[MCU Analysis & Predictions] Spider-Man: No Way Home [11/17 Trailer 2 & Easter Eggs]
Hello! This time I’m going to write about the points worth flagging in the latest trailer for the MCU’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which dropped on 17 November 2021, plus the explanations, the analysis, the Easter eggs and predictions for where all of this goes next. I’ll be digging into the ties to the Sam Raimi films and the Amazing films especially, and into Hobgoblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom and the Sinister Six!
The review of the film itself is here!!
[Spoilers: Analysis, Explainer & Review] Spider-Man: No Way Home [MCU, Thoughts & Easter Eggs]
The Shang-Chi analysis and review is here!
[MCU Analysis & Review] Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [Impressions & Easter Eggs]
Eternals is over here
[MCU Commentary Discussion and Review] “Eternals” [Impressions, Easter Eggs]
Contents
What to know going in
[Background] The three Spider-Men
There are three live-action Spider-Man series at the moment.
First, the MCU one played by Tom Holland, which everyone knows.
Second, the so-called Sam Raimi films, played by Tobey Maguire.
Third, the Amazing films, played by Andrew Garfield.
The thing to note is that in the second Amazing film, Peter’s girlfriend Gwen is killed by the Green Goblin.
Where Doctor Octopus sits on the timeline
There’s no confirming it, but the Doc Ock who turns up in this film is apparently set after Spider-Man 2.
Which means he should be on the hero side, back in his right mind, rather than a villain.
Points to watch in this film
Tom Holland bowing out
https://theriver.jp/holland-wants-to-back-sm/
For what it’s worth, Tom Holland’s contract runs out with this third MCU Spider-Man film.
How they write Tom Holland out of the MCU for now should be something to see. There’s every chance the contract gets renewed on the spot, but No Way Home will surely be a dividing line for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.
Or so I thought — and it looks like they’re doing a whole new trilogy!
It says they’re working with the MCU too! Though whether the trilogy happens inside the MCU or over in the SSU is still unclear. So my thinking is still that No Way Home sends Tom Holland to the SSU, and brings Tobey Maguire over to the MCU side!
Tom Holland off to the SSU?
The SSU (Sony’s Spider-Man Universe), home to the Venom films and Morbius, formerly known as the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters (SPUMC) — apparently Tom Holland and company are joining that universe? So what was all that about the contract running out… lol
Or maybe the Spider-Man doing the joining isn’t Tom Holland at all. Looking forward to it either way.
How the multiverse gets handled
This is finally the film where multiverses get to cross over.
Bringing in the multiverse risks making life and death feel cheap, so how they keep the weight in it is very much worth watching.
How it connects to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Spider-Man: No Way Home clearly looks like it feeds straight into the second Doctor Strange film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, out in 2022, so exactly how it connects is on my mind.
The Sinister Six
The villains confirmed so far are
- The Amazing version of Electro (he was blue lightning in the earlier live-action film, but he’s turned yellow now, which is a mystery)
- The Amazing version of the Lizard
- The Sam Raimi version of Sandman (he even looks like he’s helping Peter)
- The Sam Raimi version of the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn, presumably)
- The Sam Raimi version of Doctor Octopus
That’s the list. And the Sinister Six is…
A six-strong villain team of Spider-Man’s enemies, going back to 1964.
It has been put together several times over the years with the line-up changing.
There are spin-off teams as well, like the Sinister Seven and the Sinister Twelve.https://www33.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/409.html
An enormously famous villain team in Spider-Man, in other words. And with a full five villains in this one, the Sinister Six forming is surely a lock. Doc Ock should be on the side of good, as noted above… which is a puzzle.
What I want to focus on here is: who is the sixth member? And what are they after?
Who is the sixth member of the Sinister Six?
Ned / Hobgoblin
In the comics, Ned is actually the third Hobgoblin, a copycat of the Green Goblin.
This figure who shows up for a split second in the trailer especially — I think that might be Ned as the Hobgoblin.
→ The new poster showed that the man in the hood was Willem Dafoe from the Sam Raimi films.
So who is the sixth… Does Hobgoblin turn up after all? And if so, is Hobgoblin a Ned from another universe… or is it…
There’s also the green thing in Aunt May’s hands that looks like a syringe, which people are saying might be the enhancement serum that turns you into a Goblin, the one famous from the Sam Raimi films! But why May… is she involved in Hobgoblin showing up…?
Mysterio
He might come back thanks to Doctor Strange’s mess.
Vulture
He breaks out of prison and joins the Sinister Six, but gets caught this time round, and maybe turns up in the Morbius film…
Venom
Anyone who has seen Venom: Let There Be Carnage will follow this, but that possibility can’t be ruled out either! Though there may be no reason for him to be hostile. Then again, maybe he’s fated to die like the other villains, and comes at Spider-Man to change that. The review of the film itself is here!
