Spider-Man is perhaps Marvel’s most recognizable superhero.
Everyone knows the classic story of Peter Parker: Nerdy high school kid gets bitten
by a radioactive spider, develops spider-like powers, and has to learn that with great power
comes great responsibility.
To the joy of many fans, Spider-Man made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Captain
America: Civil War with Tom Holland as Peter Parker, and has appeared in two of his own
movies since.
Because of the ongoing dispute between Disney and Sony, the future of the Web-slinger is
uncertain, but for now we have two great solo Spidey films with plenty of classic heroes
and villains alike.
Today, we’ll be checking out Spider-Man: Homecoming and its sequel, Far From Home,
in this episode of Good-to-Evil.
I’m Brad with WickedBinge, and let’s take a look at MCU Spider-Man.
Also, it goes without saying, but: Spoilers ahead.
As usual, we’ll start with the Good Characters and working our way down…
Starting with the most pure.
Starting off the list is going to be Aunt May.
May has been raising Peter on her own for years, always providing the love and support
he needs.
She wants the best for Peter, and is always willing to help him with his social and romantic
life…
As well as to discipline him when he acts up.
May doesn’t know that her nephew is Spider-Man until the very end of Homecoming, but she’s
surprisingly supportive of his superhero work after her initial reaction (“WHAT THE F-”).
She also takes an active role in rebuilding her community after the events of Avengers:
Endgame by fundraising to help the homeless.
Aunt May is an all around pure character who has raised her nephew well.
Swinging in at second is our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, AKA Peter Parker.
The hero of the franchise is clever, optimistic, selfless and has a good sense of responsibility;
basically, everything one might want in a superhero.
He goes from stopping bike thieves and helping old women across the street to stopping villains
with drone armies and saving his friends from falling to their deaths.
However, he’s hit a couple of bumps in the road along the way.
He gets in way over his head early on in his career when he tries to take down Vulture
and company by himself to prove his worth to Tony Stark and the Avengers.
Peter almost costs everyone on a ferry their lives after he interferes with the FBI’s
operation to stop a weapons deal, but to be fair to Peter, what does Tony think the FBI
is going to do against thieves and murderers with stockpiles of alien technology?
Nevertheless, Tony reprimands Peter for disobeying him and putting himself in harm’s way for
personal glory.
Peter can also be reckless, as he accidentally orders a drone strike on one of his classmates
to prevent a weird photo of Peter from being shown to MJ.
That being said, Peter has proven time and time again that he is up to the challenge
of being a superhero.
After pulling himself from the rubble of a fallen building, he takes down Vulture without
the use of any Stark technology.
And although he just wants to enjoy a nice school trip to Europe with his crush, Peter
realizes that his job as Spider-Man is never finished and stops Mysterio from destroying
London.
Overall, an unquestionably heroic character who goes from a naive teenager to a true superhero.
The Bronze Medal of Good goes to Peter’s nerdy best friend Ned Leeds.
Ned is confident and upbeat, despite not really fitting in with the “cool” crowd.
He completely geeks out after finding out that his best friend is Spider-Man, as plenty
of teens would, but he has trouble keeping his mouth shut about it, forcing Peter into
some awkward situations.
He offers to be Spider-Man’s “Guy in the Chair,” which Peter initially declines but
later enlists Ned’s help in tracking Vulture.
Ned also saves Peter from the Shocker using one of the web shooters.
He shows no jealousy of Peter’s superhero status and wants to help catch the bad guys
any way he can, so he earns his spot in the top three most good.
Since he plays a significant role in both films, we’re going to include Tony Stark
on the list.
We’ll only be counting his actions in regards to the Spider-Man movies, as it wouldn’t
be fair to include “saving the universe from destruction” on this friendly neighborhood
list, but we will be comparing his actions in this film to one of his previous appearances.
To start, Tony rescues Peter from drowning after Vulture drops him in a lake and chastises
Peter for trying to take on a threat much too great for him.
