It’s been a turbulent ride for fans of Spider-Man. This past summer “Spider-Man: Far From Home” was released and was the first movie to come out since the culminative ending of this phase of The Avengers storyline, “Avengers: Endgame.” Far From Home had to answer a lot of questions and tie up some loose ends that Endgame left behind. Like how do the people that were snapped back adjust to a world that’s five years older? What is the world like without Iron Man? And what’s the next step for the Marvel Cinematic Universe now that the infinity war arc is over? 

The answers, in order, are: everyone just goes back to the way things were, the world is sad without Iron Man, and as for what’s next for the MCU, Far From Home sets up Spider-Man to be a big part of the next Marvel universe arc, possibly taking on a central role the same way Iron Man did in the Avengers.

For a brief while it looked like ‘The Web Head’ was poised to take a central role in the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then came a messy divorce between mom (Disney) and dad (Sony). Dad won custody over the kid (Spider-Man), but unfortunately, this dad had no idea what he was doing. Sony’s attempt at world building, which started with a reboot, failed in the same way the early DC Cinematic Universe did. They rushed it, trying to force too much too soon, while also making mediocre movies.   

For two months fans had to get used to the idea of Sony owning full parental rights over Spider-Man. That would mean that Sony would get to use Spider-Man in the universe that they were trying to build. Before Sony and Disney had their messy split, they came to an agreement that Spidey could be used in the MCU, meaning Sony was not able to make a movie with him. But they kept world building, that’s how we got the Tom Hardy “Venom” movie.

Since Sony acquired the movie rights to Spider-Man back in 1999 from MGM studios (cinemablend.com), there have been two versions of Spider-Man from Sony: The Toby Maguire version and the Andrew Garfield version. But ever since the third Maguire Spider-Man movie, the live action attempts by Sony just haven’t been good.   

The most frustrating thing about it all is that Sony is completely capable of creating good Spider-Man movies. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was one of the best comic book movies I’ve ever seen, and many other critics agree as it boasts an impressive 97% on rotten tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com). Maybe because the team behind Spider-Verse was better or maybe because the live action films Sony made relied too much on who was in them instead of a good story.    

Now, it seems like the two parents have worked things out and have agreed to stay together for the kid at least. Not usually an ideal situation but I’m all for it if it means Spider-Man gets to stay apart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.