Once Spider-Man joined the MCU back in 2016's Captain America: Civil War, it seemed like
we'd entered a bold new era of cinematic web slinging.
Actor Tom Holland is a young man, portraying a high-school aged Peter Parker still trying
to figure out how to put the Man in Spider-Man.
So in the lead-up to Avengers: Infinity War, everyone expected to see Spider-Man doing
some pretty cool stuff, suiting up as the Iron Spider to take on Thanos and his gang
of creeps.
We should probably pause the video now to let you know that there are some Thanos-sized
spoilers ahead.
Still with us?
Good.
Even though the credits have rolled and we've all reserved our seats for Avengers 4 in 2019,
we're still trying to process everything we saw in Avengers: Infinity War.
No one, seriously, no one expected to to leave the theater bawling our eyes out at the tragic
death of young Peter Parker, the amazingly dead Spider-Man.
Of course, he's not the only casualty of Thanos' mad quest.
The conclusion to Marvel Studios' record-setting team-up movie might be the most despairing
sequence ever filmed for a summer blockbuster, as the movie ends with half the population
of the entire universe being blinked out of existence.
Watching Earth's mightiest heroes and almost all of the Guardians of the Galaxy being turned
to ash and disappearing is a haunting thing to experience.
But the most affecting moment of the sequence comes from Tom Holland's Spider-Man, who gets
a horrifying moment to realize what's going on before he collapses and fades away.
He pleads for his life, and, in Tony Stark's arms, he uses his last words to apologize
to his surrogate father for not doing better.
And before Stark can so much as tell him to knock it off, he's gone.
Seeing the teenage Spider-Man fade out of existence is the moment that takes the movie's
climax from sad to heart-wrenching, making for a final reel that seems to be bringing
many moviegoers to tears.
Of course, once the lights came back on in the theater, you probably started to realize
that, well, as sad as it was to watch Spidey go, he'll definitely be back.
Here's why.
A sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming was announced in late 2016, and is set to begin shooting
in July, 2018.
So even if Peter's tragic death in Infinity War made you cry into your popcorn, you can
rest assured he'll be back in time to star in his own follow-up.
But if you really want to go deep on why you haven't seen the last of movie Spidey, just
look to the pages of Marvel comic books.
In the first issue of Infinity Gauntlet, the 1991 six-issue series on which much of Infinity
War is based, Spider-Man is one of the first Marvel heroes to realize something seriously
bad is going down.
Joining up with the rest of the world's remaining heroes and taking the fight to outer space,
he stays in the game against Thanos for almost the entire battle.
That's a pretty big change from what we got in the film, right?
So why did Infinity War make that change, and take out Spider-Man with Thanos' snap?
Well, as strong as Spider-Man is, he's not actually essential to winning the battle.
In the comics, the endgame of the fight takes place after the clock gets turned back 24
hours, landing Spider-Man back in New York City.
Afterwards, the final fight is led by Marvel's most mystical members and its heaviest hitters,
with Dr. Strange, Thor, Drax, Hulk, Thanos' brother Starfox, and Adam Warlock teaming
up with an epic alliance of Marvel's cosmic entities to finish off the fight.
Spidey's off to the side, doing whatever a spider, uh, does.
Let's just face it.
There's not much Spider-Man can do in a battle between gods, and erasing him from existence
is a much more impactful way to end Infinity War than just benching him in the fourth quarter,
like in the comics.
That's lame.
This is drama.
So dry your eyes, true believers.
Avengers: Infinity War may be one of the most audacious summer movies in recent memory,
but nobody's crazy enough to really squash Spider-Man.
Not until he does this, at least…
Yikes.
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