Martin Li, who is known to comic book fans as the fearsome Mr. Negative, appears to be a totally charming do-gooder during his one brief appearance in the book. He is a benefactor of the Feast shelter where Aunt May is working, and he even encourages Peter to volunteer. If you’ve seen any of the Spider-Man PS4 trailers, though, you’ll know that Spidey and Mr. Negative are set for a sizeable scrape in the near future. And if you’ve read any comics with Mr. Negative in them, you’ll know that duality is a key part of his character.

And as a potentially noteworthy sidebar, Hostile Takeover doesn’t include any references to Doctor Octopus. The tentacled terror has long been rumored as the mystery villain at the heart of Spider-Man PS4’s E3 trailer, but we’ll just have to wait and play the game to find out if that’s the case.

Fisk and Spidey have a history

Earlier on in his superhero career, Spider-Man put Wilson Fisk briefly behind bars. The Kingpin’s lawyers found legal loopholes, though, so the master criminal was released. This significant setback is one of the reasons why Spidey isn’t so sure about his future or his usefulness. Spidey is determined to put Fisk back in prison permanently, and this is the only real goal he has before wanting to retire from heroics.

The difficulty, though, is that Fisk has put a lot of time and effort in appearing legit. He’s even launched a housing scheme to support low-income locals. It’s hard to gather evidence to prove that Fisk is still up to no good, not least because the Kingpin uses Roxxon muscle to spy on judges – and other important officials – to ensure he has leverage on all of his potential enemies. The one judge that does side with Spidey soon ends up dead.

Kingpin is also managing a smear campaign against Spidey during the book. He employs an imposter (who was given powers by an Oscorp experiment) to run around in a Spidey suit that’s almost identical to the real thing. This imposter, later revealed to be a deranged criminal named Bingham, blows up a restaurant and kills the innocent people within it. Bingham, who gives himself the comics-referencing name Blood Spider, is eventually defeated by Spidey and put in prison. Bingham is still alive, though, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the game.