8 Things Nobody Wants To Admit About MCU Spider-Man

6. He's Only Been Used As A Vehicle To Process Iron Man's Legacy

Just to qualify everything in this entry: Spider-Man: Homecoming and Far From Home are good comic book films. Within the context of the MCU specifically, they're actually excellent. Both films do a tremendous job with Spidey's villains and there's a conscious effort made to reappraise the legacy of Tony Stark, albeit one that's sometimes at odds with Peter's own journey onscreen.

The high school dynamic is also a stark improvement over Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man films. Director Jon Watts applies the spirit of John Hughes' seminal coming of age dramas to Spider-Man, and when it works, it REALLY works.

The issue with Homecoming and Far From Home isn't that they're bad comic book movies, but that they are bad Spider-Man movies. The high school element is the perfect setting for a story dedicated to exploring the web-slinger's mythology, but so far both have spent the majority of their time processing Iron Man's legacy, and how Peter factors into it.

Adrian Toomes is superbly reimagined in Homecoming, played to perfection by Michael Keaton - as is Quentin Beck by Jake Gyllenhaal in the sequel. However, both characters serve near enough the same purpose in detailing how Tony Stark's arrogance did major harm. Both have their own motivations and differences, but their battles with Peter ultimately perform the same function in working through Iron Man's legacy.