However, he also states that Vulture and company are below the Avengers’ paygrade.
Now, I have a problem with this because in Age of Ultron, Stark and The Avengers raided
a HYDRA base where they were in possession of Loki’s scepter and the same Chitauri
weapons that Vulture modifies and sells in Homecoming, and that was before Stark even
knew about the Infinity Stones.
The only difference is that Vulture is selling them instead of creating an army, but giving
alien weaponry to felons could lead to equally disastrous results.
Vulture has also been operating under everyone’s radar for over four years, which makes him
much more of a threat than Tony realizes.
Still, Tony teaches Peter some important lessons after cleaning up Peter’s mess on the ferry
and saving lots of lives.
(“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it”).
So while Tony isn’t as attentive as he should be, he only wants to keep Peter out of harm’s
way and to make sure that Peter doesn’t make the same mistakes that he did.
Giving the EDITH glasses to a teenager without any instruction could be seen as a reckless
move, but it just goes to show how much faith Tony has in Peter.
Who wouldn’t want to be Tony’s surrogate son?
Obviously we have to rank him with the good characters.
Next is Peter’s classmate turned girlfriend, Michelle Jones, or MJ.
She’s intelligent and witty, always having something to say about her situation, though
not all of her commentary is friendly.
She deduces that Peter Parker is Spider-Man by not falling for his distraction attempts
whenever he needs to pull a quick hero stunt.
She also recovers one of the drone cameras that helps Peter figure out he’s been tricked
by Mysterio.
Some may find her attitude annoying and overly quirky, but she’s still a good person with
a unique personality.
We’re going to include a character who’s been around since the beginning, Happy Hogan.
Happy starts off as essentially Peter’s hands-off babysitter in Homecoming, tasked
with making sure the kid doesn’t get himself into trouble.
However, Peter’s overenthusiasm grates on Happy who becomes dismissive of Peter, even
when he’s trying to inform Happy about an impending heist on Avengers equipment.
Thankfully, he realizes that Peter is only trying to help and apologizes for ignoring
him.
He also bonds with Peter over their loss of Tony Stark and saves Peter’s friends from
the Elemental attack in London...well, he tries to, anyway.
Then he develops a relationship with Aunt May, making both Peter and the viewers slightly
uncomfortable.
Moving on, we have who we initially thought to be Nick Fury and Maria Hill.
If you watched all the way to the post-credits scene of Far From Home, you’ll remember
that they’re revealed to be two Skrulls simply assuming the role of Fury and Hill.
The real Nick Fury is somewhere off in the far reaches of space on a Skrull ship soaking
up simulated sunrays.
This explains Fury’s inability to contact anyone else but Spider-Man for a world-jeopardizing
crisis and his blind trust of Quentin Beck.
These Skrulls don’t seem like they really know what they’re doing, but taking over
for the two most important members of SHIELD can’t be an easy job.
At least they mostly have things together by the end of the film and they know when
to contact the real Fury to clean up their mess.
Peter’s first love interest, Liz Toomes, is next.
Considered a popular girl at her school, Liz is friendly and intelligent, heading the school’s
academic team.
She catches on to Peter having feelings for her but, unlike MJ, has no idea that he is
a superhero, despite him running off all the time and saving her life in Washington D.C.
as Spider-Man.
Unfortunately for Liz, her dad has a nasty habit of dressing up as an evil bird man and
stealing dangerous technology to sell to criminals, so Peter won’t be able to hang around her
for long.
Liz is understandably upset that Peter ditches her at homecoming, but she doesn’t hold
him against him during their last meeting before she and her mom leave town.
Up next is Betty Brant.
Betty is a classmate of Peter’s who becomes Ned’s girlfriend for a short time.
She runs the Midtown News and is a caring friend to those around her, but there isn’t
much else to say about her, other than that she isn’t a total jerk to Peter unlike most
of his class.
