The One Question We All Have About Spider-Cat
Marvel's Spider-Man is one of the best web-slinging titles available for the PlayStation 4. The game has received a ton of praise and was even nominated for several game awards (although it didn't win any). Sony is hoping lightning will strike twice — as well as push PlayStation 5 sales — with Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Virtually every PS5 video event thus far has demonstrated something new about the game, and sometimes a standalone video about it is released just for kicks. The most recent Miles Morales video has audiences doing double takes and spit takes because it features Harlem's new wallcrawler performing the oldest of classic superhero routines: saving cats. Or is he?
The latest Miles Morales trailer, released by Game Informer, starts by showing off the upcoming game's newest feature: the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app. It's not an app for your phone but instead for in-game NPCs to request Spider-Man's aid on a variety of missions — side-missions, to be specific. In the app, Miles can choose from different cries for help, including grand theft auto and grand theft pigeon, but he decides to help a bodega owner who was robbed.
After Miles leaves the bodega, he swings to where the looters were last seen — an old power station — and delivers some electrified Spider-justice. But before leaving, Miles retrieves what the looters stole: Spider-Man. No, not Peter Parker — a cat named Spider-Man, who Miles dubs Spider-Cat for clarity's sake. Miles secures Spider-Cat in a backpack, and here is where the questions start flowing. Miles swings all around the town, flips every which way but down, and lands on the ground with a back roll. By all accounts, the cat shouldn't just be dead, it should be one dimensional. But it's not. The cat is safe and sound, and it joins Miles on his adventures as the A-meow-zing Spider-Cat. In other words, Spider-Cat becomes part of an alternate costume for Miles, and when Miles performs a finisher in the trailer, Spider-Cat leaps out of its backpack and claws out the eyes of criminals in the name of justice — and milk. The cat even has its own mask to complete the look.
The trailer demonstrates that Spider-Cat can survive being squished under Miles' back, as well as stay safely tucked within an open backpack whizzing through the air at 45 miles an hour. However, most commenters want to know how the cat isn't a hairball tortilla.
One YouTube user, Mona Chan, asked, "Miles rolles [sic] on ground with cat on his back. Cat lives." Fellow viewer Ryan Tale seconded Mona's confusion by asking, "I just want to know. Is the cat ok after Miles just squished him out of existence?"
Despite literally seeing Spider-Cat alive and well, few audience members are convinced the cat could survive what Miles put it through. After all, cats can endure massive drops when they land on their feet, but even if Spider-Cat were to land on its feet while inside the backpack, Miles is still landing on top of the cat at the same time. That's a human being zipping through the sky, rolling on the ground, and putting a lot of force onto his back. It would be a miracle a full grown man could survive such an ordeal, let alone a cat.
Of course, some viewers tried to answer this pressing question. ASM_616, for example, implied that Spider-Cat has spider powers because of how well it stays in the bag while in mid-air. Standard Yip, meanwhile, pondered whether Spider-Cat is alive because it is the son of Peter Parker and Black Cat (aka. Felicia Hardy). These answers probably aren't 100% serious, but stranger things have happened in the Marvel universe.
Regardless of Spider-Man: Miles Morales snapping all suspension of disbelief with a single cat-fueled blow, many viewers still adore Spider-Cat's inclusion. The video already has 17 thousand likes (and climbing), and plenty of viewers are voicing their adoration of Spider-Cat. Comments range from claiming "Spider-Cat's signature takedown is gonna be OP" to one person stating that Spider-Man: Miles Morales deserves to be game of the year simply because Spider-Cat leaps out of the backpack to assist in Miles' finisher.
Spider-Man: Mile Morales will launch Nov. 12, 2020 on the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5. Only time will tell if the Spider-Cat costume ends up being players' fan favorite or if another one will steal the spotlight.