What's next for Spider-Man after "No Way Home?"
While we don't know that, we might be able to get some hints by looking back at Peter
Parker's MCU journey from the beginning.
Here's the entire Spider-Man MCU story explained.
Surprisingly, Peter Parker's first appearance in the MCU doesn't come in "Captain America:
Civil War."
Instead, that honor goes to "Iron Man 2," where Tony Stark saves a little kid during
the climax of the film.
While Tony's flying in to stop Ivan Vanko from using weaponized Hammer drones to attack
the attendants at the Stark Expo, a young boy in an Iron Man mask raises his toy gauntlet
to stop one of the drones before getting some help.
"Nice work kid."
Fans have long speculated that the masked child was actually a young Peter Parker, years
before Marvel got the go-ahead from Sony to officially add Spider-Man to the MCU.
After all, the Stark Expo takes place in Queens, and Peter is a long-time science geek who
wouldn't miss the opportunity to go to an event like that.
Tom Holland told The Huffington Post in 2017 that as far as he and MCU head honcho Kevin
Feige are concerned, that unnamed boy is definitely Peter Parker.
No wonder Peter Parker grows up to have so much hero worship for Tony Stark in the modern-day
MCU.
By the time Spider-Man: Homecoming hit theaters, audiences had seen Peter's Uncle Ben die on
the big screen twice in two different franchises—three times if we count the new perspective on the
murder portrayed in "Spider-Man 3"—so it's no wonder that the filmmakers of "Spider-Man:
Homecoming" chose to skip over that particular part of Spider-Man's origin story.
That said, there's been enough hints and references to make it clear that the MCU version of Peter
definitely had an Uncle Ben that he lost at some point.
In "Spider-Man: Far From Home," Peter's luggage looks second-hand and bears the initials "BFP."
The luggage almost certainly belonged to one Benjamin Franklin Parker before Peter used
it.
According to "Spider-Man: Homecoming" writers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley,
an earlier draft of the film would have seen Aunt May explicitly mention her dearly departed
husband.
With all that, we can peg Uncle Ben's death at around six months before the events of
"Captain America: Civil War," since that film shows Peter telling Tony that he's had his
powers for "six months."
Peter even indirectly mentions that he blames himself for Uncle Ben's so-far mysterious
death by saying that,
"When you can do the things I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they
happen because of you."
In other words, with great power comes great responsibility.
In 2015's "Ant-Man," Scott Lang's titular tiny hero runs afoul of Sam Wilson, The Falcon,
while sneaking into Avengers' headquarters.
Naturally, it leads to the two superheroes battling each other in the classic Marvel
style.
Although neither hero walks away the obvious victor, Scott gains the device he's after
and something else that he wasn't expecting: Sam Wilson's respect.
At the end of the film, Scott's friend Luis tells him that his cousin Ignacio met this
"crazy fine writer chick" who actually knows Falcon.
And in Luis' summation of the conversation, we learn that Sam's been looking for Ant-Man.
While he was looking for one bug-themed superhero, he very nearly finds another,
"We got a guy who jumps, a guy who swings, a guy who crawls up the walls."
There are plenty of superheroes in the Marvel Universe who jump and swing around the city,
but there's only one wall-crawler that casual fans would be likely to recognize.
In conjunction with his appearance in "Captain America: Civil War," we can infer that Spidey
started operating as an official local superhero during the events of "Ant-Man," even if the
bigger media outlets hadn't yet noticed him.
Six months after Peter gets his powers, Tony drops by Aunt May's apartment to meet the
mysterious, arachnid-themed superhero who's been showing up on YouTube.
Iron Man adds him to his team of Avenger-hunting Avengers, as part of his ongoing effort to
take down Bucky.
So Peter heads to Berlin, does some sightseeing, and annoys Tony Stark's bodyguard and pal,
Happy Hogan.
Then he gets a costume upgrade courtesy of Tony Stark, and fights against Captain America's
team.
Spider-Man acquits himself nicely in the fight, briefly trapping Falcon and the Winter Soldier,
and even helping Iron Man and War Machine take down a giant Ant-Man.
However, the fight ends with Tony's best friend, Rhodey, wounded by friendly fire.
As for Peter, he suffers a pretty frightening fall, although he ultimately emerges unscathed.
