This article contains spoilers for character appearances and end-game sequences in Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Edit: Tony Jones is the Marvel’s Spider-Man player who came across the Alistair Smythe Easter egg, originally cited in the story by his Reddit name. Original story is as follows:
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Marvel’s Spider-Man hides an Easter egg for the villain Alistair Smythe that’s found on one of the many buildings across Manhattan.
Players have found countless Easter eggs in Marvel’s Spider-Man now that the game’s been out for over a week, but one reference to another Marvel entity appears to have remained unfound until now, or at least people haven’t been made aware of it. Alistair Smythe isn’t a well-known Spider-Man villain compared to others like Scorpion, Rhino, and Doctor Octopus, but a building that’s found when swinging around the city proves that Smythe exists in Marvel’s Spider-Man in some capacity.
Reddit user Realdealdude2 shared the image above that made use of the game’s photo mode to take a selfie in front of Smythe International, the building owned by the Smythe family. The Marvel’s Spider-Man player and Reddit user pointed out that the Easter egg doesn’t appear to have been popularized by anyone else and said that they came across it when landing somewhere in the city. It’s supposedly found in the Financial District, though the poster said they couldn’t remember for sure.
First seen in The Amazing Spider-Man comics, Smythe was a villain who was associated with a group of anti-Spider-Man characters known as the Spider-Slayers. Alistair’s father, Spencer, created the Spider-Slayer robots in an attempt to eliminate Spider-Man but was ultimately killed in the process, according to the Wiki that delves into the character’s backstory. Alistair inherited his father’s disdain for Spider-man that was fueled even more by his father’s death and imbued himself with the technology used when creating the Spider-Slayers to give himself super strength and other powers to allow him to face off with Spider-Man.
Prior to the game’s release, people have speculated about whether Alistair would make an appearance in the game or not, especially when the identity of the mastermind behind the Sinister Six was unknown. Though Alistair himself made no appearance in Marvel’s Spider-Man beyond the building that was seen in the image above, there’s still room for his character to find its way into Insomniac Games’ line of Spider-Man games somehow. The developers have said that they’re working on DLC for the game that could incorporate more villains, and even if Alistair doesn’t make an appearance there, the end of the game is clearly setting up for a sequel where he could face off against Spider-Man.