[Spoilers] Venom: Let There Be Carnage [Analysis & Easter Eggs]
One More Day and Mephisto
No Way Home looks like it’s based on One More Day, the story that hugely changed the shape of the world in the Spider-Man comics.
A villain from the Ghost Rider comics. He has history with Wanda and Doctor Strange too. And being the devil, he actually has a deep connection to Spider-Man. Incidentally, Spider-Man’s identity becoming public knowledge and asking Strange to rewrite the facts — that turn happens in the source comics as well.
The story runs roughly like this.
- Peter came out in favour of the Superhuman Registration Act during Civil War
- To make that position clear, he publicly announced that he is Spider-Man
- Because of it, Aunt May is shot by a villain and left in a critical condition
- He asks all sorts of heroes and villains to treat Aunt May, but is turned down
- Walking around heartbroken, Peter meets a red-haired girl
- The girl is the devil Mephisto, and he tells Peter that he alone can save Aunt May
- The price Mephisto demands for saving her is “erasing Peter and MJ’s marriage from existence”
- After agonising over it, Peter and MJ take the deal
- Aunt May is saved.
- Just before the world transforms, Mephisto reveals to the two of them that the red-haired girl was their daughter, due to be born in the future, who can now never exist
That girl turning out to be the daughter who will never be born is heartbreaking… Full details at the URL below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_More_Day_(comics)
Is Doctor Strange a fake?
A lot of fans are saying Doctor Strange might be a fake. And that what he really is might be Mephistopheles!
Given the comic that No Way Home is built on, him really being Mephisto is a genuinely fun idea!
My broad prediction for the film
Writing out the reasoning for each of these would be a lot of work, so I’m skipping it.
- Peter is suspected by the police of murdering Mysterio
- Daredevil, otherwise known as Matthew “Matt” Murdock, appears to defend Peter against that charge
- Peter wins his acquittal, but worries about his friends being targeted by bad people
- He gets Doctor Strange to use the item that manipulates nexus points and absolute points (the box in the trailer) to change fate so that Mysterio never spread his identity around, effectively erasing everyone’s memories
- The job fails. Several universes get mixed together, and the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, the Lizard, Electro and Sandman all show up. Plus a villain Ned from another dimension
- These villains were all fated to die fighting the Spider-Man of their own dimension
- Peter wants to save the villains and falls out with Doctor Strange over it, but they patch it up straight away
- And because Doctor Octopus is in the state he’s in after coming back to his senses, he joins Peter and the others
- In the fight with the villains other than Doctor Octopus, villain Ned is badly wounded
- Aunt May and the rest inject villain Ned with the Oscorp super-soldier serum taken from the Green Goblin
- Ned loses his mind and becomes the Hobgoblin
- The Hobgoblin is a gifted hacker, and he hacks Doctor Octopus’s arms and turns him into a villain (a replay of Spider-Man 2)
- What the villains want is to change the fate that has them dying. So they go after the box
- The Sinister Six forms
- Hobgoblin versus Peter, fought at some public facility
- The Hobgoblin comes back to himself for a moment and, following the small piece of good left in him, kills himself with a pumpkin bomb
- The box is taken in the process, and the Sinister Six try to activate it at the Statue of Liberty
- Peter is shaken by losing a friend, even one from another dimension, but resolves to settle it at the Statue of Liberty (Tony Stark’s last words turning up here would be electric)
- But MJ gets knocked off during the fight
- The Sam Raimi and Amazing Spider-Men appear!!
- The Sinister Six are driven off
- But the multiverse eating away at the world doesn’t stop, so Peter resolves to erase himself, the cause of it, from this world, and make the whole incident never have happened
- He shares a farewell kiss with MJ, and the villains and MCU Peter vanish
- But MCU Peter Parker doesn’t die — a new life begins for him in a different world (the title No Way Home paying off). And that new world is the one Venom and company live in
- At the very end, the Sam Raimi Peter Parker played by Tobey Maguire appears in the MCU in his place
- Doctor Strange moves to put the Sam Raimi Peter Parker and the multiverse he wrecked back the way they were → which leads into the second Doctor Strange film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Or it ends with a post-credits scene revealing that this film’s Doctor Strange was Mephistopheles.
The multiple Spider-Men in particular feels pretty credible to me, given that Jamie Foxx, who plays Electro, wrote something about following the Spiders on his Instagram.
Beyond that, my thinking is that the Sam Raimi Spider-Man comes back so that the MCU Spider-Man can do a dark story!