After the events of "Captain America: Civil War," Peter heads back to Queens with his
new, more technologically advanced Spider-suit.
Tony tells Peter that the Avengers will "let him know" if there are any future missions,
and in the meantime, he should go to school and focus on being a local hero.
Two months later, while swinging around on his after-school crime-fighting rounds, he
accidentally interrupts an ATM heist organized by crooks who are using high-tech weapons.
After a phone call report with Happy goes ignored, Peter follows up on the weapons dealers
and gets into a fight with their leader, the Vulture.
Tony sends a drone to bail Peter out and give him yet another talking to about how Peter
should stop trying to fight supervillains.
Peter half-listens — mostly to the parts about how his suit has a ton of capabilities
that he didn't know about — and gets his buddy Ned to hack the suit and give him full
access.
Round two with the Vulture in Washington, D.C. ends with Peter trapped in a warehouse
for the night, and when he heads off for round three on a ferry ride in New York, it turns
out that Iron Man and the FBI had organized a sting operation that Peter inadvertently
interrupts.
Disappointed in his protégé, Tony takes back the suit, and Peter recommits to his
regular life and asks his crush, Liz, to prom.
Unfortunately, Liz's dad is the Vulture, forcing Peter to take him down in his original low-tech
suit before the winged villain can steal a ton of valuable Stark tech.
Spider-Man succeeds, Vulture goes to prison, Liz moves to Oregon with her mom, and Tony
offers Peter a place on the Avengers roster if he wants.
Instead, Peter turns him down, choosing to focus on being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
for a while.
Peter's decision to stay close to the ground and look out for the little guy lasts about
as long as it takes to watch the credits for "Spider-Man: Homecoming."
When Thanos' Black Order invade Earth in search of the Infinity Stones in "Avengers: Infinity
War," Spider-Man hops right in to help in defending Earth.
Dr. Strange is kidnapped by the Black Order's Ebony Maw, and Peter chases after him, hitching
a ride on the Maw's spaceship before it flies away completely.
Tony quickly joins him and provides Spidey with the even more high-tech super suit last
seen at the end of "Homecoming."
Spidey and Iron Man free Dr. Strange, blast Ebony Maw out into space, and land on Titan,
Thanos' home planet.
They're quickly joined by some of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The heroes prep to fight Thanos, who soon arrives to take Dr. Strange's Time Stone to
add to his Infinity Gauntlet.
The heroes put up a valiant effort, but their plan goes awry, and Thanos teleports to Earth
after nabbing the Time Stone.
Soon after, he gets the Mind Stone from Vision, puts it all together, and snaps his fingers,
causing half of all life in the universe to fade away.
Unfortunately, Peter's 50/50 probability comes out on the negative side, and he turns to
dust in Tony's arms on an alien planet.
"I don't know what's happening, please I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go."
After Thanos kills off half of the universe, the remaining half are left to mourn their
fallen friends and family.
Unfortunately for Peter, it doesn't seem like there are many left to remember him.
For the five years between Thor killing Thanos in the beginning of "Avengers: Endgame" and
when Captain America gets the gang back together, it seems like the only one left to mourn Peter
is Tony Stark.
He even keeps a framed picture of his young protégé in the kitchen of his cabin home.
Luckily for Spider-Man, Tony eventually feels guilty enough to rejoin the Avengers.
Once he's back on the team, The Avengers head back in time to steal the Infinity Stones
before Thanos could destroy them in the present timeline, and reconstruct another Infinity
Gauntlet.
And with one snap of Hulk's mighty hand, the dusted half of the universe is restored exactly
how they were when they disappeared.
Thanos from a previous timeline heads to the present in order to re-snap everything into
oblivion, but every superhero or superhero-adjacent character stands in his way — including
Spider-Man.
Peter joins the fight, meets some of his new superhero peers, and then watches as Tony
Stark gives his life to dust Thanos' crew with a snap of his own.
After all that space alien craziness, it's back to normalcy for everyone's favorite wall-crawler
in "Spider-Man: Far From Home."
With his schoolmates recovering from, ya know, being dead for five years, Peter joins a class
trip to Europe.
He's looking forward to a relaxing vacation to decompress from — all of that — and
maybe confess his burgeoning romantic feelings for MJ.
Instead, he's quickly embroiled in a fight against multiversal Elementals alongside Nick
Fury, Maria Hill, and the superhero from another universe, Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio.
