No Way Home's Terrible Scooby-Doo Line Spoils The Plot

A new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer theory uses Doctor Strange's Scooby-Doo joke to predict the movie's storyline. The latest trailer revealed key details about the film's plot that the earlier teaser didn't touch, which in turn has released a flood of new No Way Home theories. While some may turn out to be true, others are a bit far-fetched; only the film's release on December 17 will provide concrete answers.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is the MCU's third Spider-Man: Homecoming film with Tom Holland as Peter Parker, though the web-slinger has also appeared in Captain America: Civil War and both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. No Way Home follows most directly from the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home, which ends with Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio framing Peter for his murder and revealing to the whole world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Both the teaser and official trailer for No Way Home indicate that the aftermath of this revelation is one of the threequel's primary conflicts to be resolved.

In order to undo Mysterio's posthumous info leak and get his life back in order, the trailers show Peter turning to his Infinity War ally and fellow Avenger Doctor Strange. However, this unwittingly causes an even bigger magical mess. The film is thus set to have a fairly complicated plot, so here's a guide to what’s known so far, and how Scooby-Doo sheds light on it.

No Way Home Multiverse Story & Villains Explained

Spider-Man fighting the three villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home

Based on the latest trailer, the film centers around Peter's friends MJ and Nate, Peter himself, and Doctor Strange dealing with the effects of a spell that the latter two tried to cast. As Strange tells Peter in the trailer, "When you botched that spell where you wanted everyone to forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man... you started getting some visitors." These visitors, as it turns out, have traveled across the multiverse; villains from the previous Spider-Man franchises are now running loose in the mainstream MCU reality that Tom Holland's Spider-Man occupies.

The villains revealed so far include three from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy: Green Goblin, aka Norman Osborn; Doctor Otto Octavius, otherwise known as Doc Ock; and The Sandman, who features in Spider-Man 3. Also appearing are villains from Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man movies, The Lizard and Electro, played by Rhys Ifans and Jamie Foxx, respectively. It's still unconfirmed whether Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield, the Spider-Men of these earlier films, will also appear in No Way Home.

Doctor Strange & Spider-Man's Plan (That We Know)

Doctor Strange knocks Spider-Man's spirit out of his body in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Peter and Strange's main goal appears to be rounding up all the multiverse villains and thereby cleaning up their own reality. It's still unknown exactly what shape this plan will take, but Strange's comment "We need to send them back" implies that the Sorcerer Supreme has a way to return the villains to their correct realities. Also seen in the trailer is a magical-looking box that Peter tries to steal from Strange, hinting that sending the villains back may entail using the box somehow.

The new Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer also shows Doctor Strange issuing a more ominous statement about the multiverse villains. He notes that "They all die fighting Spider-Man. It's their fate." It would be pretty dark for Marvel to have Strange, Peter, and Peter's friends committing murder to correct their reality, so more likely this comment is meant to indicate that by sending the villains back to their respective universes, the MCU cast will be condemning them to deaths they already had in store. Still, this part of the plan seems to grate against Peter, which is why he's seen stealing Doctor Strange's box in the trailer.

Scooby-Doo Could Explain How No Way Home's Villains Are Defeated

A YouTube theory helps explain how Scooby-Doo could hold more answers to Peter and Strange's plan. This video breaks down 10 Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer theories, including one from Scooby-Doo expert NerdSync. According to this theory, Doctor Strange's command to Peter and his friends, "Scooby-Doo this crap," is more than a basic reference to a group of kids solving a mystery. Instead, it's a specific allusion to the 1985 one-season series, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, in which the gang has to retrieve 13 unleashed demons and trap them in a magic chest. In this case, the Scooby gang is represented by Peter, MJ, and Nate, with Doctor Strange acting as their mentor, Vincent VanGhoul, to whom he does happen to bear a striking resemblance.

Given what the trailer has already confirmed about Doctor Strange's villain plan in No Way Home, this theory seems to hold up well. The basic premise of needing to return the multiverse characters to where they came from fits with the plot of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, as does the presence of a magic box in which to trap them. It's not a guarantee that Strange's mysterious box really is a tool to trap villains, but it would make sense given the fact that Peter tries to steal it from him after learning that the plan will end up killing all of them. It also seems plausible that Doctor Strange would have the necessary cultural knowledge to make this reference, given that he was likely around the target age when The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo was on TV.

This clever Spider-Man: No Way Home villain theory ultimately hinges on the nature of Doctor Strange's plan and the true purpose of his mysterious box, both of which will only be fully confirmed or debunked when the film comes out on December 17. However, the theory is still a reasonable explanation of the "Scooby-Doo this crap" joke. Alternatively, the joke could simply be a quirky throwaway line, given that Doctor Strange—and the MCU in general—has a strong pension for wise-cracking. One thing is for sure: whether or not it has anything to do with The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, Spider-Man: No Way Home is sure to pack a wild multiverse punch with its complex storyline and heavy featuring of the Sorcerer Supreme.

More: Is Spider-Man: No Way Home Too Complicated To Succeed?