MCU Writers Explain How Spider-Man's Origin Story Is 'Born In the Blood' of Aunt May
Spider-Man: No Way Home served as the culmination of Peter Parker's origin story in the MCU, which is a unique approach since it happened throughout three movies. Tom Holland's Peter Parker made his debut during Captain America: Civil War, with the young hero already suited up as Spider-Man. Since then, the character's solo movies, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home, dove deep into the hero's dynamic with MCU mainstays such as Tony Stark and Nick Fury (Talos) while still developing the web crawler's heroic transition.
Far From Home's ending created a massive shift in Peter's life as his secret identity was revealed to the rest of the world by Mysterio. As a result, No Way Home completely changed the game as it introduced Peter to the biggest mission of his superhero life.
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From unveiling the Multiverse to the film becoming a celebration of all things Spider-Man, No Way Home still managed to tell a compelling story that catapulted Peter from being a Spider-boy to a full-fledged Spider-Man.
Now, the writers behind the latest Marvel and Sony collaboration discussed the process of wrapping up Peter's origin story.
Spider-Man's 3-Movie Origin (Explained)
Spider-Man: No Way Home writer Chris McKenna sat down with Gold Derby to talk about Peter Parker's 3-movie origin story in the MCU that ended with the threequel.
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The Marvel writer first pointed out that it was the idea of No Way Home director Jon Watts to tell the origin story of Holland's Peter over three movies while also touching on the character's moral dilemma of choosing to save the villains or letting them die in their respective universes:
"This is him fighting between them because Peter doesn’t want to do May’s way for the whole movie. Until the midpoint, he’s like, I guess I gotta do this, but that was when we stripped everything away, it became a moral choice between our Peter and we started realizing Peter and so much of this is like Watts going, ‘Oh wait, no, we’re doing the Peter Parker origin story, we’re just doing it over three movies.’ This is it."
McKenna then looked back at Peter's debut during 2016's Captain America: Civil War, with him saying that the movie only served as a glimpse of the hero's origin story while admitting that "it wasn't born in sacrifice." The Marvel writer described No Way Home as "born in the blood of May," acknowledging that Aunt May's death is the catalyst for Peter Parker's
"This is his moral discovery because we don’t know anything about Peter from Civil War. He’s just like, ‘Okay, a bad thing happens to other people and you don’t do anything…’ It was the Russo brothers and Marcus & McFeely’s version of 'With great power comes great responsibility,’ but it wasn’t born in sacrifice. And in this movie, it is born in the blood of May, that’s why it comes down to ‘I’m gonna kill this guy,' and then the only way he can learn that lesson is because two Peter Parker’s from the Multiverse come in and they help teach them the lesson that they’ve learned the hard way. "
McKenna ended by discussing how Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures worked together to craft a powerful origin story for the MCU's web-slinger:
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"It’s not just all lip service, it’s not all curtain calls, it was us with Watts and Feige and Amy and Sommers all trying to figure out why is this meaningful? Why are we going through this thing? How do we make it real and meaningful? So that was a discovery while we were shooting it."
The MCU's Spider-Man's Unique Origin
Chris McKenna's latest comments managed to drive the point home of how the MCU told Peter Parker's unique origin story. This is an impressive approach since many would agree that no one saw it coming.
Homecoming was able to tell a story about a young hero who's been raring to grab the chance of becoming a member of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but at the end of the day, Peter learned the lesson the hard way by going back to square one without the advanced Stark technology.
Meanwhile, Far From Home is all about Peter trying to balance two lives while diving into the concept of taking risks. While both movies have complete standalone stories, the pair complement what No Way Home is trying to tell, thus completing the character's journey in a compelling fashion.
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McKenna's remark about the film being "born in the blood of [Marisa Tomei's] May" alludes to the fact that the character's sacrifice served as the launchpad for Peter's full-fledged transformation.
This has been a common trope for Spider-Man films, with Uncle Ben usually serving as the sacrificial lamb for Peter Parker to realize that he needs to step up to become a hero. However, given that the MCU didn't feature Ben Parker at all, it was an eventuality that the responsibility was given to May instead.
No Way Home also added other elements, such as the two Peter Parkers played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to fully assist Holland's Peter into becoming the best version of himself.
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Garfield even addressed this "brilliant reversal" in a previous interview, with him describing it as "a kind of irreverent undercutting of the usual formula."
As No Way Home closes one chapter, it begins a new one for Holland's hero. This opens up endless possibilities since it allows Peter to fully embrace the concept of becoming Spider-Man alongside a fresh slate of opportunities.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is now playing in theaters worldwide.
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