8 Things Nobody Wants To Admit About MCU Spider-Man
5. He Was Introduced In Pretty Much The Worst Way
Marvel Studios
Captain America: Civil War stands out as one of the best films in the MCU, and while Spidey's appearance in the film is likely still a highlight to many, in retrospect... it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Civil War has so many moving parts in it and by far the most compelling is the battle going on between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely's adaptation of the Mark Millar and Steve McNiven comic is a noticeable upgrade in that it dedicates the time to unpack Tony's feelings, injecting some moral ambiguity into an issue that was decidedly more black and white on paper.
Factor in the relationship between Steve and Bucky, the arrival of Black Panther and Zemo AND the conflict between all the heroes, and you do have to wonder whether or not it was the best place to introduce Spider-Man.
By introducing Spidey as Stark's muse in Civil War, Sony and Marvel effectively locked the character into one path. His costume, his motivations, everything is defined by Iron Man and the Avengers from that point on. There are attempts for Peter to reconcile that responsibility with what he should be doing as a young high schooler in the following features, but that's his ENTIRE arc.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