And that’s it for the good characters.
Now, let’s move on to the Gray Area.
First up are two well meaning, but comically useless teachers, Mr. Harrington and Mr. Dell.
They are the chaperones for the Midtown class trip to Europe, and they have to scramble
to get the students to safety during the Elemental attacks.
Harrington is very awkward and has apparently lost a student on a school trip before, which
makes it baffling that they have him chaperoning trips in both films, and Dell seems even more
incompetent in a crisis than his colleague.
All in all, they really do care about the safety of their students, but they are definitely
not qualified to keep track of these kids on vacation.
After the teachers, we have Brad Davis.
Brad used to be a fairly wimpy kid, but after the Blip, he turned into a handsome jock at
Midtown.
He appears to be pretty friendly at first, but he takes a more vindictive turn once he
starts competing for MJ’s affection with Peter.
He takes a picture of Peter in his underwear without any context and plans to show it to
MJ so she’ll steer away from Peter.
Brad also tries to insult Peter in front of the class when he’s not even there to defend
himself.
In the end, Brad’s kind of a jerk, but he is just a kid, so that’s kind of to be expected.
Next up, we have Aaron Davis.
No relation to Brad, Davis is first seen trying to buy weapons from Vulture’s crew under
a bridge at night.
He’s saved by Spider-Man when a thug pulls a gun on him, and is later interrogated by
his savior.
During said interrogation, Davis realizes that Spider-Man is just a kid and doesn’t
fall for his intimidation tactics.
He agrees to help Spidey locate Vulture’s next heist to make the neighborhood a bit
safer for his young nephew.
Davis probably has a good heart deep down, but he is still a criminal, so we can’t
give him too much slack.
And rounding off the gray area is Flash Thompson.
Flash has always been Peter Parker’s school bully, but this iteration is different from
the standard meathead jock character who we’re used to.
The new Flash is a spoiled rich kid and is actually pretty close in social standing to
Peter.
This doesn’t stop Flash from constantly picking on him, though.
He’s narcissistic and vain with no regard for others.
In reality, he likely picked up this behavior from his parents, but he’s still a complete
jerk nonetheless.
Flash is very ironically obsessed with Spider-Man and sees him as an inspiration while relentlessly
giving crap to Peter Parker every time they’re in the same room.
And now, let’s move on to the baddies and the villains of the two films, starting with
J. Jonah Jameson.
A fan-favorite in the Raimi trilogy, Jameson makes an appearance as an Alex Jones-type
character in Far From Home.
During the mid-credits scene, Jameson appears with a familiar vitriolic hatred of Spider-Man
as he shows a doctored clip of Mysterio’s supposed dying words.
We’ll discuss that in more detail later, but purposely doxxing a high school kid to
the entire world is just awful.
Next up is Jackson Brice, AKA Shocker #1.
This guy is a trigger happy maniac who takes way too much pleasure in his work.
If it weren’t for his boss cutting him loose because of his reckless nature, Brice would
probably be out there vaporizing and blowing up buildings to his heart’s content.
Though when Brice is fired, he makes the mistake of threatening to out Vulture’s “business
dealings” to his family, which leads to Vulture accidentally incinerating him.
Following Shocker #1 is Shocker #2, Herman Schultz.
Schultz takes over for Brice after the aforementioned incineration incident.
He’s the more sensible of the Shockers, but what gives him the edge over Brice is
his immediate willingness to shoot Spider-Man when he interferes with a weapons deal.
That’s the actions of a cold-blooded killer right there.
He also attacks Peter right as he walks out of the back door during the homecoming dance,
but is dealt with rather quickly thanks to Ned and Peter’s combined efforts.
The scientist whose first appearance was actually in Iron Man, William Ginter Riva, is next.
Riva is a disenfranchised former Stark employee who is responsible for the development of
the combat drones.
