[Spoilers: Analysis, Explainer & Review] Spider-Man: No Way Home [MCU, Thoughts & Easter Eggs]

I’m going to write about the key points of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the explainers, the analysis, the Easter eggs, and my predictions for what comes next. In particular I’ll be explaining how it connects to the Sam Raimi films and the Amazing films, how it connects to Doctor Strange and the MCU going forward, and that final scene.

In this post I’ll write briefly about the things that caught my eye on a first viewing and the Easter eggs, and then get into the analysis.

Spoilers ahead

For the episode-by-episode reviews, check the images below!

Contents

A recent hobby

I’ve started shooting all sorts of things for fun lately. The camera is an a7 IV — shoot in RAW, edit in Lightroom, that kind of thing.

What I shot this time was Kichijoji.

My prediction post for this film

I made predictions too! The guesses about the storyline might have been fairly close(?)

[MCU Discussion & Prediction] Spider-Man: No Way Home [11/17 Trailer 2, Easter Egg]

Analysis / Explainer

Ned’s crossbow

In the comics, Ned actually means the third Hobgoblin, a copycat of the Green Goblin. So, as you can see in my prediction post, I predicted the Sinister Six would show up in this film and that the sixth villain would be Ned going dark as the Hobgoblin. In the end, even though there were as many as five villains in the film, the Sinister Six never turned up lol

And when Ned picked up that crossbow in the film, I did think “oh, is Ned about to start firing off pumpkin bombs with a crossbow?” — but no lol

Ned apparently has a talent for magic, so he might well come back later studying under Doctor Strange and turn up as a sorcerer hero!

Aunt May’s death

Exactly as the pumpkin bomb and Happy’s face in the trailer suggested, Aunt May ends up killed by the Green Goblin I cried. My own guess had been a Ned from the multiverse, and that was wrong.

To have the line that makes Spider-Man Spider-Man — “with great power comes great responsibility” — handed down in its true sense by Aunt May, of all people…

Her scene was genuinely heartbreaking… And the Green Goblin’s evil was truly terrifying. But it was good that her will to help anyone, whoever they are, gets properly passed on. Thanks to that, everyone ends up saved in the end. Would love it if they all came back again down the line~

Making peace with the villains

It was good that peace gets made with the villains from the Sam Raimi films and the Amazing films, each in the way listed below! And I think it’s precisely because the other Peters who faced them directly were there, not just the MCU Peter, that their hearts could be looked after!

1. Amazing Electro — he pours out his longing for Spider-Man and for superpowers, and the Amazing Peter is the one who backs him up
2. Amazing Lizard — the doctor himself is a decent enough man(?), so it isn’t dwelt on much
3. Raimi Sandman — seeing that the others, Doc Ock and Norman and the rest, were all dead men, he gets the wrong idea that maybe he’s fated to die too, and so he’s a villain this time round. But it was good that the Raimi Peter properly looked after him
4. Raimi Green Goblin — it was good that the Raimi Peter properly forgave him. I think the bad blood between them has eased
5. Raimi Doctor Octopus — the exchange with him moved me most. I don’t remember it all that well, but I think it was the exchange from when Peter and Doc Ock were working partners. Staging them going back to that earlier relationship was superb. And Doc Ock picking up the reactor and saying “the power of the sun, in the palm of my hand,” just as in Spider-Man 2, was a lovely homage too

MJ made it in time!! Garfield’s face

The scene where the Amazing Peter saves MJ got me so fired up!!! And his almost-crying face on top of that was a magnificent piece of acting!!!! That moment really got to me I cried

In the trailer, the shot of MJ falling called back to the scene in the Amazing films where Gwen is killed.

So fans, myself included, were saying the Amazing Peter might turn up right there in the film itself — and that is exactly what happened and I could not stop losing it!!!

The theme of this film was saving the characters from the earlier films!

A live-action Spider-Gwen!?

This is rumour level, truth unknown, but apparently Emma Stone, who played Gwen in the Amazing films, is going to appear as Spider-Gwen! Would be great if it actually happens~

Why did Electro and Venom know his identity?

The villains in this film are the ones who know Peter Parker’s identity. But Electro and Venom, who are among them — rewatch their films and there doesn’t seem to be a moment where they learn who Peter is. So I’m going to write about the scenes where they might have found out.

