The Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t just superheroes interacting with other superheroes. The notion of a “universe” is that the actions of some characters leave a permanent impression on the surrounding world. The idea is that when these characters do something, it isn’t just forgotten or ignored, but rather it must be reckoned with. That’s why some people findIron Man 3to be such an infuriating experience. If Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is in trouble and there are exploding people out in the world, then where is SHIELD? What’s the fallout from the Battle of New York other than Tony Stark being slightly more famous than he already was? If these are world-changing events, shouldn’t the world change?
Surprisingly, untilSpider-Man: HomecomingMarvel kind of danced around what it meant to exist as an average person in the MCU.Agents of SHIELDnever really figured out how to make the world feel more organic despite being closer to the ground, and the Marvel movies largely brushed over what was going on with throwaway lines or the occasional gag. But forSpider-Man: Homecoming, everything is determined by a post-Avengersworld. They’re not a secret; they’re basically on the level of the founding fathers, and while we still recognize the world as similar to our own, the characters are fully aware of what it means to have superheroes out and about.
The way the MCU is so active inHomecominggives the movie a special feeling like what was being built towards wasn’t a big bad or a massive conflict, but simply a different world you could walk into and understand that superheroes exist. Yes, this is a bit of a relaunch for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and Spider-Man, but the movie also functions as a way to check in on how the world works when you have superheroes. It raises questions like “Why don’t the Avengers stop all crimes?” and “Where do the ‘little people’ fit in to an epic story?” By going small (relative to the size of the average Marvel film),Homecomingmakes the rest of the MCU feel far bigger and far-reaching than other movies.
It’s also kind of ingenious to have the main viewpoint be teenagers. Yes, there’s Damage Control and there’s Vulture (Michael Keaton) and his band of thugs, but the viewpoint on the MCU is primarily Peter and his friends, people who have, in the world of the film, basically grown up with superheroes. They know that superheroes are important, but they’re also just a part of everyday life. Avengers are basically celebrities who save people, but it helps flesh out the world and define why Peter is so desperate to become an Avenger himself.
However, the film also makes its mark by showing Peter not just as conceited or willing to be popular (it’s why he leaves the party to go after bad guys rather than showing up as Spider-Man to boost Peter’s social standing). This Spider-Man genuinely wants to help people and do as much as possible. When he tells Tony Stark he wanted to be like him, he means it. He wants to be a hero that helps people, and that’s very different than the Spider-Men we’ve seen before. That’s not to diminish Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield’s take on the character. But they were in movies where the central theme is about how do you stay Spider-Man and carry the world on your shoulders? InSpider-Man: Homecoming, Peter still has to juggle his schoolwork and social life with being Spider-Man, but he clearly loves being a hero and it makes the film so much more joyous and fun as a result.
A happy Peter Parker isn’t the only refreshing aspect ofSpider-Man: Homecoming. The film also shows that Marvel doesn’t need world-ending stakes to make a compelling feature. If the Vulture is successful, the world becomes a worse place, but it’s not an extinction-level event. But he’s a bad guy doing bad things for selfish reasons, and he needs to be stopped. There’s never a moment where we think, “Peter should leave that nice black market arms dealer alone.” But we also don’t go so far as to think that the Avengers should have been called in from the start. The movie is right that there’s an area where Peter operates, and I hope that futureSpider-Mansequels don’t lose that. It’s fine to have him fight alongside the Avengers to save the world, but for his own movies,Homecomingshows the value of personal stakes over world-ending ones.
For all the talk about how this is the “Marvel movie by way of John Hughes”, it’s really just Marvel branching out to show that they don’t have to do one kind of picture. You can see that the dissolution of the story group has led to more diverse stories and different climaxes. BeforeCaptain America: Civil War, four out of the previous five Marvel movies dealt with something big falling out of the sky at the climax (Thor: The Dark World,Captain America: The Winter Soldier,Guardians of the Galaxy,Avengers: Age of Ultron). I supposeHomecomingis kind of on that wavelength as there’s a plane falling out of the sky, but the world won’t end when the plane hits the ground, and no one dies when it does. It’s a movie that’s even confident enough to save its villain rather than killing him off.
AlthoughHomecomingis certainly fascinating for the deals that had to be worked out between Sony and Disney to make the movie happen, the end result is far more than an industry curiosity. It’s a movie that fleshes out the MCU in a way that few other characters could. Thor is too grandiose. Captain America is on the run. The Guardians of the Galaxy are in the cosmos. Iron Man is a billionaire. The MCU needed an everyman, and it found one in a teenage boy from Queens who demonstrates that with great power comes great responsibility rather than fretting over that notion every five minutes. And through his eyes, we see how vividly the MCU has come to life on Earth.
But outside our planet, there’s a lot of room to go wild.
