Stan Lee’s great genius, in the early Marvel comics, was to give superheroes psyches. Where Batman and Superman felt in their early decades like superficial entities shut off from everyday problems, Peter Parker was as likely to be worrying about Aunt May’s ability to pay the bills as the next supervillain on his radar.
Similarly, much of the joy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been its ability to make us see its superheroes as real people, with the same issues as the rest of us. In the wake of 2012’s Avengers, Tony Stark’s Iron Man emerged as a PTSD-afflicted wreck of his former brash and bold self, and we liked him even better for it. Thor has been struggling so badly since Thanos’s fingersnap in Avengers: Infinity War that he ended up joining the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, as seen in the new trailer for Spider-Man: Far from Home, it is Parker’s turn to suffer in the wake of the catastrophic events of Avengers: Endgame.
Not only is Spider-Man presumably five years younger than some of his classmates (though close pals such as MJ and Ned seem to have also been snuffed out by Thanos’ fingerclick, and stayed at high-school age), he is experiencing severe fallout from Stark’s death. Moreover, Tony’s friend Happy Hogan hints that the metal superhero would never have gone to his death so willingly without the belief that Spider-Man was capable of taking up his mantle. No pressure, then.
As if all this angst were not enough for Parker, there is an enigmatic new guy in town. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio has arrived from another universe, reveals Nick Fury, presumably as a result of Endgame’s reality-shifting shenanigans. But can the ornately-dressed hero be trusted?
The history of Mysterio in the comics suggests that a sleight of hand could be at play here: Fury is usually represented as the ultimate figure of trust in the MCU. Yet he has been fooled before (anyone who couldn’t work out that Shield had long since been infiltrated by Hydra should be asking themselves some serious questions). And we saw in Captain Marvel how Fury started out as a superhero superfan; he’s more than capable of being deluded by a figure who seems a little too good to be true.
Mysterio’s sudden appearance in the MCU certainly throws up more questions than answers. If he is an arch-illusionist, how far do his powers of misdirection go? Might they allow him to create a Fury stooge, imperceptible from the real thing, who can vouch for him? Or is he a charlatan with no meaningful powers at all?
There is certainly something a little dissatisfying about the idea that the apparently epic events taking place on Parker’s school trip to Europe are illusions designed to foster awe for Mysterio, especially as we have already seen Loki use similar ruses. And what is the point of adding Gyllenhaal’s character to the MCU if he doesn’t have a modus operandi we haven’t seen before? It seems more than likely, given Marvel’s history of balancing comic-book lore with smart storytelling, that the studio has something much more subtle up its sleeve.
Will Spider-Man: Far from Home reveal that Endgame opened up a Pandora’s box of sorcery to rival anything in Doctor Strange? Or could the whole thing just be smoke and mirrors?