To make things worse, Peter's struggling to live up to Iron Man's legacy, a job that seems
all the more difficult when he receives a pair of high-tech sunglasses from Tony that
give the young hero control over a ludicrous amount of information and technology.
Desperate for a mentor, Peter gives up his sunglasses to Beck, whose magic powers and
big brother attitude seem to make him a better successor to Tony than Peter could ever hope
to be.
Unfortunately, Beck's running a con on Peter and Nick Fury; he's not magic, he's not from
another world, and he's definitely not a superhero.
Peter learns the truth and eventually defeats Mysterio, with the villain seemingly dying
in the final battle.
Spidey returns to New York having saved the day once again, and everything seems to be
going well.
Until, that is, J. Jonah Jameson of TheDailyBugle.net leaks Mysterio's dying confession and reveals
to the entire world that…
"Spider-Man's name is Peter Parker."
"Spider-Man: No Way Home" picks up right where "Spider-Man: Far From Home" leaves off.
Peter and MJ are in the middle of New York, trying to digest that Peter's secret identity
has been revealed to the world.
Peter hopes this will all die down, but he is shocked to see his home surrounded by the
press.
It's not long before the Department of Damage Control arrests him and interrogates MJ, Ned,
and Aunt May.
However, thanks to ace attorney Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, the charges are dropped.
Peter even goes back to school, where he's met with a mixed response.
Peter tells MJ and Ned that they just need to ride this out for a few months until they
graduate and all go to MIT together.
Unfortunately, the controversy leads the college, and every other college they applied to, to
reject the trio outright.
This leads to a crazy plan.
Peter initially approaches Doctor Strange and asks him to go back in time, so he could
prevent Mysterio from ruining his friends' lives.
Strange offers a spell instead that would make people forget that Peter Parker was Spider-Man.
The spell proceeds, but Peter can't leave well enough alone, constantly interrupting
Strange as he casts the spell to add a number of exceptions.
The spell goes awry, but Strange seems to contain it.
However, the spell wasn't totally contained.
While trying to talk a representative from MIT into changing her mind, Peter is attacked
by Dr. Octopus, the villain from "Spider-Man 2."
When a Pumpkin Bomb appears, Strange teleports Peter back to his Sanctum.
Somehow, Peter has started drawing in people from other multiverses that know his identity.
Strange sends him to track them down.
Peter captures Electro, the villain from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," as well as the Sandman,
from "Spider-Man 3."
Strange captures the Lizard, and the tortured Norman Osborn accepts Peter's help.
Strange plans to send them back to their realities, but things soon got more complicated.
Aunt May convinces Peter that the captured villains need help and he can't simply send
them off to die.
He succeeds with Doctor Octopus, but Norman Osborn reverts to being the Green Goblin and
persuades the others to once again target Peter.
As the villains scatter, the Goblin kills Aunt May, leaving Peter a wreck.
"This is all my fault.
I can't save everyone."
In searching for Spider-Man, Ned uses Strange's Sling-Ring and accidentally finds the Andrew
Garfield version from "The Amazing Spider-Man."
Trying again, Ned locates the Tobey Maguire version from the original "Spider-Man" series.
The two Spider-Men track down Holland's Peter, and give him a pep talk.
Afterwards, the trio of Spider-Men draw the villains into a battle at the State of Liberty
in an effort to cure them once and for all.
It almost works out, but The Green Goblin reappears and destroys the apparatus that
contains Strange's botched spell.
The multiverse starts cracking open as Peter has to be restrained from killing the Goblin.
He gets the cure, but Peter is left with a terrible decision.
To save the world, Peter has to let Doctor Strange cast the spell again, this time with
no exceptions.
Peter says goodbye to Ned and MJ, and vows to track them down and make them remember
him.
When the time comes, however, Peter can't do it.
He sees MJ and Ned both make it into MIT.
Having finally learned the importance of responsibility, Peter gets his own apartment and continues
his career as Spider-Man with an uncertain future.
There's one last loose end, however.
Eddie Brock, rather than joining in on any of the conflict, spends his time on the MCU's
Earth at a bar.
Just before the spell pulls him back into his universe, he leaves a single drop of the
Venom symbiote in the MCU reality.
With the announcement of another sequel in development, this extradimensional visitor
may well become a problem for Holland's Spider-Man...
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