After painfully long COVID-induced delays, Marvel Studios is back in theaters with a vengeance. Black Widow arrived last month, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is coming in September, Eternals in November, and in December—my most anticipated MCU movie—Spider-Man: No Way Home. Now, after months of speculation as to which heroes and villains are in the movie, the first trailer has finally dropped (officially this time!) and we have some answers.
It seems the third MCU Spidey movie is going to be about the consequences of everyone knowing Spidey’s identity and him asking Doctor Strange to make a wish to undo it. The Homecoming and Far From Home core cast are all returning, but it’s the new additions that have really been raising eyebrows. Going into this trailer we already knew Benedict Cumberbatch’s Strange would be mentoring Spidey in the mystic arts, and that we’d see Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus appearing in the MCU.
Sadly there’s no sign in this trailer that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are sliding back into their Spidey suits. That’s not to say we can rule them out completely due to the magical shenanigans going on as a result of Peter’s wish, but they don’t appear here.
Fortunately, the film’s villains are looking fantastic. It’s great to see Doc Ock again, a flash of lightning is a hint towards Electro, and there’s a particularly tantalizing shot of a pumpkin bomb. That’s likely a nod to the long-awaited return of Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, whose cackling and sinister performance has launched a million memes since the original Spider-Man‘s 2002 release.
Right now it almost looks like Marvel Studios are trying to adapt the hated “One More Day” comics arc, where Peter makes a deal with the devil that costs him his marriage with MJ. If they can take the core idea of that story and make it actually work, then full credit to them.
If the finished product lives up to this trailer, it’ll be a good time even if the story gets a bit tangled. I also expect fans to pick through every frame of this trailer to spot the Easter Eggs and figure out how far the MCU as a whole is going to go into this brave new multiversal future. If you’ve spotted anything cool we missed, let us know in the comments.
Spider-Man: No Way Home will hit theaters on Dec. 17, 2021.
