Homecoming Doesn't Have Peter's Spider Sense

Despite Spider-Man: Homecoming being Peter Parker's first solo movie within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it doesn't focus on one of his core powers: Spider-Sense. From the get-go, it was quite clear that the studio wanted to take the movie in a different direction, one that distances itself from previous Spidey movies. Furthermore, they wanted to make sure that their Peter Parker (and Spider-Man) had come from their universe, someone who was there since the beginning. That meant Peter wanting to grow up to become like Tony Stark/Iron Man, and of course, being recruited by the Avenger himself.

It would have been strange for Peter to grow up in New York after the Battle of New York and not be affected by the Avengers' presence, especially after he receives his own special abilities. As we saw in Tom Holland's Spidey debut in Anthony and Joe Russo's Captain America: Civil War, as well as in the upcoming movie's featurettes and trailers, Tony gives Peter a special suit that not only comes with its own J.A.R.V.I.S. system but also imbues Peter with several abilities, such as GPS tracking, web bombs, and even a heater in case it gets cold.

Peter relies heavily on the suit throughout the movie, which is evident by the film's second trailer in which Peter tells Tony that he's nothing without the suit. While that's not exactly true -- he is Spider-Man, after all -- there is still some truth to that statement, seeing that Homecoming doesn't lean on Peter's Spider-Sense. In a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Homecoming director Jon Watts explained their reasoning behind disregarding the iconic and fundamental superpower, saying they were trying to avoid following in the footsteps of previous movies.

"I feel like we have seen a lot of Spider-Sense in the previous films, so we didn't really lean into that as hard as they have in the previous films. But I do think it is a really interesting thing to explore."

Spider-Man has been around for more than half a century, and that means he's undergone numerous changes from several different writers and editors -- and part of those changes means alterations to his power set. However, one of the things that has remained constant is his Spider-Sense; it's what makes him unique, aside from crawling up walls. It's essentially a sixth-sense, and it alerts him to immediate dangers by emitting a tingling sensation at the base of his skull. Peter's Spider-Sense heavily resembles Daredevil's Radar-Sense, for those that aren't familiar with the character but have seen Netflix's Daredevil series.

Although it's understandable that Marvel is trying to avoid similarities to previous Spidey films -- Uncle Ben doesn't make an appearance either -- since people have already seen two origin stories for the same character, it's strange that the studio would overlook one of the central aspects of the character in favor of making him more like Iron Man. Still, though, Watts seems open to addressing his powers in more depth in the future, possibly in the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming sequel, which is set to release in 2019 and take place only minutes after the Russo Brothers' currently untitled Avengers 4.