18 Worst Moments In Every MCU Movie (So Far) - Ranked

9. Pepper Returns - Spider-Man: Homecoming

The Film

Quite arguably the best Spider-Man movie ever made and certainly the most persuasive interpretation of the character yet, director Jon Watts smartly assembled Homecoming as a John Hughes-inspired high school comedy with a superhero component, ensuring this was anything but another over-familiar comic book origin story.

Charming, superbly cast and touting one of the MCU's best reveals to date, this largely blew past expectations.

The Moment

After Peter (Tom Holland) turns down an offer to join The Avengers full-time, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) emerges behind Tony, frustrated at Peter's departure and rushing to come up with something to tell the waiting press. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) suggests announcing their engagement, but she insists she has a better idea.

Pepper's return was clearly supposed to be this fun, crowd-pleasing moment, but it felt more weird than anything, largely because Civil War made it clear that Tony and Pepper were through, seemingly in order to write Paltrow out of the MCU.

For her to return to Tony a few movies later with no explanation just feels cheap, as though her leaving Tony in the first place was just some manufactured misery to give Tony's plight in Civil War greater emotional weight.