'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Has Marvel's Best Easter Egg
2025-06-27
In The History of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer looks at every Marvel Cinematic Universe film released to date, leading up to the April 27 release of Avengers: Infinity War. Previous chapters can be found here.
Director: Jon Watts Writers: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers Release Date: July 7, 2017 U.S. Box Office Gross: $334.2 million Worldwide Box Office Gross: $880.1 million Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 92% Metacritic Rating: 73 Average Letterboxd Score: 3.7 Cinema Rating: A
Spider-Man: Homecoming seems to get to the heart of its title character in a way that no other movie before it (including Sam Raimi's brilliant original trilogy) has ever done. It's pure, focused Spider-Man fun. -- Read more here.
God, I gasped when the movie revealed that Vulture (Michael Keaton) was actually the father of Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) prom dance girlfriend. Spider-Man: Homecoming kills me. It kills me.
It's hard to do, especially with Marvel involved, since I've read most of the books. Here's an example of Marvel Studios breaking established continuity in a very positive way. Adrian Toomes, the Vulture in the comics, is a frail old man in a wingsuit. He's too old to have a teenage daughter. (He's almost too old to have a teenage granddaughter.) His family isn't an integral part of his story.
This is the Marvel Cinematic Universe version. Keaton plays Toomes, a blue-collar worker who is tired of being sidelined by people like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who seem to break the rules time and time again and always get away with it. Eventually, we realize that the Toomes family lives in a very nice house, and their lifestyle is clearly not cheap. After Stark and Damage Control (essentially a government superhuman cleanup crew) cancel Toomes' rescue contract, he is forced to break the law to keep his family comfortable.
I also like this comic because the villains in the comics are so dumb that they often can't figure out a superhero's secret identity, even when it's obvious. But Toomes figures out that Peter is Spider-Man during a really awkward car ride. Peter has been secretly in love with Liz (Laura Harrier) throughout the movie and finally works up the courage to ask her out, only to find out that her father is a supervillain during prom, which is the perfect setup for Spider-Man. Being Spider-Man is both Peter's gift and his curse. Spider-Man keeps ruining Peter's life, just as he keeps making Spider-Man's life difficult by supporting Peter's lifestyle.
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films are arguably more faithful to the tone and spirit of the classic comics, and more dramatic, than the lighthearted Spider-Man: Homecoming. That said, I'm not sure there's a scene in Raimi's film that feels more ripped from the old Stan Lee/Steve Ditko book than the scene with Peter, Liz, and Toomes in the car.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever written, but I have to: Spider-Man: Homecoming left a hole in the MCU timeline the same size as Ego's Living Planet.
The opening scene of Spider-Man: Homecoming is a flashback to the aftermath of The Avengers, where Adrian Toomes' team salvages the wreckage of the Battle of New York. The film then jumps forward eight years, with the subtitle "Eight Years Later" appearing onscreen. While The Avengers takes place in 2012, Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place in 2020.
Theoretically, if the story takes place shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War, that's fine. We see the plot of Captain America: Civil War again at the beginning of Spider-Man: Homecoming. And Civil War is said to take place four years after the events of The Avengers (which I wrote about in my History of the MCU column about that film), which would be 2016. So somehow, Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place in both 2016 and 2020. Maybe Doctor Strange will use the Time Stone in Infinity War to explain all of this.
At the end of Homecoming, Tony gives Peter what he wanted: full membership in the Avengers and a new high-tech Spider-Man suit. Now that Peter has what he wanted, he realizes that being a superhero isn't what it's cracked up to be and decides to reject Tony. He decides to remain the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. Tony agrees that it's a good choice and pretends that the whole thing was a test, kissing his returning girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, making her first on-screen appearance in the MCU since Iron Man 3).
We don’t know what role Spider-Man will play in Avengers: Infinity War yet, but we know he’ll be there, and so will Marvel. Their deal with Sony to include Spider-Man in the MCU includes his appearances in Avengers 3 and 4. So it was a very deliberate and smart move for Marvel to introduce this new suit in the final moments of Homecoming. If you’ve seen the promotional material for Infinity War (like the one above), you knew he’d end up donning the Iron Spider suit.
