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‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ fan theory may have already sussed out the sequel’s villain

This compelling 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' fan theory may have already sussed out the identity of the next movie's villain.

by Keane Eacobellis

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home contained more villains than ever before, with Tom Holland’s webhead facing off against five of the most infamous foes from the franchise’s past. It’s going to be hard to top the likes of Doc Ock and Green Goblin in Spider-Man 4, then, but one way to try would be to follow up on a dangling plot thread that was set up way back in Spider-Man: Homecoming and introduce an iconic comic book antagonist.

This compelling fan theory predicts that the main villain of Spider-Man 4, the opening installment of Holland’s second trilogy that’s already in the works, will be Mac Gargan aka Scorpion. Michael Mando previously played Gargan as an associate of Vulture’s in Homecoming, with that film’s post-credits scene establishing that he’s looking for revenge on Peter Parker. According to this theory, he’ll finally enact his vengeance in Spidey 4. With a little help from a familiar alien symbiote…

Read the full theory, as shared by Redditer u/DeluxeTraffic on the r/FanTheories subreddit, via the post below:

This theory pulls together a bunch of elements from No Way Home to make a convincing argument that Scorpion could be on his way. The Tinkerer (Michael Chernus) constructing Gargan’s stinger out of Octavius’ discarded tentacle is a genius idea. Likewise, there’s been a lot of speculation about what will happen to that Venom sample left behind in NWH‘s credits sequence, and having Mac make use of it, just like in the comics, would be a smart move.

Many fans are also anticipating Hobgoblin to appear next, but mostly the Ned Leeds incarnation. Introducing Roderick Kingsley, however, would be more unexpected and could generate a lot of interesting, less predictable developments. This is a fascinating theory, then, but only time will tell whether it’ll end up being close to the truth. We definitely need some closure on the Scorpion front after Spider-Man: No Way Home.