He’s a fairly weak man who is often berated by his superiors either for incompetence or
laziness, but his role in Mysterio’s plot is important nonetheless.
The drones could be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, and while Peter’s hands
may not have been the best, they are certainly better than Mysterio’s.
Riva also sends the fake video of Mysterio’s death to The Daily Bugle after the Battle
of London, carrying on his boss’s work even after his death.
Vulture’s lackey, Phineas Mason AKA The Tinkerer, is next.
Mason is a loyal partner to the Vulture, and the developer of all the modified weapons
they sell.
He’s built everything from Vulture’s wings to anti-gravity guns to modified Ultron blasters.
In Homecoming, he is constantly encouraging his boss to go for the “Big One,” which
is robbing one of the Avengers’ cargo planes.
Simply put, if not for the Tinkerer, Vulture’s operations could never happen.
I suppose if nothing else, he is the most polite of all the bad guys in the two movies.
In second place is The Vulture himself, Adrian Toomes.
Toomes is one of the most complex and well-written villains in all of the MCU.
As far as evil goes, he has quite a long rap sheet: he steals alien technology, modifies
the tech into deadly weapons and sells them to dangerous criminals, kills one of his former
henchmen on accident, pulls a gun on Peter and threatens to kill him and his loved ones
while dropping him and Liz off at Homecoming, drops a massive concrete building onto Peter,
and the list goes on.
However, we understand his motivations behind what he does.
First of all, he believes that he and people like him have been left behind by the government,
the wealthy, and the Avengers.
Tony Stark and Damage Control have taken so much from him and his colleagues that he feels
it's only fair to “evolve with the times” as a way to survive and fight against the
system that overlooks normal, everyday people.
Toomes also cares deeply about his family, which is why he works to keep his operations
a secret from his wife and kills Jackson Brice, albeit accidentally, to prevent her from finding
out his true line of work.
That being said, we simply can’t excuse his actions regarding arming thieves and murderers
with advanced technology and trying to kill a teenager.
He does get a small moment of redemption, though, when he refuses to give up Spider-Man’s
true identity in prison, which is more than we can say for our final entry.
And topping our list of evil is Quentin Beck AKA Mysterio.
Beck is an emotionally unhinged master of trickery and manipulation, or as some might
call him, an absolute psychopath.
He fools everyone into believing that he’s an interdimensional hero here to save the
planet from an Avengers-level threat, but it turns out to be one big, elaborate ruse
to steal the EDITH glasses from Peter Parker so that he can have control of the drone army.
Beck began as an inventor for Stark Industries but developed a vendetta against Tony Stark
for turning his hologram illusion technology into a personal therapy machine, renaming
it “BARF”, and then firing Beck for becoming emotionally unhinged.
Not only does he have a passionate hatred for Tony Stark and the Avengers, but he is
willing to do anything, including murdering high school students, to achieve his goals.
He psychologically torments Peter with visions of his dead mentor and his friends being put
in danger, and he attempts to kill Peter by pushing him into a moving train.
Not only does he try to kill Peter and everyone who knows the truth about Mysterio, but he
also wants to maximize civilian casualties during his fake Elemental attacks to garner
more media coverage.
Beck wants the world to view him as the hero he views himself as, and he believes the only
way to achieve that is to fly around in a cape and shoot lasers from his hands.
He’s a truly sadistic and vile character who’s out for nothing but personal glory
and attention.
Thankfully, he gets his comeuppance after he’s shot by one of his own drones while
battling Spider-Man, but not before plotting one last act of revenge: framing Spider-Man
for the drone attack and exposing Peter Parker’s true identity to the world.
We’ll have to wait and see where the story goes from there, but if one thing is certain,
it’s that there is nothing redeeming about Mysterio.
But what do you think about our ranking?
Let us know in the comment section, and if you’re wondering why Tony Stark is missing
from the list, don’t worry: Iron Man will return in a future video.
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And as always: stay wicked!