THE FUTURE OF SPIDER-MAN

by Contributor Enrico Versace

Kevin Feige confirmed that Disney and Sony aren’t done with the webswinger yet. Even after what felt like the Endgame of Spider-Man films, he still says they have some aces up their sleeves. Although, if you’re not a long time comic book fan, you may have no idea what to expect for the next trilogy of movies. I’m a huge comic book fan though, and proud of it. And by looking at how Spider-Man No Way Home ended, what Marvel is cooking up on Disney+, and where the comics ultimately go, I am certain that Peter Parker’s Spider-Man still could have a long way to go. This is your official Spoiler Warning for No Way Home and a little of the Hawkeye series.

At the end of No Way Home, Parker finds himself in a reality where everyone has forgotten that he was Spider-Man and that Parker ever even existed. His friends, the Avengers, even Stark’s best friend Happy has no idea who Parker is. Parker looks to be a 17-18 year old living in an apartment alone, who has to start from the bottom again. We see that he is working on his GED and he’s sewing his own spider suit. The boy has seemed to be inspired by the other two Spider-Men and has grown up. He’s no longer “Iron Man Jr.” as some people would say. After these last few scenes, the mid Post-Credit shows that Tom Hardy’s Venom accidentally left a portion of his Symbiote in the MCU before going back to his own universe. This can only mean one thing, Sony is going to take another crack at the black suit Spider-Man storyline, with possibly a couple of changes.

Sure, Disney and Sony could just give us another version of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 and let us see the creation of Venom again, letting the Symbiote latch on to another Eddie Brock, but the Symbiote takes over many more characters in the comics. Yes, we could just get Hardy and Holland facing off somewhere down the line, though that doesn’t seem so likely at the moment. Through the years, both in comics, tv shows, and video games, the Symbiote has also latched itself on to people like Mac Gargan, Flash Thompson, and Harry Osborn. We met Gargan in Spider-Man Homecoming on the fairy ship. He had that tattoo of a scorpion on his neck.As a matter of fact, Gargan is more so known as Scorpion, after he is hired by J. Jonna Jameson to find and takedown Spider-Man. In 1994’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series Gargan was infused with Scorpion DNA and stuck as a big hulking human in a Scorpion suit who fought Spider-Man and tried to take revenge on Jameson for turning him into this creature. Later, in the comics, after Gargan gets out of jail the Symbiote finds its way to him, turning him into another version of Venom or the “Sinister Spider-Man”. So the movies could go that route, but it might be neat to also see Tony Revolori’s Flash as Agent Venom.

In the comics, Thompson joins the army later in life and gains a Medal of Honor, but loses his legs. He then serves his country as Agent Venom for another version of Project Rebirth, the same Super Soldier project that originally created Captain America. This would be a very different story for the Venom Symbiote in the films and something I personally would very much like to see.

Now how does Harry Osborn get the Symbiote? In the recent Spider-Man Playstation 4 video game it’s discovered that Osborn became ill with Oshtoran Syndrome, a neurological disorder he inherited from his mother, also known by fans as the “goblin disease”. To keep his son alive, and maybe for other experimentation purposes, Norman Osborn is shown to have given his own son the Symbiote. However, Tom Holland’s Parker hasn’t met and become best friends with Osborn, at least not yet. And if the video game wasn’t already tacticaling this story, I wouldn’t mind seeing it in the cinemas. Doing something like that might be a little too redundant.

There’s many other friends this Parker hasn’t made yet, including some heroes. In the comics Parker has quite a couple of girlfriends. It seems that with No Way Home revealing the last name of Zendaya’s character Michael Jones to be Watson,we may have already gotten our version of Mary Jane, which is weird because in the comics Parker actually marries her. So they could somehow bring back her and her memories. Other love interests Parker has had are Gwen Stacy, Betty Brant, and Black Cat. Stacy, who we’ve already seen on screen, was Parker’s first love in the comics and died by being thrown off a bridge by Green Goblin and snapped her neck as Spider-Man tried to save her. Brant, we’ve already seen on screen too, but Black Cat is someone we’ve never seen before in the films. We almost got her with Felicity Jones’ portrayal of Felucia Hardy from Amazing Spider-Man 2, but that didn’t exactly pan out. In the ‘94 animated series again, Hardy is forced to undergo an experiment by the crime boss Kingpin, giving another person Captain America’s serum. Hardy has always been shown as having the hots for Spider-Man more than Peter Parker and isn’t afraid of expressing herself in a very provocative manner. She is a wild and revengeful burglar who later sets out to become a crime boss herself. Parker could meet and fall for her while wearing the black suit. And since this story arc involves Kingpin, this opens the door for many new movie stories to be told.

Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin, made his home on Netflix back in the Daredevil series. Daredevil, or the blind, crime fighting lawyer, actually cameoed in No Way Home by the way. I wonder if a team up is in the works. Now, with Disney+’s Hawkeye series featuring Kingpin, we might be having some Kingpin street level threat across all the upcoming Marvel, Disney+ shows, that is if he survived getting shot.

Kingpin is more known as a Spider-Man villain though, thanks to the ‘94 animated series. Kingpin was constantly in the shadows, behind everything, even the creation of the Sinister Six, or as they were renamed in the series, “The Insidious Six”. This team included Doc Ock, Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and Sandman. Fans thought we would have the name mentioned in No Way Home, but there weren’t exactly six villains. Venom, Shocker, Rhino, and Morbius have swapped into the team at one point too, so Tom Hardy might make a comeback somehow. We might already be seeing these plans in motion in the Morbius trailer, as that trailer shows many different characters and aspects from all the different Spider-Man films, which is weird considering the multiverse seemed fixed by the end of No Way Home.

And finally, we might inevitably get a plot line in the live action films that was touched on by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018, the death of Spider-Man. This involves Parker dying, mostly connected to a shortcoming of the character Miles Morales and perhaps Parker even trains Morales to be another Spider-Man a bit before he meets his unfortunate fate. I could see Holland’s Parker meeting this young Morales in the next film and they could team up for a couple of films before we say goodbye to Holland’s portrayal forever. Holland was quoted recently saying that “If I’m playing Spider-Man after I’m 30, I’ve done something wrong”. Holland is 25 now, so don’t be surprised if his character dies or is somehow written out of picture soon. Yes, this is all very sad, but we’ve had many adventures with this character. Plus, who knows, he might suit up again for a cameo like Tobey Maquire or Andrew Garfield, or could voice an animated version of himself in one of the next Spider-Verse films. Either way, it’s about time we move on from the traditional Peter Parker Spider-Man and get a taste of something fresh like Morales. But until then, we’ll be anticipating Parker’s cinematic sequel and whatever else Feige has in store for us.

Check Out T&T Editor LeAnne Lindsay’s
Spider-man: No Way Home #MiniMovieReview

Check Out Enrico’s Thoughts on THE ETERNALS vs THE AVENGERS

My name is Enrico Versace. I graduated from Rowan University with a bachelor’s degree tin Writing Arts. I have a personal blog where I’ve written more analyses like this about movies, art, horror, and Star Wars. I wasn’t always a writer though fun fact. I used to be into architecture and built with Legos from when I was a kid to after high school. You can find my blog posts at wrtversacee4.wordpress.com. And my social torusbrusk1138 on Instagram.