The MCU’s big problem with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is summed up in a nutshell

Remember when Peter Parker turned down the Iron Spider suit in the first MCU Spider-Man, and then in the very next film he started using the suit anyway?

Infinity War is beyond doubt one of the greatest comic book movies of all time, it may even be the best. But there are problems with the film and these problems have affected later films in ways that the Russo brothers could not have foreseen. Decisions made in Infinity War and Endgame have made the jobs of the rest of the writers and directors at the studio a lot harder.

Examples include small details like Star-Lord’s helmet magically reappearing, despite it being destroyed in GOTG Vol 2. This made it difficult to explain why he suddenly doesn’t have the helmet in GOTG Vol. 3, the official explanation is he just forgot it (yeah sure.) The Russo’s retconned a part of the Guardian’s story in order to have a prime version of Peter Quill. They did the same with Spider-Man and plenty of other characters.

As one fan pointed out on Twitter, Peter Decides at the end of Homecoming to reject the Iron Spider suit Tony offers him as he’s got a lot of growing to do. So it’s strange that the very next time we see him, he’s pretty much forced to wear the suit.

While it makes sense for Infinity War and Endgame (he is in space after all) it probably should have been left in those movies. Even then, did Peter really need to be one of the heroes that ended up in space? There was plenty for characters to do on Earth. Why not keep Spider-Man down on earth helping the people who have been affected by the alien attack, as a real hero would? 

“They didn’t have to put Spider-Man in space. They could’ve kept him on earth and kept his arc in-tact.”

Having the Iron Spider suit in Far From Home and No Way Home kind of ruined Peter’s whole street-level hero-of-the-people vibe and even worse: it made him overpowered. The filmmakers did have him wear it sparingly, but that only raised more questions, like why wouldn’t he wear such an overpowered suit all the time?

This all created a problem for the MCU as it feels like Marvel is trying to make the hero more than just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Why does he need such a technologically advanced suit? One fan pointed out that Peter Parker didn’t outright refuse the suit, he just wasn’t ready.

“It’s actually presented as, “This is what Peter could become later, but he’s not ready yet, he still has maturing to do”.”

However, this still doesn’t really explain why he was given the suit in his very next appearance, surely he needed to do a bit more maturing than just waiting around for a few months.

Story decisions like this made it hard for those who came after to carry on with the threads after the infinity arc was over. Infinity War continued to push Spider-Man down a path that didn’t really seem right for his character, however, it does get a pass for being generally an awesome movie. Also, the end of No Way Home has set Peter up perfectly to become the iconic version of the character we all know and love so maybe it’s not too late for MCU Spidey.