‘Somebody was asking me about this and I actually couldn’t remember’: Michael Keaton somehow forgot his best Marvel scene, and no, it’s not from ‘Morbius’

Let us first put forth the disclaimer that the Morbius post-credits scene is, actually, Michael Keaton‘s best Marvel scene, purely due to the fact that it was so impossibly desperate and so unthinkably shoddy with its writing and setup, that it’s actually kind of amazing that it exists at all.

Of course, we’re not going to put money on Keaton having remembered his Morbius scene, especially considering that the storied actor completely forgot one of his most memorable scenes in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Participating recently in a WIRED video, wherein he answers the internet’s most-searched questions about him, Keaton stumbled upon one enquiry about who he played in Homecoming. Most anyone who’s even tangentially plugged into the MCU could tell you that he played the Vulture, but apparently, Keaton’s time as Vulture isn’t completely accounted for in the actor’s memory banks.

I just saw this shot the other day; this great shot in the car where I’m looking in the mirror. Somebody was asking me a question about this, and I honestly couldn’t remember. I had to Google myself to figure out what the hell I was doing in that shot.

The scene in question was the moment that Vulture discerned that Peter Parker was actually Spider-Man, the latter having clocked the identity of the former earlier that night. Vulture, of course, turned out to be the father of Peter’s then-love interest Liz, who Peter had asked to the homecoming dance. Peter tried to play it cool as Vulture drove them to the dance, but the night ultimately devolved into an incredibly explosive battle that ended in Vulture’s arrest.

Keaton probably isn’t unique in having hazy memories about his time in the MCU, but his are more justified than most. The actor has a particularly unique relationship to superhero media, not only because of his legendary portrayal of Batman in various live-action DC films, but also of his turn in the critically-acclaimed Birdman, in which Keaton portrays an actor known for playing a popular superhero (Birdman), and whose relationship to his own artistry revolves around his history of playing the character.

Indeed, it might be true that Robert Downey Jr., Christopher Reeve, and Hugh Jackman are among the acting greats of comic book movies, but Keaton’s contributions to the genre/culture are so impossibly singular, metatextual, and significant, that we’d all do well to give him a pass on not remembering one of his best scenes from one of his smallest comic book movie roles.

For the time being, Keaton is zhuzhing up theaters in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, in which he reprises the role of Betelgeuse after 36 years, and he hasn’t lost even an ounce of that gonzo touch that made him so entertaining all those years ago.