Electro / Max — how did he know?

For Electro, there’s a scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, around the one hour fifty-three mark, where Gwen calls out “Peter” in front of a fallen Electro. Right after that Electro opens his eyes, so it may be that the one thing he knew was that Spider-Man’s name is Peter. If so, it also makes sense that in this film he had assumed Spider-Man was a Black man.

Venom / Eddie — how did he know?

At the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie has knowledge shared with him by Venom. Venom’s line at that moment is

“The hive knowledge from 80 billion light years across the universe would blow up that tiny brain of yours”

— so it may be that information about symbiotes across the multiverse was shared along with it. Which is to say: the Venom in Spider-Man 3 knows Spider-Man’s identity, and that’s how Eddie knew as well.

The silhouettes inside the multiverse light

Inside the multiverse light there were people who know Spider-Man’s identity. The ones I could pin down were Kraven the Hunter, Black Cat, Superior Spider-Man, Scorpion or the Spider-Slayer, Rhino and Mysterio. Let me introduce these five characters.

Kraven the Hunter

His comics background is below. And by the way, Kraven has a solo film of his own planned! Something to look forward to!

Overview

Kraven the Hunter is a character who appears mainly in Spider-Man comics. He was a celebrated hunter who built up his experience in Africa, Kenya in particular. He is the half-brother of the Chameleon, the first villain Spider-Man ever fought. He burns with obsession over “hunting” Spider-Man. He is also well known as a member of the original Sinister Six.

Abilities

He himself is a human trained to the point where he can bring down wild beasts bare-handed, but that hardly counts as a special ability. He does, however, use a secret African elixir to enhance his physical abilities and his five senses. Because he keeps taking it, his ageing is held back. He also uses a second elixir as a paralysing agent. And from his experience as a hunter he excels at tracking and survival technique. He can also punch a nerve ganglion precisely and temporarily lock down an opponent’s movement.

https://w.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/287.html

Black Cat

Her comics background is below. I imagine plenty of people who played the PS4 Spider-Man game already know her! Apparently she has a solo film planned as well!

Overview

Black Cat is a character who appears mainly in Spider-Man-related comics. A sexy cat burglar who wears a black-cat costume. There was a period when she was Spider-Man’s girlfriend. She first appears as a villain, but she works with Spider-Man sometimes and against him at others — a character who goes her own capricious way, exactly like a cat.

https://w.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/213.html

Superior Spider-Man

Superior Spider-Man is the hero name Octopus takes for himself when, sensing his own death approaching, he takes over Peter Parker’s body. In the end Doc Ock is moved by Peter’s spirit, gives the body back and meets a moving end in which his own soul is extinguished. This story is enormously popular, so it’d be lovely to see it done in live action~

Scorpion

Originally a private detective. J. Jonah Jameson, editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, was suspicious of Peter Parker for always being able to photograph Spider-Man and hired him to tail Peter, but the job ended in failure. Afterwards, through Jameson’s introduction, he underwent human experimentation, and the result was a villain who wields a scorpion-type suit and goes after Spider-Man.

https://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%94%E3%82%AA%E3%83%B3%28%E3%82%B9%E3%83%91%E3%82%A4%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3%29

This Scorpion did make a brief appearance at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, and people were saying he’d be the villain of the second or the third Spider-Man film, but so far not a peep lol

Spider-Slayer

A reader of the blog pointed out that it isn’t Scorpion but the Spider-Slayer, and I thought “you’re right!”, so I’m putting it up here!

The Spider-Slayer is, exactly as the name says, a villain built to kill Spider-Man. There isn’t much material in Japanese about him, so this is about as far as I can go…

And by the way, the character who becomes the Spider-Slayer in the comics did appear in The Amazing Spider-Man 2! His name is Alistair Smythe, and he was probably meant to show up in The Amazing Spider-Man 3, I suppose?

Rhino

Rhino was in there too! He appears at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and in this film the Amazing Peter talks about him in a wonderfully funny way. Probably a Rhino from a different dimension

Mysterio

Mysterio was in shot as well! The Mysterio in that shot feels to me like the genuine article, a Mysterio with no tricks who can really use magic!

