Spider-Man: Homecoming Introduces MCU's Damage Control

With this summer's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Marvel is poised to do something that's never been properly adapted from the comics. When it comes to Spidey, part of his appeal is his everyman status and focus on his neighborhood, friends, and, often, his schoolwork. By adding in the superheroics, Peter Parker becomes more relatable as someone trying to juggle the impossible, rather than a psuedo-god likes his peers. Thanks to Spider-Man finally joining the MCU, we'll finally get the chance to see what the hero is like as a smaller cog in a big machine of Earth-saving heroes. We already got a taste of this dynamic in Captain America: Civil War, but the new film will properly get to dive into what it's like to be a 15-year-old superhero.

Today's reveal of the new Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer has also given us our best look yet at the plot of the film. We've known for some time that Pete's homemade costume would factor into the film, but now we see he's wearing it as a sort of trial. Like Thor in his first movie, Spidey will start out on top before having to earn back his accessories by proving he's a hero without them. That'll make things tough, as the villains will certainly have plenty of toys to play with. We heard yesterday that Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes would be shifted from an old man seeking to be young again, like in the comics, to a dark version of Tony Stark. Turns out, he's created a salvage company to snatch up all those pieces of alien tech scattered around New York. It's enabled him to make some amazing weapons and earn a lot of money, until Tony Stark steps in with his own rival business.

Following the reveal of the trailer, Fandango sat down with director Jon Watts to discuss this new direction for Toomes, and learn the comic book connection that Stark's company has.

"Damage Control, yes. That’s from the comics."

In the small amount of time we've known about this new business of Toomes and Stark, it's been speculated that Damage Control could be the latter. In the comics, it's a sort of meta-comedy dealing with the clean-up from all those super fights. Watts was asked if diving into this new little corner of the Marvel Comics universe was exciting, and he explained how it just felt like a natural fit to him.

"For me, in thinking about this movie, it just fit in with our overall philosophy with the kind of story we wanted to tell. In the same way that Peter gives us the ground level view of what it’s like to be a 15-year-old kid in a New York City that was almost destroyed by aliens before the Avengers showed up. You also wonder after all those huge messes are made, who’s sent in to clean up? Is it the normal people who would be hired to do something like that? Does it become a government operation? Is it dangerous? What do you do with all the alien body parts that you find? I really like asking those practical questions about this world, and then use that to drive the story."

Like in the comics, Damage Control is just one of those things that seems so obvious in hindsight, so it'll be fun to see it introduced on screen. Of course, that leads to another question: is this setting up the Damage Control TV show? Back in 2015, we heard Marvel would be developing their first proper comedy by producing a Damage Control series on ABC. It's been over a year since we've heard anything, with many assuming the project was dead after DC and NBC created the similar Powerless. Of course, even that show changed before coming to air, and it didn't have the boost of a blockbuster film.

It's possible that, like The Avengers did for Agents of SHIELD, Spider-Man: Homecoming could kick off the Damage Control series finally. Then again, there's only so many Marvel movies a year that need clean-up, so it's equally likely we'll just see the group show up from time to time in the lighter corners of the MCU. Still, it's hard to deny just how fun it would be to see a show not burdened by superheroics deal with the fallout of the various Marvel films and TV shows. If more information about Damage Control materializes, we'll let you know. Until then, we'll be eagerly awaiting the group's on-screen debut in Spider-Man: Homecoming.