Stephen Strange breaks the entire universe in "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Isn't this guy
supposed to be a doctor? We're going mad trying to figure out what exactly he did in this
movie.
"Would you – would you just stop talking?"
The first surprise cameo fans receive in "No Way Home" is courtesy of Charlie Cox's Matt
Murdock — AKA Daredevil.
For MCU fans who didn't tune into Netflix's Marvel series before the introduction of Disney+,
this may not seem like a big deal. However, this opens up a world of possibilities to
seriously expand Phase 4 of the MCU.
The cameo itself is a somewhat frivolous one. In a scene at Peter's apartment, we see that
Manhattan's coolest lawyer has taken on Peter as a client while he deals with the fallout
of Mysterio exposing his identity, and J. Jonah Jameson blaming him for Mysterio's death.
However, we don't know much of anything about how this team-up actually happened. Does Peter
know Matt's secret identity? Did Matt seek out Peter, or did Peter approach Matt?
"Hi, this is over."
"Who the hell are you?"
"My name is Matthew Murdock. I'm your attorney."
Additionally, this is the first we've heard from Matt since the end of the Netflix series,
and we don't have a lot to go on about what he's up to now —beyond the fact that his
enhanced senses are still going strong and he's still lawyering up for New Yorkers who
need him. At this point, we're not even sure if the events of the Netflix series actually
happened in this universe, or if this is just a soft reboot of the character in phase 4
of the MCU.
Either way, it's cool to see him – but what exactly does this mean for the MCU as a whole?
Before the release of "No Way Home," Kevin Feige revealed to CinemaBlend that if Matt
Murdock ever made an appearance in future MCU projects, Charlie Cox would be playing
him. Now, that promise has come true, but we still don't know what the future holds.
With this cameo appearance being so small, it seems safe to assume that we can expect
more devilish goodness on the way from Matt Murdock – and maybe some of his friends,
too.
2002 called, and they want their Spider-Man back. Unfortunately, they can't have him — he's
ours now.
"Pizza time.”
Whether it's Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, or Michelle Jones, Spider-Man has always been
ruled by one thing: love.
During Tobey Maguire's "Spider-Man" trilogy, Peter's love for MJ grounds the films. No
matter how many times they make-up and break up, fans still root for them to succeed.
The couple has a rough go of it in the third film when Peter goes a little off the deep
end, but the couple reconciles in the film's last moments. Fans are left in peace with
the understanding that this couple is on the way to being wrapped up together in a nice,
tidy web.
But in an audacious move, "No Way Home" takes the step of casting doubt on the status of
the original Peter's relationship with MJ. When Tobey Maguire's Peter gets asked if he
has someone in his life, he says, "It's complicated." Aw, man.
Peter goes on to say they "made it work," whatever that means. It's unclear if he's
looking back on problems the couple worked out long ago, or if things are still tense
between them. These days, this version of Peter Parker is a fully grown adult, and fans
wouldn't be blamed for hoping that he'd have his love life sorted out by now.
Mary Jane and Peter aren't necessarily destined for a happy ending, but considering how much
of a nostalgia-fest this movie is, it would've been nice if the movie hadn't left this version
of their relationship in such a complicated place.
We know that Ned Leeds is a wizard when it comes to technology, but could he have actual
magical abilities, too?
Sure, you can give anybody on the street some of Doctor Strange's hardcore sorcerer gear,
but that doesn't mean just anyone could use it. If magic were as universal as, say, using
Tony Stark's tech, then every Avenger would cast spells and take names.
"No Way Home" is jam-packed with content, so it's easy to miss that Ned's affinity for
creating portals isn't just the work of Strange's Sling Ring. We don't see Peter or MJ accidentally
creating portals with Strange's gear, so it feels pretty safe to say that Ned has some
natural sorcerer skills, for one reason or another. It's not like sorcery is easy, after
all.
Even more, with just one look, it's abundantly clear just how impressed Wong is with Ned's
accidental portal creations.
As it stands now, Ned's chances of being Wong's sorcerer apprentice are likely shot, given
that neither of them even remembers any of this happening. However, it could still foreshadow
a pretty impressive, and unexpected, arc for Ned in future movies.
The MCU Peter's mission to cure all of the crossover villains of their evil tendencies
and send them home as productive, law-abiding citizens is a noble one. However, he doesn't
put much thought into what will happen to them and their world after he plops them all
back in their own universes.
First and foremost, every villain that our trio of Peter Parkers helps comes from different
points in the timeline. From Tobey Maguire's universe, we have the Green Goblin, who dies
at the close of the first film; Doc Ock, who perishes in the second; and Sandman, coming
from the third. Then, we have Andrew Garfield's foe the Lizard from the first "The Amazing
Spider-Man," and Electro wreaking havoc in the follow-up.
If Peter sends each villain back to the point they were at before they appeared in the MCU,
but they're unexpectedly good people now, then their timelines will be in shambles,
creating countless variants. Think about it: If Green Goblin goes back to the moment before
his death as a regular human, cured of evil tendencies, then he probably never dies. If
he never dies, Harry never picks up where he left off. If that doesn't happen, then
Harry doesn't die, either.
At this point, the Time Variance Authority would have a field day with this case. A lot
of how this whole multiverse thing works has yet to be fully hashed out in the MCU – and
until it's all laid out in an easy-to-understand fashion, we're going to be left scratching
our heads.
