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Comparing the villains of No Way Home to their previous installments makes one wonder how the Spider-Man rogues grew so much stronger.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home, now in theaters.
Spider-Man: No Way Home did what no previous Spider-Man film had before by reaching into the past of different live-action franchises to assemble a sinister team of super villains to combat the wall-crawler. The Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Sandman from the Sam Raimi-directed films joined forces with Lizard and Electro from the installments directed by Marc Webb, resulting in a team-up more powerful than Spider-Man had ever faced on film. Yet, not all of the villains’ power came from their assemblage. Even taken individually, the villains of No Way Home prove stronger and deadlier than they ever were before, raising curious questions about just where the amplification in their power came from.
After languishing in the public eye following the reveal of his secret identity to the rest of the world, No Way Home details Spider-Man’s attempts to recruit the magical aid of Doctor Strange in dispelling said knowledge from the public eye. When the spell goes wrong, the villains who learned Spider-Man’s identity in different worlds are drawn into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where their wall-crawling foe caches their vengeful attentions. But while it’s made abundantly clear the villains who appear are the same versions seen previously in the former live-action Spider-Man franchises, something seems markedly different about them.
Most importantly, they seem a whole lot stronger. The change is immediately apparent during Doctor Octopus’ debut on the bridge, as the fight that ensues quickly proves that the menacing mastermind’s tentacles are more powerful than they ever were before. The Doctor Octopus of the Raimi films certainly had no lack in his strength, but the film still portrayed the villain as struggling to rip a bank vault off its hinges and rarely tossing more than a few tons at a time. But in his bridge debut in the MCU, Doctor Octopus wields massive concrete pillars, rips through the bridge itself, and at one point tosses a car with such force it goes crashing through a collection of traffic barrels. Those are objects specifically designed to stop crashing vehicles, yet Doctor Octopus tore through them like nothing.
The same upgrade in power seems to hold true for the Green Goblin, whose duels with Spider-Man in the Raimi films only ever tore through the thin wooden walls of burning or decrepit buildings. But in his fight against Spider-Man in No Way Home, the Green Goblin is suddenly ripping through concrete walls and tearing through the floors of the building throughout their fistfight. Even Sandman seems to have gained greater proficiency with his own powers, maintaining his form and manifesting a variety of shapes and sizes he rarely showcased before. In Spider-Man 3, he quite often fell apart mid-battle, proving vulnerable to sudden impacts or even gushing water where no such vulnerabilities seem present any longer.
However, the only villain whose power upgrade is explicitly outlined in the film is Electro. Remarking on his change in form upon entering the new universe, Electro soon lusts after the power of the arc reactor when he realizes what the advanced technology can offer his electrically-charged persona. Obtaining that power and tearing it away from him provides a center point to Electro’s journey in the film, but the subject of the other villains’ boosts is never addressed. So, what is it that could have caused the change?
Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus prove particularly puzzling because of how they were said to be pulled to the MCU mere moments before their deaths. While it could be possible that they honed their abilities in an unseen interim time, with Doctor Octopus tinkering with his tentacles or Green Goblin refining his strength serum, the implication seems to be that no such interim time existed. And yet, that is not the only way that the characters are different. Each has a slightly different design, wearing different clothing and looking slightly different than they did in the finales of their films.
It could be that the same universal transference which boosted Electro’s powers had a similarly transformative effect on the other villains that were simply never commented on. It may even be that the villains were simply unleashing potential they never fully tapped into before, more comfortable with their powers than they were in the earlier days of their origins. Further explorations of multiversal travel, such as in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, could reveal further insights into the power to be gained by that method, and it could prove to be a power to be wielded quite irresponsibly by any villain looking to take advantage of it.
To see the villains receive a power boost, Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters now.
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