Marvel fans love the mid and post-credits scenes which show up at the end of MCU entries, and Spider-Man: Homecoming has a couple of great ones. Leaving aside the second stinger for a moment (though you can read about that here), the first one sees Michael Keaton’s Vulture in jail, after being foiled by Spidey. His old pal Mac Gargan asks him to tell him the identity of Spider-Man, but Toomes lies his way out of it.
It’s a nice little scene, as it shows that Toomes has some respect for his arch-enemy, even though the wallcrawler landed him in prison. It’s unclear if Spidey’s saving of his life in the climax has completely redeemed him, but he clearly feels like he owes Peter Parker something.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Jon Watts talked about what he wanted from that moment in the movie and why he thinks it helps flesh out Adrian Toomes into a complex character.
“That’s what is cool — he gets a moment of redemption and he gets to protect Peter, even though Peter would never know. It’s his way of saying thank you.
“It was a really interesting thing in the development of the story. You couldn’t just rely on the tropes of the villain being a murderer and killing a bunch of people. He had to be redeemable in some capacity in the end and that he believes everything he said, especially about his family. So it was a really fine walk to create a villain that still has that moment of redemption in the end.”
So, could we see Vulture return in the sequel? Unusually for a Spider-Man movie villain, the character did live to see another day, and despite Keaton apparently only having signed on for one movie, Watts thinks it’s a possibility. “Toomes definitely could come back,” he said.
Even if he doesn’t, Keaton gave us one of the MCU’s best villains yet. In fact, the only way to top him next time around could be by introducing a certain six man supervillain team…
Spider-Man: Homecoming is now playing in theatres worldwide, and if it’s more coverage you’re after, be sure to check out our review.