Near the end of the film, Doctor Strange casts a spell that causes the entire world to forget
they ever knew Peter Parker. Now, when Peter asks Strange to cast the spell when even more
multiversal villains are about to emerge in his own universe, it seems like it's the same
spell as the beginning — making people forget Peter's identity as Spider-Man. Instead, this
time, Strange entirely erases Peter Parker from everyone in the world's memory. Not even
Ned and MJ know who he is.
It's tragic, but the semantics of the spell don't make a whole lot of sense. Strange's
spellwork is usually not perfect, but this spell seems so contradictory that it shouldn't
really work.
Basically, how can a spell make people forget who Peter is, but remember Spider-Man, when
Peter and Spider-Man are the same person? Sure, Spidey wears a mask – and sometimes
a billion-dollar Iron Man nanotech suit, and some truly creepy spider legs – but he's
still Peter Parker. Fans have to seriously suspend disbelief to accept that the whole
world remembers Spider-Man's existence but forgets Peter altogether. If people remember
Spider-Man, then they are remembering Peter. Spider-Man is just Peter in a funny outfit.
Amnesia surrounding his secret identity is one thing — because both aspects of himself
still exist, people would simply forget their connection. This is a whole new ballgame,
and we know so little about the components of Strange's spell that it's difficult to
parse out precisely what happens and why. This is headache-inducing! Comic books are
hard.
"So, Scooby-Doo this crap!"
Now that everyone has forgotten Peter's existence, he seemingly misses out on graduation, college
admission, and everything else his future may have held. As it stands, Peter Parker
doesn't exist anymore. So what exactly is his five-year-plan now?
The movie teases us on Peter's plans in the form of a GED book. It looks like our nerdy
superhero isn't ready to give up on his MIT dreams just yet, but without officially existing,
it's unclear how he would even take something as simple as a GED. Do records of Peter still
exist somewhere, and it's just the memory of him that's erased?
That doesn't seem likely because if traces of him still existed, MJ and Ned, at the very
least, would notice pictures of him floating around and wonder who on Earth is haunting
their photos. As it stands, it seems like Peter Parker is a ghost — and ghosts don't
go to college or get their GEDs. It's a pretty big bummer of a plot point to close out what,
until now, was a pretty lighthearted trilogy.
After the world's Peter-centric memory wipe, we watch Peter swing into action in a new,
shiny, spandex suit that looks like it hopped right out of an '80s exercise video. It's
unclear what happened to his original suit — if anything. Maybe he just has an identity
crisis.
To be fair, he loses everyone he's ever loved in the span of a second, so we wouldn't blame
Peter for going through a good ol' fashioned pre-mid-life crisis. It’s probably what
the doctor ordered. However, we have no clue whether or not his suit even exists in this
time — which begs a larger question. Do Peter's other suits and tech still exist in
this timeline? If his gear still does exist, what exactly was the point of stowing it all
away?
Sure, they don't know Peter, but the Avengers are typically smart enough to know when something's
up on this large of a scale. Don that crappy super tragic suit, head to Avengers Tower,
and ask for help. Better yet, why doesn't Peter go to Strange? If Peter brings up his
conundrum to other heroes, they'll probably be stricken by how weird the gaps in their
memory are and the fact that they don't know Spidey's identity. He even has the chance
to say something when he meets Happy, but he stays quiet. What gives, Parker?
Let's back up to the events of "Spider-Man: Homecoming," when all of this was more simple.
Remember Vulture? Shady dad to Peter's fleeting love interest?
A whole lot has happened since Peter bailed on his homecoming to chase down his date's
villainous father. Yet the post-credits scene of that movie teased Vulture's future in the
MCU — a future that, so far, we haven't seen.
One of the most defining things about the MCU's Vulture, aka Adrian Toomes, is that
by the end of "Spider-Man: Homecoming," he knows Spider-Man's real identity. He knows
Peter Parker is a superhero. It's kind of a big deal. If the MCU ever does bring Vulture
back, how are they going to pay off Vulture's knowledge if he doesn't remember Peter Parker?
Would he even remember why he's in jail?
A simpler question is, how come we don't see Vulture play a part in this villain mash-up
to begin with? Strange's spell called forth villains of Spider-Man from alternate universes;
would it have been outside the realm of possibility for an alternate version of the Vulture, or
even Mysterio, to show up too?
"There are multiple realities, Peter. This is Earth, dimension 616. I'm from Earth-833."
You get the point. It feels like "No Way Home" is at its most confusing when it tries to
justify its own plot; at its worst, it feels like the whole thing is engineered to make
some very specific characters show up, regardless of whether or not it makes sense.
Our spidey senses are tingling after that post-credits scene in "No Way Home." Many
"Spider-Man" fans agree that the introduction of Venom to the third Sam Raimi Spidey film
was the worst part of the original trilogy. But after all these years, it might be time
to reacquaint Spider-Man with Venom, and based on Eddie's appearance in the MCU's world,
that might be the mashup we see when we glimpse Peter Parker again.
As it turns out, Eddie leaves a little symbiote gift in Peter's universe before he's sucked
back into his own — that is, after learning everything, there is to know about the Avengers,
the Blip, and the past decade of superhero shenanigans.
So how exactly will Venom fit into this world? Who will host the dastardly beast? It could
be that the series introduces an MCU version of Eddie Brock, or maybe the Symbiote will
end up with another villain for a little while. Either way, there's a lot of trouble brewing
in the future for this new, bold, Marvel Cinematic Multiverse.
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