This morning’s new look at Spider-Man: Far From Home didn’t just bring with it some major Avengers: Endgame spoilers, it flipped the lid on what we know about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large. And that’s even before we really start digging into what we learned about Peter Parker’s wild vacation.
There will, obviously, be spoilers for Avengers: Endgame after this warning. Scurry along now, spoiler-averse people who’ve been unable to see it yet!
Well boy howdy, this trailer opens with a doozy: Peter Parker (Tom Holland), still wearing his Iron Spider uniform back home in New York as he gazes upon a mural of Iron Man. “Everywhere I go I see his face,” Peter tells someone. “I just…really miss him.”
So yes, as if you didn’t need the confirmation: This movie is set in the five-years-later timeline established by Avengers: Endgame, and the invincible Iron Man is…well, not invincible. Because he’s dead and gone.
That someone mourning alongside Peter is none other than Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), aboard one of Tony’s flotilla of jets — so while the man himself is absent, Stark Enterprises, presumably now under the sole auspices of Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), is still around.
If the sound of Peter’s voice breaking over that “really miss him” didn’t thrust a dagger into your heart, allow Happy Hogan to attempt to hurl another, as he tells a distraught Peter that he thinks part of why Tony chose to make the ultimate sacrifice against Thanos was because he trusted Peter to carry on in his stead. Sniffle.
That’s precisely what Peter does, going into combat with a bunch of goons. We’d seen glimpses of this scene in the first trailer, but this at least confirms it takes place in New York rather than on Far From Home’s European tour.
And it takes place early on in the film too, at least — because before passing off the defeated bad guys to the NYPD, Pete tells them to keep up the good work, because he’s off on vacation.
It’s interesting to see Peter using his Iron Spider suit in these scenes, if only because the first trailer showed us Peter having a lot of hang ups about packing his normal Spider-Suit with him on his aforementioned vacation. We see him once again swinging through New York in that old suit, so it’s hard to say if that original shot was obfuscation to hide the Iron Spider gear (which Peter acquired during Infinity War) in its place.
And that perhaps part of Peter’s hang up isn’t about just not wanting to bring Spider-Man’s responsibility with him on this trip, but wider hang-ups over being so directly linked to Tony’s legacy through the Iron Spider suit. Or maybe he just likes to swap suits every once in a while, who can say — plus, I bet the Iron Spider suit would be killer to get through the TSA.
But it’s interesting in hindsight that Far From Home’s now fourth Spider-Man costume is a blend between the Homecoming suit’s aesthetic and the Iron Spider’s coloration. Maybe Peter ultimately settles on being a little more just Spider-Man instead of the Iron Spider-Man by the movie’s end? We’ll have to wait and see.
Why do we think there could’ve been some potential obfuscation? Because in another continuation of a scene we saw in the first trailer—in this case backstage from Peter’s charity appearance with May (Marissa Tomei), where Happy engages with some awkward flirtation — Peter’s now wearing the Iron Spider suit, and not the Homecoming suit he had on in the first trailer’s version! Never forget: Trailers lie.
Anyway, the real thrust of this scene is another interesting piece of context. At this point, Peter Parker is already fully aware of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his interest in him, before Nick forces an encounter in Venice as seen in the first trailer. And not just that, he’s kind of sick of it already — ignoring another attempt at contact from Fury, much to Happy’s dismay.
Peter has other priorities than Nick, of course. He’s got his school trip to plan with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon)!
Instead of us all pondering about the ramifications of how this movie is set five years after Infinity War and yet all these teens are still in school—because the answer is probably rather grim, or because Far From Home will have less to say about the ramifications of the death and return of millions of people on the American public school system than we want it to — let’s take a moment to note all that Iron Man art behind Peter. It’s clear that this is fresh off the end of Endgame, and it’s not just Peter still mourning Tony Stark, but the world around him too.
I have no context for this shot of Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) being punched in the groin during the Venice portion of the Midtown kid’s European tour. It just made for a fun gif.
Anyway, after a quick repeat of Nick Fury’s encounter with Peter in Venice from the first trailer, the young Spider-Man finds himself in Fury and Maria Hill’s (Cobie Smulders) conveniently located Venetian underground base…and he comes face to face with the mysterious Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal).
Comics fans, of course, know Beck better by his other name: Mysterio, one of Spider-Man’s most infamous foes and often a member of the Sinister Six.
But Far From Home seems — emphasis on the seems — to be throwing a few curveballs when it comes to Quentin. Not only has it been confirmed, as seen here in this trailer, that this version of him is a superhero that’s working with Peter and Fury, this new look throws another bombshell in one of the first things we learn about Beck: He’s from another universe.
