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Spider-Man: No Way Home completely shakes up the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s approach to Spider-Man. Here’s where it leaves Peter Parker.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home, now playing in theaters.
More than just bringing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to the heart of the growing Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, Spider-Man: No Way Home shakes up the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man and his status quo moving forward. At the beginning of the film, the MCU Peter Parker was desperate to change how the events of 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home had left him and his friends and family. By the end of No Way Home, Peter finds himself completely alone and no longer utilizing the advanced Tony Stark-developed technology that he benefitted from for much of his time in the MCU, as a back-to-the-backs version of Spider-Man that suggests a fresh start for the superhero.
With the entire world aware of his secret identity thanks to Mysterio’s machinations at the end of Far From Home, all Peter wants to do throughout No Way Home is forget his civilian alter ego. While Peter is initially uncomfortable with the idea that his family and friends will similarly forget his identity, his hand is forced by the end of the film when the entire multiverse threatens to breach the MCU. With all of reality hinging on his secret identity being restored, Peter convinces Stephen Strange to complete his spell and make the entire world forget who he is along with his double identity as Spider-Man. And in doing so, this action completely strips down Peter’s life and gives him a hard reset.
The final scene of No Way Home reveals that while the public is still aware of Spider-Man’s existence, Peter’s life has seemingly been erased from everyone’s collective memory. This leaves Peter applying to complete his GED instead of graduating from high school and with Happy Hogan, Peter’s surviving link to Stark’s legacy and his cutting edge technology that has empowered the MCU Spider-Man’s gear since Captain America: Civil War. Peter is last seen monitoring emergency service band broadcasts to know where he is needed across Manhattan while creating his own makeshift costume echoing the types that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of Spider-Man utilized.
More than just offering Spider-Man a reset, No Way Home‘s ending offers Tom Holland’s Spider-Man the chance to be a superhero that more closely mirrors the superhero’s classic portrayal in the comic books and preceding, non-MCU films. Ever since Spider-Man debuted in the MCU in Civil War, he has closely been associated with Iron Man and the Avengers, with his superhero career directly linked to the other heroes even in his own solo films. With the other heroes now no longer aware of who Spider-Man is or Peter’s prior existence, Peter must now make his own way as his world’s Spider-Man without his amazing friends and the fancy tricks that defined his previous appearances in the MCU.
The MCU Spider-Man began as a self-made superhero that wore a crudely fashioned costume while balancing his double life as a high school student. No Way Home returns to that back-to-the-basics, friendly neighborhood premise, with Parker alone but benefitting from the wisdom of experience as he resumes his stripped-down superhero approach. For all its multiversal trappings, No Way Home is the ultimate coming-of-age movie for Peter Parker emerging from high school to become his man and superhero, no longer in the shadow of Iron Man and making his own way to become the web-slinging hero that fans love.
Directed by Jon Watts, Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters now.
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