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Spider-Man Commentary: What Dreams May Come

"S02E05 "What Dreams May Come""  is the sequel to "S02E03 "Spider-Man Behind Bars"" . I've already described how Part One was constructed after I had the idea for Parts Two and Three. This one—Part Two—had a rougher genesis.

My original idea—long ago—was to adapt Amazing Spider-Man #116-118, which is where Richard Raleigh originally appeared, but I had the hardest time coming up with an adapted plot that left him alive at the end, ready for more mayhem (perhaps) in the "Superior Spider-Man" arc. (One of my biggest peeves about the IRL-series was that it eliminated so many villains for Ock/Spider-Man to battle. I wasn't going to make the same mistake for my version.) In addition, he had last been seen as the new headmaster for AIM's Bilderburg Academy, a position that would have no really good connection with a race for the mayoralty. Finally, Raleigh had been introduced in "S01E04 "Ring Around the Spider-Man""  as chasing a mystical object. What was that mystical object, and why had it led him to Bilderburg? Neither question could get an obvious answer in an adaptation of #116-#118.

Then, serendipity. I started watching online clips of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

And it came to me in a flash. Literally, in the space of about five seconds. Raleigh is building the mystical equivalent of a nuclear reactor, and it goes horribly wrong. He's at Bilderburg because his design requires a merger of the magical and the scientific, and that cuneiform tablet he stole in "Ring Around the Spider-Man" is the key to it. Magic implies the presence of Doctor Strange, so I did a little reading up on that character, and came up with the idea of the Nightmare Portal as the Chernobyl equivalent.

Then it was only (only! yeah, right) a matter of inventing the right pieces and putting them together so that they would connect backward to "S02E03 "Spider-Man Behind Bars""  and forward to an episode that would start a gang war.

And as I worked, other ideas began to click into place. At first Mysterio was going to be involved, but I that was too complicated. Instead, one of the most haunting images of Chernobyl—men looking into the open reactor core, and turning back around with scarred faces—gave me the image of someone looking into the open portal and having his face melt off, which gave me the origin for a character that the IRL-series introduces deeper in Season Two. I also came up with a place to park Spencer Smythe for later mischief.

In this way, "What Dreams May Come" became the pivot around which the first half of Season Two turned.