MCU’s Obsession With Spider-Man Mentors Is Bad For Spidey

The MCU keeps giving Peter Parker mentor figures in its Spider-Man movies, but that's to the detriment of Spidey himself. Spider-Man (Tom Holland) first entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016, brought into the conflict of Captain America: Civil War by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who recruited the fledgling wall-crawler to Team Iron Man. It made sense, then, when Peter and Tony teamed-up once again in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spidey's first solo film in the MCU, with Iron Man popping up to show him the superhero ropes and help provide guidance, even though it did mean that the individual journey was somewhat overshadowed by the presence of an Avenger.

Iron Man died in Avengers: Endgame, but that hasn't stopped the MCU from finding new mentor figures for Peter Parker. Spider-Man: Far From Home saw him having to work on a covert mission for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), while he was also taken under the wing of Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), before he revealed his true villainous nature as Mysterio. Iron Man's legacy continued to weigh heavily as well, with Peter facing up to the challenges of becoming his de facto replacement and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) continuing to look out for him in Tony's absence.

Although Far From Home revealed Nick Fury on Earth to be a Skrull and the real one to be in space, the MCU will continue to give Spidey more mentor figures. Spider-Man: Homecoming 3 will include Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, with it reported that he will now serve as a mentor to Peter, making him arguably the fifth (depending on how you view it) such figure he's had in his trilogy of films. While including other Marvel characters is exciting, this does mean that Peter's development is continually being paired with that of another well-established hero, somewhat undermining his own personal arc and forcing it into part of the larger MCU narrative. There's little room for him to be your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man when he's having to be the next Iron Man or train with a Master of the Mystic Arts.

The presence of these mentor figures also compounds the problem that MCU has had with some of Spider-Man's core elements. Because he's so entwined with Tony Stark, his suits and gadgetry come from him, rather than a chance to truly show off Peter's own ingenuity. Likewise, with Iron Man, Fury, and now Doctor Strange taking on mentorship roles, and thus being pivotal to the plots of their respective movies, there's even less room to explore Peter's family dynamics. The MCU has long-since failed Uncle Ben, but it's also doing much the same with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), as she is increasingly pushed to the sidelines in favor of bigger names.

Of course, it remains to be seen exactly what Marvel has planned for Spider-Man 3 and how Doctor Strange fits in, though it's almost certainly connected to the multiverse and the return of Jamie Foxx's Electro, and those aspects are in isolation exciting - but again, they're serving the MCU rather than Spider-Man. A huge part of Spidey's appeal is him being a neighborhood hero and an everyman type character who fans can easily relate to - he may fight supervillains, but he has a lot of the same problems as everyone else. The more he's tied to (or turned into) a new Iron Man or Doctor Strange, the more some of the essence of the character risks being lost. Spider-Man is a more-than-capable hero who can deal with threats and carry his own stories - he is among the most celebrated comic book characters of all time, after all - and he doesn't need to be reliant on other characters. There are ways of mixing them into the story, but Spider-Man should be his own mentor.

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