the PS4 and PS5.