Norman’s evil

Norman’s evil in this film was genuinely frightening… Bringing back an old character usually knocks their stock down, but here the evil coming off him overwhelmed me instead. Killing Aunt May without mercy, running the Raimi Peter through from behind without mercy — those bits gave me chills. Would love to keep seeing Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn in some form or other going forward!

The classmates

Peter’s classmates turned up here and there too! First, Flash Thompson! He’s startled at first to learn that Spider-Man is Peter, but then he grabs the best-friend slot for himself and shows a side of him that is very much him.

Betty Brant was in there too! And apparently she appears on the Daily Bugle for free… T-talk about a sweatshop lol

Flashpoint

The book written by Peter’s friend(?) Flash Thompson is titled Flash Point! And Flashpoint is the title of an extremely famous story from DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman. And that story hints at where this film ends up.

The synopsis is below. In short, it’s the story of the Flash, otherwise known as Barry Allen, a hero who can move at super speed, rewriting the past to save his own mother and wrecking the present in the process. In the end the Flash himself blocks the version of himself doing the rewriting and things go back — but the curtain comes down with him paying the price of ending up in a world slightly different from the original timeline.

One day the Flash, otherwise known as Barry Allen, wakes up in the Central City police station where he works. Hearing word of an incident, Barry runs off as usual, but for some reason he can’t become the Flash and tumbles down the stairs. When he lifts his head, his mother, who ought to be dead, is standing there. Thinking the world he’s in is some kind of parallel world, Barry heads for Wayne Manor to call on the Batman who exists here too, and there he realises that this world is his own world. With Batman’s help Barry gets his powers back and begins the fight to put the world back as it was.

https://w.atwiki.jp/aniwotawiki/pages/36879.html

The world being rewritten by your own actions and you taking responsibility for it in the end — isn’t that the main story of this film exactly? Ah, the small touches in this are so good!

About the sequels to come

Before Far From Home there was a rumour asking whether it would be the last film with Tom Holland playing Spider-Man — and now, apparently, a whole new trilogy is being made!!! Get in!!

Personally, what I’d like the sequels to handle is below.

• Whether he carries on without going to university
• Whether the memories of his girlfriend MJ and his best friend Ned come back
• Whether he rejoins the Avengers
• Want him to fight the Sinister Six and Venom!
• Spider-Verse!
• Sequels to the Sam Raimi films and the Amazing films

On how the memories come back in particular: either observers sitting in a region close to the outside of the multiverse, like the ones in Loki, restore them for him, or Doctor Strange’s magic restores them the same way it erased them! Or else it’s leaning on Mephisto, like in the comics…

Miles Morales shows up

I think Miles Morales will show up in the fourth Spider-Man film! First of all, the recent MCU has plenty of multiple heroes teaming up to fight. Which means Peter needs a partner. The second reason is that going to MIT would let Peter see MJ and Ned, so I think the next film has Miles Morales staying behind in New York while Peter heads off to MIT

And by the way, it has already been hinted that Miles exists in the MCU. The evidence is the scene above from Homecoming — that man is Miles’s uncle! And he talks about his nephew in the film, so Miles existing in this world is surely locked in.

End credits: the leftover bit of Venom

At the very end of this film, Venom and Eddie Brock, who came over to the MCU in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, go and leave a piece of the symbiote behind in the MCU lol What on earth are they doing! lol

So maybe the fourth Spider-Man film is a fight against this symbiote?

Three Spider-Men, the best!!!!

To think Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield genuinely, actually turn up!!! I cried at that scene!! The cinema itself erupted with gasps and cheers lol

The MCU Peter is worn down to nothing after losing Aunt May, and the other Peters tell him that they lost a great many things too and kept being heroes anyway, and that the words “with great power comes great responsibility” exist in every world — scenes like that were tremendous!

There’s also the parody of that scene where the Spider-Men go “who are you?” at each other, and it made me laugh.

The editing slip in the trailer

Only the Brazilian trailer had the shot at the bottom where the Lizard gets punched by someone! Time to check the answer: he was being punched by the other Spider-Man, the Amazing one!! Absolutely magnificent!!

