It looks set to be an epic, exciting adventure that\u2019s (possibly) one of the biggest adventures the MCU has ever seen. I can\u2019t wait to watch it. And then I hope they never do it again.<\/p>\n
Well, for Spider-Man at least. While it\u2019s been great to see the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies raise the stakes and offer new challenges to the webhead, it feels like we\u2019re getting further and further away from the core of who and what Spider-Man is.<\/p>
Yes, Spider-Man has often faced world\/universe-ending threats in the comics (remember when he became Captain Universe?), but his greatest stakes have always been more personal, emotional \u2013 a grudge match in the mud with an obsessive foe, rather than zapping a sky beam to save the multiverse.<\/p>\n
If there is a Spider-Man 4<\/a> (and come on, there definitely will be) it needs to take things back to basics. I want to see Spider-Man struggling with his double life, forced to let people down because he has a responsibility they don\u2019t know about. A Spider-Man who doesn\u2019t have a billion-dollar drone programme at his beck and call, or an array of superpowered homies he can call up if things get too tricky.<\/p>\n Basically, I want to see Tom Holland\u2019s version of the real Spider-Man \u2013 the struggling, against-the-odds but scrappy hero created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko all those years ago. The last few movies\u2019 Marvel Universe-centric story has been fun, and a necessary tonic after two Spider-Man adaptations (the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb franchises) that followed similar lines in quick succession, but as time has gone on we\u2019ve drifted away from the core of the character.<\/p>\n Yes, this Spider-Man still has struggles \u2013 and the storyline in No Way Home where he\u2019s hated and potentially prosecuted for crimes he didn\u2019t commit is pure Spidey \u2013 but he\u2019s got too big a support network, too much help. Some fans have wondered whether the end of No Way Home will see Peter forced to wipe his true identity from the minds of everyone in the world, including his loved ones, cutting himself off from those he cares about in order to save everyone.<\/p>\n That sounds brutal. I\u2019m super into it. Give me Spider-Man in misery! The Peter Parker who can\u2019t afford fresh milk and gets dumped by all his girlfriends, just so he can be beaten up by a criminal wearing a high-tech quilt! Think Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker in animated movie Into the Spider-Verse \u2013 that, for me, is what Spider-Man should be.<\/p>\n A soft reboot like this could detach Peter from his supporting cast and reinstate the Spider-Man status quo, while also giving him the kind of weighty consequences for his actions that have characterised the wall-crawler ever since his Uncle Ben decided to go for an evening stroll.<\/p>\n In the comics, other heroes don\u2019t get as tough a ride as Spider-Man. Plenty of other heroes get paid for their good works, be that in money, adulation or respect. Spider-Man tries to turn a buck by wrestling once, and it essentially kills his uncle, while media moguls lead a hate campaign against him. Other heroes get private jets and fan clubs \u2013 Spider-Man regularly gets his costume torn up and has to re-sew it himself.<\/p>\n This is something that the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films understood perfectly. Rewatching them in preparation for No Way Home, I was struck by just how well Raimi adapted the character beyond the obvious suit, powers and basic backstory. Tobey Maguire\u2019s Spider-Man lives in a world of missed opportunities, terrible living conditions and personal sacrifice \u2013 even the reviled Spider-Man 3 (which is still bad, even on a revisit) understands that.<\/p>\n Whatever you think of Andrew Garfield\u2019s personal performance, it\u2019s one of the many things the Marc Webb Amazing Spider-Man films got wrong. Garfield\u2019s Peter lives in a world of slick labs, has a Pinterest-perfect little home, wears stylish clothes. When Tom Holland first arrived on the scene in Captain America: Civil War it seemed like the lesson had been learned, with some truly humble beginnings given to this version of the hero.<\/p>\n But as this Spidey was held closer to the bosom of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that dissipated. Is he really Spider-Man if most of his capability comes from a high-tech suit that somebody else made for him? Is he really Spider-Man if at any point the \u201cgrown-up\u201d characters like Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) or Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) can sweep in and teach him the facts of life?<\/p>\n Taken to its logical conclusion, there\u2019s an argument for the fact that Spider-Man doesn\u2019t make a load of sense in an interconnected superhero world anyway. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility \u2013 but would you really feel that responsible if there were dozens of superheroes more powerful than you doing loads of stuff already? And plenty of them doing way less for the community than you without being cruelly struck down by fate (I\u2019m just saying, Ant-Man and Hawkeye aren\u2019t fighting a lot of crime).<\/p>\n Still, even within a co-existing MCU, it\u2019s possible for Spider-Man to be his own, struggling hero. I really hope that we\u2019re seeing the first shoots of that storyline in the trailers for No Way Home \u2013 assuming, of course, that this isn\u2019t all just a set-up for some even bigger event movie in two years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n As I say, the \u201cHome\u201d trilogy of Spider-Man movies has a lot going for it, and it\u2019s really fun. But I\u2019ll like the movies even more if it turns out that this whole time they\u2019ve all been leading Peter Parker to become a more solo hero with the weight of the world (or at least, New York City) on his shoulders.<\/p>\n After all, you have to leave home as you get older \u2013 and it\u2019s high time this version of Spider-Man finally struck out on his own.<\/p>\n Spider-Man: No Way Home is in UK cinemas from Wednesday 15th December. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi<\/a> page or our full TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Huw Fullerton Published: Monday, 13 December 2021 at 12:00 am New Spider-Man movie No Way Home looks set to blow the doors off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reintroducing a gang of familiar foes (and possibly heroes, cough cough Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire) as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) battles to save the fabric of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":8601,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics.jpg",1503,1002,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics.jpg",1503,1002,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/why-the-next-spider-man-movie-needs-to-take-things-back-to-basics.jpg",1503,1002,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Huw Fullerton Published: Monday, 13 December 2021 at 12:00 am New Spider-Man movie No Way Home looks set to blow the doors off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, reintroducing a gang of familiar foes (and possibly heroes, cough cough Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire) as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) battles to save the fabric of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/8600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Spider-Man\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/11\/Screenshot-2021-11-25-at-16.42.46-3711c4e.png?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Spider-Man\\"\/")
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