Trailer analysis
Absorbing the nanomachines
Part of the Iron Spider skin has been stripped away, and Doc Ock’s arms are wearing red armour instead — which tells you he’s absorbing Peter’s nanomachines.
The look has changed
On Electro: the actor playing him is the same, but as the images above show, in No Way Home the look follows the comics! So good!!!
What is Aunt May holding?
Looking closely at the trailer scene, Aunt May is clearly holding something green.
This green chemical looks like the item from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man that damages the mind but turns a person superhuman, or the one from The Amazing Spider-Man that turns a human into the Lizard.
Hobgoblin?
There’s a mystery figure riding a glider in the trailer. It might simply be the Green Goblin, but I still think it could be the Hobgoblin.
The grounds for that: in the comics Ned becomes the Hobgoblin; photos like the one below have gone up, where the person looks unwell; and Tom Holland and the others have said this film is dark.
Aunt May having the Oscorp super-soldier serum might well be so she can save a badly wounded Ned.
And my prediction is that Ned recovers, but his personality breaks and he turns villain.
The problem is that he should have turned villain, and yet at the Statue of Liberty he looks like one of the good guys. So does the villain turn come after the Statue of Liberty…? Or is it a Ned from another dimension? As I’ll cover below, Aunt May’s death comes before the Statue of Liberty, which means Ned turning villain has to come before Aunt May’s death. But at the Statue of Liberty Ned looks like an ally, so I do think it’s a Ned from another dimension who turns up.
Is the black & gold suit a prototype?
Look at this suit closely and the wiring is exposed in places, so people are saying it might be the lining of the suit, the one revealed in Homecoming. For reference, the image below is the scene in question.
The questions are why it’s inside out, why it can use magic, and why there are photos of Ned and MJ’s faces on the chest.
Maybe the suit got stripped in a fight and Doctor Strange added magic abilities to it in a hurry? Or maybe the one wearing this suit isn’t the Peter of the Sacred Timeline at all, but a Peter from the multiverse.
Does somebody die?
A Green Goblin bomb is clearly going off in some public facility.
And between the shot of Happy staring hard at something (the blast site, presumably) and the second image above with Peter looking blank, a lot of fans are saying this is the scene where Aunt May is killed.
But in the shot above, from the back half of the trailer, the person Peter is talking to after being hurt in the explosion looks like Aunt May.
So, working out who it is that isn’t Aunt May, dies by pumpkin bomb, and leaves Peter badly shaken, my answer is that the explosion at the public facility is the Hobgoblin (the Ned from another dimension) killing himself.
And the above looks like Peter in the fight at the Statue of Liberty, but the cuts on his face are less raw, so I take it as a scene after Aunt May’s death.
Teaming up with Doc Ock?
As noted above, if the reporting is true then this Doc Ock is the good version. The comic back-and-forth in the trailer backs that up as well. Him fighting Peter on the motorway is presumably because Doc Ock was confused.
The problem is the Sinister Six. With this many villains lined up in a Spider-Man film, not forming the Sinister Six would be far too much of a letdown. So I think another Doc Ock might show up. Or his arms get hacked by the Hobgoblin (the Ned from another dimension) and go out of control.
Falling out with Doctor Strange
Early on it looks like there’s a fight with Doctor Strange.
Peter moves on behalf of the villains who carry the fate of dying in a fight with Spider-Man, and the clash seems to come out of that difference in thinking.
Read that way, the box looks like an item that manipulates fate — in MCU terms, something that manipulates nexus points and absolute points. But use it wrong and it apparently gets you something like the world-on-the-brink shot at the end of the trailer.
The mystery box fusing this universe with another
This is a guess, but I think the world has gone horribly wrong because of that fate-manipulating item mentioned above.
The Green Goblin!!!
This scene is the best!! Really hoping Hot Toys does one of these soon~~~
Saying goodbye to Peter
He tells Aunt May he can’t save everyone, and I think what he means is that by sacrificing himself he saves everyone else.
And the second shot is the goodbye with MJ. I think Peter takes responsibility and leaves this Sacred Timeline.
Three Spider-Men!?
About this Spider-Man versus the villains scene — an astonishing mistake has been spotted in the Brazilian version of the trailer.
It’s the red box in the image above — in the Brazilian version the Lizard is being punched by somebody! That clearly shows there are allies besides Peter, and those allies have to be the Peter Parkers of the Sam Raimi and Amazing Spider-Man films!!!
Elsewhere people are saying the allies are the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, but personally I want to see the Sinister Six form, so I’d rather those two stayed on the enemy side.
MJ falls
MJ falls! This scene brings back Gwen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2…
Gwen died in that film, but if the Amazing Spider-Man turns up in this one saying “I’m not failing again” and saves MJ, I’ll cry!!
