The Demands of Marvel Continuity

A few days ago I saw Spiderman: Enter the Spiderverse, a visually-inventive animated movie with a welcome theme of inclusivity. As a Sony movie, this one doesn't really burden itself with fitting into the MCU - indeed, the very premise suggests that Tom Holland's Spiderman is merely one of many iterations of Peter Parker, just as there might be several Miles Moraleses or Gwens Stacy. It's a premise that allows everything to be in a shared, multiversal canon, which probably suits Sony just fine.

Today (or maybe yesterday) we got a trailer for the MCU's next Spiderman movie, Far From Home (funny, you'd think Homecoming would come after that.)

The details aren't terribly important - it looks like Mysterio is going to be in it, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and it's set during a class trip to London.

But... and if you care about the MCU, I think we're past the statute of limitations on Infinity War spoilers, but SPOILER WARNING anyway:

Last time anyone checked in with the MCU's continuity, Peter Parker was dust blowing in the wind on Thanos' homeworld.

Now, the moment that the "Snap" happened, it was pretty obvious that the next movie would be about reversing what had happened. Not only had popular characters like Black Panther and Spiderman died with obvious sequels required, but it also would be very hard to have the fun, quippy MCU work if everyone were reeling from the horror of half of the universe's population having been wiped out. The Leftovers was about like 1% or something, and everyone acted as if the apocalypse had come and gone.

What is a bit funny about this, though, is that Marvel has no illusions about the meta-narrative. Things might be dire within the MCU, but looking in on it from our vantage point, we know that the heroes are going to save the day and reverse the damage.

Still, up until now we didn't see any movies aside from Endgame set in the post-Endgame situation. Ant Man and the Wasp was in the weeks before Infinity War (with a post-credits teaser that showed the snap's effects) and Captain Marvel is set in the 90s, well before even Iron Man 1. This trailer makes it appear that not only is the snap reversed, but that people seem to either be unaware of it or at least have gone back to normal with shocking ease.

Obviously, this was going to have to happen. Homecoming established that the MCU's use of Spiderman was to have fun and relatively low-stakes adventures with its charming teenage superhero. We want those movies, and even if it's not as if we haven't gotten a lot of Spiderman movies in the last eighteen years, the fun of having it part of the MCU (and getting that lighthearted tone right) makes us demand some Spiderman - even if our last image of this version of Peter Parker was seeing a teenager disintegrate while begging for his life.