Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is already shaping up to be something of a new dawn for the interconnected superhero franchise, with Phase One stalwarts Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow out of the picture, and the studio set to introduce a slate of new characters into the established mythology with The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Blade, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk all coming to both the big screen and Disney Plus over the next few years.
The new batch of projects gives Marvel Studios a solid balance of both new faces and returning favorites, with Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Thor, Captain Marvel and Black Panther set to represent the old guard for the foreseeable future. However, recent reports have indicated that Kevin Feige is already planning for down the road, with the latest rumors indicating that not only is Miles Morales on his way to the MCU, but that he may one day eventually replace Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as the franchise’s only wall-crawler.
Technically, Miles already exists in the MCU, with Donald Glover’s Aaron Davis referencing his nephew in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the fan-favorite character has been one of the top names on fans’ wish-lists to enter the fray for years. Holland has already admitted that he would love to see a team-up with his fellow Spider-Man one day, too, but now we’re hearing that the actor may not be able to get his wish.
Our sources – the same ones who accurately revealed John Cena’s role in Fast and Furious 9 months before the first trailer made it official, and also told us that Han was still alive and would return in the film – say that that Peter Parker is set to be killed off entirely, with Miles stepping in as the MCU’s replacement, and permanent, Spider-Man once this happens. Which, in case you missed it, has already been teased as something that’ll occur by industry insider Daniel RPK.
Taking to Twitter this week, he revealed that Miles is indeed going to become the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next Spidey, saying:
Love where the MCU is headed diversity wise. We had an all white 6 Avengers at first but down the line we'll get a black Captain America (Sam), Spider-Man (Miles) and Captain Marvel (Monica). Asian with Shang-Chi and Sersi and Muslim with Ms. Marvel and Blade.
— Daniel Richtman (@DanielRPK) February 1, 2020
The intel we’ve been given says that it’ll be Norman Osborn, who’s been rumored to be on his way to the MCU for a while now, who’ll ultimately kill Peter, with Miles inheriting the mantle of everyone’s favorite neighborhood web-slinger for good. Of course, this isn’t set to happen for a long time, but given the difficulties that Marvel faced when re-negotiating the Spider-Man deal with Sony recently, it would make sense for the studio to have a backup plan in place just in case Sony decide to play hardball again and keep Spidey all to themselves.
From what we’ve been told by our sources – who also informed us that National Treasure 3 is in the works at Disney and Transformers is being rebooted, before those two things were made official – the studio hopes to do three separate trilogies for Spider-Man, granted they can keep up their agreement with Sony. So, if this does indeed go as planned, then the web-slinger wouldn’t meet his end until the final film in the last trilogy, which would presumably see him all grown up and as an adult. But either way, it seems that Peter Parker won’t be the MCU’s Spider-Man forever and unfortunately, at some point, Marvel plans to kill him off.
