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Spider-Man Commentary: Screwball Live

"S02E06 "Screwball Live""  is another near-exact adaptation of an IRL-episode, this one from Season One. I always knew it would appear at roughly this point on my version of the continuity, but it contributed in some small way to the development of the episodes around it.

The IRL-episode contained a classic MacGuffin—a data drive—that nothing was done with. Which is okay (MacGuffin's shouldn't be made much of) but as I thought about the Kingpin episodes I wanted to write, it occurred to me that this one could trigger more than one story. In "Screwball Live" it contained information about Hammerhead's operations. But what if, instead, it contained information about Kingpin's operations? That was the seed of the idea (mentioned in earlier commentaries) that the city's other gangsters might go to war for the remnants of Kingpin's criminal empire, which in turn led to "S02E03 "Spider-Man Behind Bars""  and "S02E05 "What Dreams May Come""  and also to the upcoming "A Game of Cops and Robbers."

So that was a fertile idea, but it didn't require any serious changes to the IRL-story. Yes, the contents of the drive had to be changed, but that was decoration, not a plot point. More important changes: Harry Osborn had to be removed and his role assigned to another character. I also decided to take Robbie Robertson out of The Daily Bugle and give him his own media company—another potential complication for the "Superior Spider-Man" arc. And I decided to continue giving The Living Brain some cameos, and to turn up the heat a little between Peter and Gwen.