Insomniac’s wall-crawler tales have caught many colorful, costumed villains in their web betweenMarvel’s Spider-Man,Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, andMarvel’s Spider-Man 2. Besides some iconic names taking the lead as primary antagonists, though, there has been a healthy blend of villains both popular and lesser-known thus far, lending to theauthenticityMarvel’s Spider-Manmaintains as an original continuity. Inspirations do run rampant throughout the series, specifically when it comes to Miles Morales’ eponymous half-sequel bearing a similar winter aesthetic and emphasis on the Prowler asInto the Spider-Verse.
That said, it’s in this half-sequel whereMarvel’s Spider-Manhas also been its most unique. The Tinkerer had no obligation to be debuted inMarvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and having her be the main antagonist—technically Roxxon is, but Tinkerer being the final boss makes her the final imposing obstacle—is terrific regarding her connection to Miles. This is easily one of the best interpretations of Tinkerer in any Spider-Man media, if not flat-out the best, and any new villainMarvel’s Spider-Man 3introduces would be lucky to receive a comparable iteration.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Turned Tinkerer from a Nobody to a Somebody
The Tinkerer is one of Spider-Man’s only non-comedic villains who’s also remarkably scarce in any given comic book or continuity, and it is this obscurity—paired with the fact that Phineas Mason as he was originally written is a stale, uninteresting canvas—that had made him so applicable and in desperate need of a makeover.
This overhaul resulted in the Tinkerer’s mild-mannered secret identity now being Miles Morales’ childhood best friend, Phin Mason, who is driven wholly by a vendetta against Roxxon. Insomniac’s Tinkerer also introduces a brand-new enemy faction, the Underground, and their technology is ingenious as it distinguishes the group in a signature purple glow.
The Underground more or less appears out of nowhere, and yet the same can be said ofMr. Negative’s Inner Demonsor Kraven’s hunter militia despite either of those factions being entirely separable from their leader. The Underground, on the other hand, is tethered intrinsically to Phin and Miles’ walkthrough of a newly occupied and graffitied Fisk Tower does well to demonstrate that.
It’s deeply unfortunate thatPhin doesn’t make it out ofMiles Moralesalivebecause it would be enticing to see what she’d be up to in New York City with Roxxon out of the picture, though her self-sacrifice is courageous. If she was to be written out already, she arguably couldn’t have had a better departure.
Future Marvel’s Spider-Man Antagonists Have Impossible Standards to Live Up to
Either way, what little time she had inMarvel’s Spider-Manwas spent brilliantly and it’d be outstanding if Insomniac could provide the same treatment to other antagonists who’ve been underappreciated or scorned in the Marvel pantheon, let alone left shelved due to how miserably generic their source material iterations are. Insomniac has made a fairly explicit point of probably never featuring a handful of obscure gimmick villains such as Big Wheel, Speed Demon, or Hydro-Man as evidenced byMarvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Easter egg-laden Coney Island sequence.
That’s too bad since the Tinkerer could’ve easily been tossed into that bin of forgettable ne’er-do-wells before the character was given a monumental facelift. Phin’s programmable matter goes a tremendously long way in having her aptitude toward technological inventions represented without her simply building generic trinkets. This is why the Underground is so stylish and novel in not only Tinkerer’s history but also theMarvel’s Spider-Manfranchise’s history of mildly underwhelming armored goons, includingSable International and Roxxon.
