Spider-Man is about to have a good few years. Next month, Spider-Man: Homecoming will hit theaters, and later this year we’ll also be getting a brand-new TV series featuring the adventures of Peter Parker and Miles Morales, while the latter take on the hero will be getting an animated film this fall. And finally, both versions of Spidey will team up in August for Marvel Comics’ new GENERATIONS event.
As if that weren’t enough Spidey media, the character will be getting a brand-new game, simply called Marvel’s Spider-Man, likely due out early next year on the PS4. The game’s initial trailer came last summer, offering fans a tease of the action and Spidey’s spiffy new threads. This week, however, we finally got an extended look at the gameplay.
The new trailer features all of Spidey’s cool new tech and moves, while also showing off some of the villains he’ll be facing. While Marvel staple Kingpin will be featured in the story, the main action looks to focus on Mister Negative and his Inner Demons. But just who is this relatively little-known Spidey foe, and what level of threat will he bring to Insomniac Games' Spider-Man?
Mister Negative
Across film, TV, and multiple games, Spider-Man has faced all sorts of villains and classic rogues. And though Kingpin is an obvious inclusion for the new game, many fans may be left wondering why Mister Negative is a central threat to our hero in the name game. Many more may even be unaware of the villain at all.
Part of Mister Negative’s obscurity comes from his relatively new status in Marvel Comics. Still, he’s made quite an impact since his arrival, and has been factoring into more and more Spidey stories in the past few years. Created by veteran Spider-Man writer Dan Slott and artist Phil Jimenez, Mister Negative first appeared in 2007’s Free Comic Book Day issue from Marvel featuring Spider-Man. From there, he made his proper debut in 2008’s The Amazing Spider-Man #546 and has been factoring into Slott’s Spider-Man stories ever since.
A member of the Snakehead gang from the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, we meet Mister Negative in the midst of smuggling immigrants from his home in the guise of bringing them to America, only to sell them into slavery. After a violent storm leaves the gang’s ship, the Golden Mountain, destroyed, Mister Negative becomes the only survivor to make it ashore. For a time, he poses as Martin Li, a man attempting to get to America to be with his wife. Eventually, he’s captured and experimented on by Silvermane, the head of the Maggia in New York.
A decades-old Spider-Man villain, Silvermane has long been working on a new version of synthetic heroin. Instead, he inadvertently creates a drug capable of unlocking incredible powers in an individual. After the fake Martin Li and several other test subjects are experimented on, they’re able to escape, but with some startling repercussions.
The man known as Martin Li is split in both mind and body into two individuals contained in the same person. One, is Martin Li, a man dedicated to the needs of the disenfranchised. He spends his life amassing a fortune to help fund the F.E.A.S.T. Project, a series of food shelters across NYC. His other persona, however, becomes Mister Negative. Appearing like a photo negative of a person, Mister Negative is a superpowered individual deadset on becoming the top crime boss of Chinatown with the help of his minions, known as the Inner Demons.
Negative’s Powers
While Mister Negative will make for an intriguing villain for Spider-Man the game, he would also make a fantastic MCU rogue. Following the experimentation on the man posing as Martin Li by chemist Simon Marshall, Mister Negative is born as the evil and dark side of him. Meanwhile, the Martin Li persona lives his life full of happiness and charity. Both personalities are fully aware of each other, viewing themselves as a sort of living yin and yang.
Despite the kindly nature of Li, however, Mister Negative’s criminal schemes often win out and his powerful abilities make him a formidable foe. In his dark persona, Mister Negative has a wide range of powers. Harnessing a unique aspect of the Darkforce, he can power-up various weapons with a form of energy that greatly increases their strength. He himself has also demonstrated increased strength, agility, and reflexes when in his Mister Negative form. His most powerful ability, however, is his corrupting touch.
With his powers, Mister Negative can take control of an individual with a touch, changing them to look like he does. Essentially, the touch amps up their powers while also inverting their tendencies. While villains can be controlled, the effect is far more drastic on a good individual who is corrupted. His touch, interestingly, can even heal. His one weakness in this regard is that once someone has overcome Mister Negative’s corruption, they can’t be controlled by him again.
