Fans seem to have ignored the significance of the ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home in favor of Marvel doing more of the same stuff.
The third MCU Spider-Man movie gave us the perfect end for an era of web-slinging films that, whilst they were great, had one major flaw: the mentor figures. It kind of sucked that Peter Parker always seemed to be looking to someone more experienced than him for direction, be it Iron Man, Mysterio or Doctor Strange. He also got some pretty overpowered tech that made fights feel less tense.
Spider-Man is more fun to watch when he’s doing his own thing so many fans have come away slightly disappointed from the three MCU spidery films we have so far (although not that disappointed, they were still great).
The end of No Way Home seemed to acknowledge those criticisms and promised fans that Spider-Man’s next adventure would probably be a solo affair. It seems to be the likely path the studio will take considering everybody has now forgotten that Spider-Man and Peter Parker ever existed. In effect it was a big reset button that allowed fans to get a more comic accurate version of the character.
But some fans would still like to see another MCU character give Spidey a helping hand regardless, as one such individual asked fellow fans who they’d like to see join the web slinger in his next adventure. However, they did admit they wanted the focus to stay on Peter.
“While I want future stories to focus on Peter Parker, it would be nice to see some friendly faces in the movies, one for film […] However I would like the characters to be present not as mentors, but as colleagues, acknowledging Peter’s now reached maturity.”
It could work the way this Redditor hopes, but it could so easily just fall back into the trap of having Spider-Man following another hero’s lead. Whilst everyone is free to like what they like, having another hero join Spider-Man would also ruin the ending of the last film. We can’t just go back to having the exact same dynamic as the last three films. Not only would that be incredibly lazy, it would also be boring.
However, this didn’t stop the discussion as the MCU fanatics discussed possibilities such as Daredevil, Wolverine, and Ms. Marvel. Most of them are ‘street level’ heroes (aside from Wolverine) so it could work for a smaller scale plot. But it still misses the point of the last film. Even if they aren’t mentor characters, Peter Parker’s story is kind of meant to be him against the world.Â
Peter needs to have at least one movie where he has to fight alone. It’s the whole idea of great power bringing great responsibility, which is something he learned from the two other Spider-Men. No Way Home ended with Peter bearing the weight of that responsibility alone, because that’s what he does best, and if Marvel want to do this right, it needs to carry on with what was started at the end of the last film.
