With the release of Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has settled into a deceptively calm lull – a quiet before the storm. Many expect the upcoming Spider-man: Far From Home to deal with the huge aftermath of Endgame, specifically the world-changing effects of Thanos’ Snap, and the…
Oh, hold on a moment. SPOILER WARNING! If you haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame, look away, stay back, get you gone.
Still here? Good, let’s talk about Tony Stark’s tragic sacrifice, which saved the world but robbed the young and impressionable Peter Parker of his father-figure, mentor and friend. Tony was one of the key elements of Peter’s first MCU outing, Spider-man: Homecoming, and is expected to play just as important a role in Far From Home, even if he is…you know, dead. The trailers have shown Peter mourning Tony’s death, even as the rest of the world is busy painting murals of Stark on walls and dedicating shrines to him. Peter’s life seems to have taken a downhill turn, as we see him sleepless and bleary-eyed, putting away the Stark-tech suit he proudly wore in Avengers: Infinity War, trying to live a normal life: when he’s approached by Nick Fury to help with a supernatural threat, we even see him trying to push his responsibilities onto other heroes – who, conveniently, happen to be off-world. (But, no, seriously, all the other heroes are busy? What about Ant-Man and the Wasp? They’re not doing anything).
But Peter Parker isn’t in the clear yet, and a new reveal from actor Tom Holland suggests that the storm might be about to break in epic fashion, shaking things up in Peter’s life, and at the same time initiating the fourth phase of the MCU.
Holland said “There’s a scene in this film where audiences will feel like they were punched in the face….it’s very tense, and it sorts of rips the rug from underneath your feet. It’s pretty awesome.”
“Awesome” certainly is one way to put it. Far From Home director Jon Watts apparently believes that the scene in question will be controversial, and that some fans will “hate it”. This keeps getting better and better. The big question now, of course, is what could possibly be so shocking, so unexpected, that it could potentially divide the fanbase and leave us dumbfounded?
Unfortunately, there’s plenty of possibilities. Let’s discuss.
We’ve already known for some time that the Multiverse is actually a thing – the Far From Home trailers have revealed that there are alternate realities running parallel to the main MCU timeline, some of which were apparently fractured by Thanos’ Snap, releasing creatures from other dimensions into our world. Quentin Beck, a.k.a “Mysterio”, is seen teaming up with Peter Parker to hunt down these intruders and herd them back into their own reality. Fans have basically just taken for granted that, since Mysterio is a villain in the Spider-man comics, he might not have the most noble intentions in the MCU: he could be playing on Peter’s emotions; he might be lying about the Multiverse, using it as a cover for something else; with his powers of deception and illusion, he might have trapped Peter in an alternate reality of his own. Any of those could be twists, but they would be small ones – probably resolved by the end of the movie, without any major ramifications. It’s just that almost everybody has already guessed that Mysterio isn’t what he claims to be, so this would hardly be a satisfying shocker.
Mysterio might have something to do with the twist, though. According to producer Eric Carroll, the maybe-villain/maybe-hero will star in many more Marvel films to come, which means we might not see him die in Far From Home, even if he does turn out to be evil. He might slink back into the Multiverse whence he came, and wait for another, better opportunity to conquer the world. Or, you know, he might be good. I mean, that possibility is still technically on the table. It would probably be a bigger twist if he turned out to be good, than if he turned out to be the villain – but then again, Captain Marvel just did the same thing by revealing that the alien Skrulls were actually good guys.
It’s also very possible the twist is aiming for our heartstrings, and that it might have something to do with the recently-deceased Tony Stark. Maybe Mysterio conjures up an illusion of Stark, and uses it to deceive and manipulate Peter? AI Tony is something that Marvel fans have been eagerly raving about since he died, and it would be cruel and heartless to introduce the concept – only to then reveal it as a sham, and rip it away. Or what if Mysterio is AI Tony?
What if Peter Parker cracks under the strain of having to live in Tony Stark’s footsteps and ends up joining Mysterio, becoming a villain? A scene like this, at the end of the movie, could be similarly horrific as the infamous Snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, where many beloved heroes (including Spider-man) turned to dust and crumbled away before our very eyes. I’ve also seen speculation that Mysterio is actually Peter Parker himself, but an alternate, evil version – one who turned down a path of darkness and villainy after Tony Stark died in his universe. That could illustrate some of the larger themes of the movie, about coping with grief and honoring the legacies of lost loved ones.
Maybe Nick Fury, the man who started the Avengers Initiative, will be one of the victims of Mysterio’s brutality, and his death will officially close the Infinity Saga that he began? Others have suggested that Fury or his co-worker Maria Hill could be another classic Spider-man villain, the Chameleon, in disguise: the appearance of Chameleon has been the subject of many rumors recently. Fury’s death, or a reveal such as this, would definitely anger fans. Maybe (just throwing out the possibility) Peter’s Aunt May is actually the Chameleon? Or even Happy Hogan? Ned? What if Peter Parker is the Chameleon…wait, that doesn’t make sense.
With Mysterio and the Multiverse both confirmed to be large parts of the Far From Home plot, it’s likely that one or both of these things has to do with the twist. Unfortunately, there’s so many possibilities, it’s really difficult to nail down just one. I can’t wait to hear your own thoughts and suggestions in the comments below!