The bitter ending where everyone forgets him

Just like the comic One More Day and the DC comic Flashpoint, this film closes with the hero, Peter, taking responsibility. The way he takes responsibility here was “having everyone forget Peter Parker.” The upshot is that Peter is left utterly alone in that world…

And on top of that MJ and Ned and Flash all go off far away to university… After that negotiation with the MIT bigwig, it would have been nice if the outcome had been that everyone forgets him but he can still go to MIT — though this is a meta point, Spider-Man being Peter Parker presumably means leaving New York is out of the question…

Very much looking forward to where this goes from the next film on. A happy ending, please!

Where the Sam Raimi and Amazing versions are now

There’s only the dialogue in the film to go on, but both the Raimi and the Amazing versions are still working as Spider-Man, and in the Raimi version it doesn’t look like he married MJ, though they seem to have built a good relationship. The Amazing one sadly appears to have no partner yet… If Spider-Gwen gets a live-action version and the two of them end up together, that’d be lovely~ And by the way, neither series seems to have an Avengers or anything like it.

Avi Arad

Avi Arad, whose name came up in the credits, is the producer of the Sam Raimi films and the Amazing films! It really is thanks to him that today’s Spider-Man and the rest of it exist! Thank you!

The black & gold suit

The black & gold suit really was the suit turned inside out! Whoever spotted that first is amazing!

The new suit at the end

The end of this film unveils Spider-Man’s new suit!! A very similar suit exists in the PS4 game Marvel’s Spider-Man under the name Spider-Armor MK IV, so I’ll put it up here. In that world I don’t think Tony’s legacy tech is available any more, so how did he build it, and what functions does it have, I wonder?

Saying goodbye to MJ

As I wrote in the prediction post, this shot from the trailer really was the goodbye scene between MJ and Peter… It was superb… But why did Peter walk away from there? He could have just stayed, is what I thought

Daredevil

Peter’s lawyer genuinely was Matt Murdock, otherwise known as Daredevil!!!

It looks like the misunderstanding around Peter got cleared up thanks to him! A crack lawyer, as expected!!! Kingpin turned up in Hawkeye as well, so their fight might well be back on screen!

Why turn hostile? Because they don’t know whether they die

Sandman above all — villains who weren’t out-and-out monsters in their original films turn clearly hostile in this one. As for the reason, I think it becomes clear once you stand where they stand. From their point of view, people like Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin who ought to be dead were right there, so they fell into the suspicion that maybe they die too if they’re sent back to their own world, and they turned hostile in order to survive.

There is no Osborn company

Apparently the MCU has no Osborn company…!!! So a Dark Avengers made up of the villains piling up in the MCU right now probably isn’t happening? Maybe? Or does the Osborn company turn up later? Oscorp is so famous that it’s the first thing anyone thinks of with Spider-Man, so I’d love it to appear~

And by the way, the Dark Avengers are a team made up entirely of former villains. Their members include people who have already appeared in the MCU, like U.S. Agent from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Taskmaster, so at this rate a Young Avengers versus Dark Avengers looks likely. Bit obvious, maybe lol

As a result of the ending of the crossover “Secret Invasion,” Tony Stark, otherwise known as Iron Man, lost the government’s trust and was removed from his post as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The man who took that seat in his place was Norman Osborn, who had killed the Skrull queen. The Avengers of the time (the Mighty Avengers, formed only from heroes registered under the Superhuman Registration Act) were run on funding from S.H.I.E.L.D., so Osborn, now holding the real power at S.H.I.E.L.D., became the man effectively in charge. Osborn then renamed S.H.I.E.L.D. as H.A.M.M.E.R. and decided to rebuild the Avengers out of people loyal to him alone. The team formed this way is the Dark Avengers. Note that “Dark” is only the name on the comic’s title — Norman Osborn himself calls them the proper “Avengers.” The members were gathered to fill roles resembling the previous Avengers and their code names follow suit, but a great many of them are former villains.

https://w.atwiki.jp/studentx/pages/435.html

Post-credits scene: a beautiful handover

The post-credits scene of this film was the trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness!!! And that film is directed by Sam Raimi, so the shape of it is the newest Spider-Man film handing the baton over to the man who directed the very first Spider-Man! So good!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvRuh7bqRgc

I’ll turn the analysis and explainer for that trailer into a separate post!