SPOILER ALERT. IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED NO WAY HOME, I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO CLICK OFF THE ARTICLE RIGHT AWAY.
One of the many complaints about Tom Holland’s version of Spider-Man is his ties to Tony Stark. Now, I’m going off the general consensus here as personally I actually liked the fact Peter Parker was close to Tony. We got some cool suit iterations, and tech we’d never otherwise see Spider-Man use. Plus, he did come up against Thanos needing all the help he could get.
But, I do understand how it can look when it feels like he almost relies on Tony to provide him the suit. Peter has an advanced intellect and he’s a genius in his own right. Tom has shown this in parts throughout the initial 2 movies, but No Way Home was different I’ll get to that in a second.
“Iron Man Jr” is what I see a lot of people call him. They often call him that generally because they don’t like his iteration of Spider-Man which is pathetic, but people do call him that because he does come off like that. Despite Peter taking out Vulture with a homemade suit or taking out Mysterio without any tech. He has proved on a few occasions he never really needed Stark.
Here are spoilers. You have time to click off the article now. I definitely wouldn’t recommend reading this article until you have watched No Way Home.
After his identity was revealed and accused of murdering Mysterio, most of the general public have turned against him. This has resulted in Stark Industries being placed under investigation. If it’s now truly more than ever, it’s that Peter really has no one to turn to except his immediate friends and family, also Happy.
He still has the suits from Tony but it does seem as though the AI is either switched off by him, broken, or turned off as a result of the Stark Industries investigation. As far as I remember, we don’t actually hear “Karen” at all throughout the movie.
The only true time we see the tech of the suit in play is after Doc Ock shows up. Peter uses the nanotech and the suit itself to take control of the robotic tentacles to incapacitate Ock which does actually work.
Despite all of that one of the many things the film does right is showcasing Peter’s genius-level intellect. We know the 5 villains in the movie all suffer “defects” as such. Once Peter disobeys Strange, he takes them all back to Happy’s apartment to help them. 3 of them are technically dead in their universe so this is something Peter wants to prevent from happening.
He does use Stark’s technology but I’d say 99% of this scene is actually all him. We know in other iterations Peter uses Oscorp tech including in the Insomniac games so this doesn’t bother me so much. He has to use somebody’s technology after all. He manages to create a new chip for Doc Ock, the chip that was originally destroyed in Spider-Man 2. He doesn’t just build it because he has Stark tech, he builds and designs it himself very quickly and it works. He also just whipped up a fix for Electro to harness his electricity better in mere minutes. Even Norman Osborn complimented his brilliance.
In just this scene alone, this is enough for him to leave Tony’s shadow once and for all.
Since some fans are tough to disperse from this “mantle”, it doesn’t just stop there in No Way Home. A lot of people didn’t think Tom’s Spider-Man was capable of going infilled with pure rage. After the death of May by Green Goblin, Peter and Goblin go at it once again. This time with Peter getting the upper hand. In this scene, he manages to get the upper hand and just throws punch after punch. I mean the combos were just so aggressive you felt every single emotion running through Peter. He even very nearly uses Goblin’s glider to kill him if it wasn’t for Tobey’s Spider-Man stopping him from doing so.
For me, this was the Spider-Man movie that brought together fans everywhere. It was the best Spider-Man movie of all time and nearly sides with Endgame in terms of content.
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is the ultimate Spider-Man. Stan Lee said something similar when he was still with us. In this movie, he proves that. Even at the end, he builds his own suit to represent the true colors, seemingly inspired by Tobey and Andrew’s suits.
He gets a rundown apartment and was happy enough to let every single person forget who he is in order to save the multiverse. That’s a sacrifice not many of us would ever think to make.
One of the many things I see from comments is that Peter is “too obedient”, but the way he straight up disobeys Doctor Strange because he doesn’t agree with what he’s doing says a lot. Peter is known for always doing the right thing, especially if he believes in it. He was happy enough to go toe to toe with Strange to protect these random people so they don’t die. I do believe that if it was Tony doing the same thing, Peter would do the exact same thing as well.
It’s obvious Peter doesn’t use a lot of the resources from Stark. Even Happy. He only uses Happy’s apartment which I think was more as a result of Happy wanting to keep May safe above all else. Especially considering people were throwing stuff through their windows and harassing them.
So I do believe Tom’s Peter Parker is out of Tony Stark’s shadow after No Way Home. Do you think he is? I’m intrigued to get your thoughts. Let me know down in the comments below.
If you haven’t watched No Way Home yet, check your local cinema website for viewings as the movie is now showing around the world.
