It’s been an emotionally draining few weeks for Spider-Man fans, and we imagine that the folks at Marvel Studios have been feeling pretty exhausted themselves. Nonetheless, speaking to Entertainment Weekly at D23, producer Kevin Feige offered a glass-half-full perspective on the situation, choosing to celebrate the five big screen appearances that the MCU’s version of Spidey has had so far.
Chatting to the outlet, Feige showed nothing but positivity, saying that Spider-Man was never meant to last forever in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and he’s grateful that the studio got to have him for as long as they did.
“I’m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy. We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”
Of course, after the recent Spider-Man: Far From Home ended on a whopping cliffhanger, Feige no doubt had more stories in mind for the wall-crawler and now, the studio will need to find a way to explain his absence in the MCU. How they’ll do that remains to be seen, but one user over on Reddit has come up with a rather brilliant way of handling things.
First, the individual proposed how the situation can be addressed if the two parties don’t end up making a new deal, explaining that Sony can at least let the Mouse House give Spider-Man one last cameo so he can have a proper sendoff. If Sony agrees to that, here’s how it could work:
In the post credits scene of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, Peter approaches Strange for help after he’s been framed and exposed. Strange offers him a portal into an alternate universe which he has determined is “very much like this one, except you and your aunt don’t exist there, so you should be able to fit in.” None of the Avengers exist there either, but there are also almost no cosmic or otherwise Avengers-level threats, so it’s relatively safe. Left with no choice, Peter takes one last longing look at the world he’s leaving and then he and May disappear into the portal.
(Continued in Sony’s Spider-Man 3) Having arrived in the “Venom-verse”, Peter and May try to settle in and start a new life. But soon Peter realizes that Dr. Strange was wrong — there IS another version of himself in this universe — he just goes by a different name: Ben Reilly; and he’s got spider powers too!
Meanwhile, if Spider-Man is able to return to the MCU and the two studios manage to come to a new arrangement, the Reddit user offers an alternative suggestion, saying:
Scarlet Witch might be able to help him out. Using her mind stone powers, she could possibly make the whole world forget Spider-Man’s identity.
But, as a consequence, literally everyone forgets about him – including Ned, MJ, May, Happy, Pepper, Fury/Talos, Hill/Soren and all of the Avengers, even Wanda herself! Now Peter is truly on his own — no Stark tech, no SHIELD support, no Avengers affiliation. We finally get an independent Spider-Man like many fans wanted, without leaving the MCU!
Both of these ideas would probably work out pretty well and we imagine most fans would be on board with them. Then again, it’s likely that Disney and Sony have other things in mind and given the fractured relationship between the studios, we doubt Sony would want to let Kevin Feige and co. use Spider-Man for one final cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Still, you never know and until we learn more about how the MCU will handle Peter Parker’s exit, feel free to offer up your own ideas down below.