Along with his powers, Mister Negative has access to all sorts of advanced tech and weaponry. He also has his minions, who aren’t your average thugs for hire. Thanks to Mister Negatives influence, his Inner Demons are nearly impossible to kill thanks to their powerful healing factor. Though some have managed to be dispatched, they’ve been shown to recover from most wounds. Likely, the Inner Demons in the game won’t be so difficult to battle, but there will probably be higher tier members who prove to be more of a challenge.
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Connection to Cloak & Dagger
For Marvel fans, all of this talk about Maggia experimentation, Simon Marshall, and the Darkforce will likely sound familiar. That’s because the same drug that empowered Mister Negative gave Cloak and Dagger their abilities.
Once two runaway teens, Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson were kidnapped by the Maggia and forced to undergo experiments with Marshall’s new synthetic heroin. As a result, they both gained incredible new powers, with Tandy wielding various light-based weaponry and Ty having control over Darkforce. Mister Negative, meanwhile, seems to have a combination of both of their abilities, making him far more dangerous and a foe of Cloak and Dagger. Ironically, it was Tandy and Ty who helped Martin Li escape after his transformation, forever connecting the two heroes with the villain.
Recent History
Since his debut, Mister Negative has had a number of interesting stories within Marvel Comics. Thanks to his dual connection to the criminal underworld and various shelters across New York, he’s come into contact with May Parker and quickly became a Spider-Man villain. Though new to the city, he’s quickly taken a place high up in the criminal underworld alongside Kingpin and the Maggia.
Following his initial introduction, Martin Li meets Eddie Brock while the latter is battling cancer and the Venom Symbiote. Li provides Brock with a job at one of his F.E.A.S.T. shelters, but it’s soon revealed that his touch has killed some of Brock’s cancer cells. Even more remarkably, but it bonds with the Symbiote, transforming Brock into Anti-Venom, a white Symbiote set on destroying other Symbiotes and their hosts.
Over the years, he’s continued to pop in stories like ‘Spider-Island’ and ‘Dark Reign,’ having conflicts and forming partnerships with everyone from Hammerhead to the Goblin King. With the reboot of the Marvel Universe following Secret Wars, Mister Negative has been put front and center in Spidey’s life again thanks to Dan Slott.
During Volume 4 of Amazing Spider-Man, the web-slinger once again comes into conflict with the villain while both are operating in China and Japan. During the run, Mister Negative manages to turn Cloak and Dagger, inverting their costumes and powers. The whole story is a fascinating globetrotting adventure, intersecting a number of Marvel heroes and villains and plenty of Spidey recurring characters.
Though new, it’s likely to influence some of the events of the new Spider-Man game, and it wouldn’t at all be surprising if Cloak and Dagger show up during the storyline. We’ve already seen that Miles Morales exists in the game, so expect more heroes and civilians from Spider-Man’s comics to show up.
The Big Bad
There’s a lot of things we’re hoping to see in the new Spider-Man game, from innovative mechanics to multiple suits. One main thing fans want that’s likely to occur is a number of villains and heroes from Spider-Man games. Cloak and Dagger and other Spiders like Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales seem likely, but more villains is also a must. We recently learned that Mister Negative won't be the game’s main villain, and it’s not really surprising.
Though fascinating, Spidey has many more well-known rogues that are bound to pop up. Even aside from Kingpin, expect a number of different bosses and criminals to thwart Spidey’s efforts to protect his home. Like most superhero video games, including many Spidey ones, a number of rogues are usually employed throughout various stages of the game. Because of this, we can likely expect some more surprise additions to the story, especially as its release is still a ways off.
All told, Mister Negative is an alluring new foe to pit Spidey against, and one that’s been gaining steam since his introduction. From an appearance on Ultimate Spider-Man, to cameos in a number of past Spidey games, Mister Negative’s fascinating powers and mysterious backstory make him a perfect addition to the more mainstream Spider-Man canon. Thanks to Mister Negative’s unique abilities and non-traditional minions, expect Spidey’s early missions in Marvel’s Spider-Man to be inventive and challenging.