All right people, let’s do this one last time…Wait, sorry, wrong multiversal Spider-Man film!
As Fury goes on to add, Beck’s appearance on the scene is due to ongoing ramifications from Thanos’ snap, as well as Tony Stark’s, and the havoc caused getting from Snap A to Snap B via the medium of quantum-realm-induced time travel.
The Russo Brothers have spent most of the last week on a press tour attempting to explain how Endgame’s version of time travel truly works, noting that taking the Infinity Stones out of the timeline, as the Avengers did, created branching paths that didn’t just create entire alternate timelines, but alternate dimensions.
One of which, according to Nick Fury, Mysterio is allegedly from. This would explain why this version of Mysterio is seemingly less of a genius SFX wizard and more of a straight up actual wizard, for sure. It’d also explain why giant elemental creatures are suddenly cropping up all over Earth if there’s really a hole in our dimension.
But here’s the thing though: Mysterio lies. That’s kind of his whole thing, playing tricks and illusions. Maybe this version really is from another reality — that does seem like a hard thing to make up in a world where reality just got body-checked by a shiny gold fist not once, but twice in the last five years — but whether or not he really was a hero in that world remains to be seen.
After all, Mysterio’s very first appearance in the comics saw him pretend to be a superhero going after a rogue Spider-Man to cover up his own crimes!
Before either we or Peter can get too excited about multiversal shenanigans, however, Nick reminds the young hero that there’s work to be done that requires Spider-Man postponing his vacation: the rise of the aforementioned Elementals. We get a great shot of one of them emerging here, a watery golem that draws obvious parallels to the comic book villain Hydro-Man.
There were plenty of hints in the first trailer that this is indeed meant to be him, but if that wasn’t enough, recently-released Lego sets confirmed this elemental is being referred to, at least in tie-in material, as Hydro-Man.
Back in the Venice base — set presumably after Hydro-Man’s appearance and Peter’s first encounter with Mysterio — Peter tries to shirk off from Fury’s mission. Why not Thor, he asks? Offworld, according to Fury, presumably still hanging with the Guardians of the Galaxy as he was at the end of Endgame. Captain Marvel (sidenote, is this the first time someone’s actually referred to Carol Danvers as “Captain Marvel” in one of these movies?)? Unavailable, Hill counters.
Meanwhile, we meet another elemental. This one is in the form of a lava-laden fire beast menacing MJ, a creature who presumably takes after Molten Man in the comics. Note the environment here — we didn’t get to see that much of where Molten Man was attacking beyond some kind of festival in the first trailer, but this doesn’t look like it’s still Venice.
The first Far From Home poster confirmed locations in the film include New York (obviously), Venice, London, Prague, Berlin, and the Swiss Alps. So this is presumably Prague?
Wherever it is, by the time Peter gets there, he has another suit to wear: the SHIELD-inspired “Stealth Suit.” If this takes place after all the Venice stuff, then it makes sense this would be a gift from Nick Fury, one that makes it a little less obvious that a Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man just so happens to also be on vacation.
Speaking of that moniker, back in Venice, Peter tries to beg Fury one last time: He doesn’t feel like this kind of mission is the thing Spider-Man should be doing. He’s down to the ground, on the street level, hanging out in Queens! Nick’s counter is blunt and hilariously to the point: “Bitch please, you’ve been to space.” Sorry Pete, he’s got a point.
We get another shot from the first trailer, this time of Mysterio battling Hydro-Man, but it’s prefaced by a very quick and very interesting shot: Mysterio flying through the skyline of London. That’ll become a bit more interesting very shortly.
Back in Maybe-Prague (do bars in Prague just have rams in them?), Peter and Quentin share a drink as the latter asks the former what he really wants out of this adventure. Pete’s answer? He just wants to go on vacation with a girl he really likes…
A girl who, at some point in this movie, has cracked that Peter Parker is the spectacular Spider-Man. It’s hard to say if this is the same location as where Molten Man strikes or another leg in the trip. People with a better grasp of European geography and architecture than I (current actual European—until whenever Brexit happens, ugh), please sound off in the comments.
But when did MJ crack it? Other than the fact that Peter is literally atrocious at keeping his identity a secret—I mean, look, he’s hanging out in that bar with Mysterio and neither of them have their face-obscuring fishbowls/masks on! So, like she says, it’s not that hard to have put two and two together.
But if (and it’s a big if, considering she’s still in school alongside Peter and the rest of his friends and isn’t, well, in her early 20s like she’d be if she didn’t get snapped) MJ wasn’t around to realise Spider-Man didn’t show up after Peter Parker died in Infinity War, does she find out during this movie, or does she already know before they go on the trip somehow?
Before we have time to ponder, we cut to this shot of another Elemental attacking London’s Tower Bridge. This Elemental is not only much, much bigger than either Hydro or Molten man were, but it’s clearly made up of multiple, err, elements: water, lava, and the stone of the first elemental we briefly saw Hill and Fury shooting at in the first trailer. So London must be near the climax of the film, given this being is an amalgam of all the other Elementals.
Also, look how stormy it is thanks to the Elemental compared to the earlier shot we saw of Mysterio in London, and shots we get later of London in this trailer, where the sky is clear and sunny. Wherever Quentin Beck’s going, these Elementals are following. Or is it really the other way around, as this trailer keeps trying to tell us?
“You’re right, you might not be ready” Mysterio tells (presumably) Peter. “But this is my responsibility,” he adds, as we get this gorgeous shot of Mysterio preparing a spell.
Interesting to note, speaking of spells, the aesthetic of Mysterio’s magic—based around triangular shapes—in contrast to the magic we saw being used by the sorcerers in Doctor Strange, which is based around circular elements. If Beck really is from an alternate dimension, that’s a cool little differentiation. Different universe, different magical rules!
As we see Mysterio fly into battle against the triple-threat Elemental — hey look, it’s Betty Brant (Angourie Rice)! — we get to overhear him console Peter about his grief for Tony. “Saving the world requires sacrifice. Sometimes, people die.” There’s an intriguing weight put onto that last line by Beck. Has he lost someone close to him? I mean, there is that wedding band on his finger in the earlier bar scene…
Back on the road, Peter takes off a pair of glasses in shock. But they’re not just any glasses. They’re the aviators Tony Stark wore in Infinity War! Or at least, same brand.
I’m assuming Peter Parker does not have the fiscal fluidity to be able to afford $750 Dita Mach Ones, so they probably are Tony’s. Is Peter just really in his feelings about Tony’s death, or do the shades have some Stark tech in them? After all, when Tony dons his nanoparticle Mk L suit in Infinity War, those shades seemingly vanish as he takes them off.
This shot matches up with the environment where Hill and Fury blasted at the rock elemental seen earlier in the trailer, but it’s also clearly not any of the locations we’ve seen so far. Wherever it is, the aftermath of that fight is a messy one, it seems.
“I just always feel like I’m putting my friends in danger,” Peter opines. “The world needs the next Iron Man,” he tells Beck in that bar from earlier, as we cut to a shot that’s presumably from the opening of that heartwrenching heart-to-heart seen at the start of the trailer: Peter, working away in the Stark jet on his Iron Spider suit specs before Happy walks in on him.
As if to hammer home that question of legacy again, we immediately cut back to Maybe-Prague, as Nick Fury asks Peter if he’s going to step up or not. And if that wasn’t enough, Peter also gets to solemnly stare at a candlelit mural of Iron Man — or at least, the trailer cuts it to look like so, despite Peter being inside a dark building compared to the well-lit environs of the mural. Legacy, Mister Parker! Legacccccyyyyy!!!!
Peter’s got bigger problems than that existential crisis in this movie, however. Like, say, not being immolated by Molten Man. Kids these days think they’ve got problems, eh?
The trailer concludes not with Peter but a lighter moment, in London—as Happy comes flying into rescue MJ, Flash, Betty, and Ned from whatever impending cataclysm is coming forth. Once again, note the weather in these scenes compared to the giant elementals attack. What’s happening before all that goes down that requires ushering Peter’s friends to safety?
Anyway, while Happy makes a futile attempt to explain that he does not work for Spider-Man but with him, an unknown assailant blows up the Stark jet. Womp womp. But if the Elemental hasn’t appeared yet — hence the clear skies . —just what the hell is it that attacks the jet? A mystery left unanswered for now.
The latest look at Far From Home raises huge questions about not just what’s in store for Peter—his identity revealed to MJ, his legacy as the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man and now as a hero who fights all over the world in Tony Stark’s stead—but also the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or now should that be the wider Marvel Cinematic Multiverse?
But a lot of the source of those questions comes from about as unreliable a narrator as we can get in this movie: the combined secrecy of Nick Fury and the arrival of one of Spider-Man’s most famous deceivers in the form of Mysterio. Can we trust a master of illusion enough not just to believe he’s a hero, but to see if this really is the path ahead for the Marvel Universe? Or is it just smoke and mirrors?
We’ll find out when Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theatres July 4.