This is perhaps the coolest of all the Marvel Easter eggs. Two of the Vulture goons, Herman (Bokeem Woodbine) and Jackson (Logan Marshall-Green), wear energy gloves that resemble the Marvel Comics villain Shocker. They even wear Shocker's famous red and yellow hoodies. But that's not even the best part of this Easter egg.
The Easter egg is that we've seen this glove before. It was originally worn by Crossbones (Frank Grillo) in Captain America: Civil War. Spider-Man overhears a conversation between robbers while following them on their way to the heist:
The "Lagos Massacre" references the beginning of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (The "Triskelion Chaos" references the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, another fun Easter egg.) It also explains why Jackson and Herman only wear one Shocker glove, instead of the two he usually wears in the comics: In the Lagos scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America rips one glove off Crossbones' hand during a fight and throws it to the ground. The other glove burns to ashes when Crossbones detonates it.
This detail is just ridiculous: Captain America disarmed Crossbones, threw away the gauntlet, Vulture's teammates picked up the gauntlet (but only the gauntlet), upgraded it, and then it showed up in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Whoever came up with this idea should get a medal, or at least not get an award.
I may be a Spider-Man fan, but Spider-Man: Homecoming is one of the most watchable and purest films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Director Jon Watts, his writing team, and the teams at Sony and Marvel set out to create a Spider-Man without baggage — no origin, no Uncle Ben, no worries about rent or college tuition, no conspiracy involving Peter’s parents or their secret lab in the subway station — and they succeeded. Not everything goes Peter wants, and not everything works out in the end, but ultimately this is a movie about the hero’s passion, and in that sense, it succeeds.
I’ll get there in a second, but the main point of this column is this: Marvel’s superpower is its casting. They find the right person for every role, every time. Tom Holland is great as the young Spider-Man: funny, gentle, and radiating kindness. Michael Keaton is perfect as the Vulture, partly because he’s Michael Keaton; the guy who once played the hero and has now gone dark, perfectly embodying the Vulture and his belief that Peter is too naive to understand how the world works. Zendaya’s classmate at Midtown High, Michelle, is hilarious and funny, providing some comic relief. Jacob Batalon steals the show as Peter’s friend Ned “the guy in the chair.” (My favorite line from Ned is when he’s caught helping Peter on the school computer at prom: “I was just… watching… porn.”)
Of course, the final key member of the team is Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, who serves as Peter Parker’s mentor, hero, and scientist. Much of the marketing for Spider-Man: Homecoming has focused on this: This is the first Spider-Man movie in the Marvel Universe, and Iron Man is a major player in the film. Ultimately, though, Downey’s role is more than just a cameo, and he’s more important to the film’s promotion than the plot. He only appears in about four major scenes; the rest of the film is played by Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, Stark’s head of security, as an authority figure at Stark Industries. Downey’s entire set piece centers around a scene where Iron Man rescues a drowning Spider-Man from a lake, only to reveal that Tony isn’t even in the armor. He’s controlling the armor remotely while he’s enjoying his vacation — almost literally over the phone, monitoring his performance.
So the Marvel twist doesn’t add much to the film, but it doesn’t detract from the main plot and fits perfectly with the film’s themes of growing up and dreaming big. (Peter toiling away in Queens while auditioning for the Avengers in Manhattan is essentially Spider-Man: Night Fever.) Plus, Marvel is where Spider-Man belongs. Its values about power and responsibility—even if the film never states them explicitly—are Marvel values, and the studio has incorporated them into many of its films in Spider-Man’s absence. Peter Parker’s return makes this a satisfying homecoming, even if Peter, as always, fails to get the Spider-Man dance with Liz.
Director: Jon Watts Writers: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers Release Date: July 7, 2017 U.S. Box Office Gross: $334.2 million Worldwide Box Office Gross: $880.1 million Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 92% Metacritic Rating: 73 Average Letterboxd Score: 3.7 Cinema Rating: A
Spider-Man: Homecoming seems to get to the heart of its title character in a way that no other movie before it (including Sam Raimi's brilliant original trilogy) has ever done. It's pure, focused Spider-Man fun. -- Read more here.
God, I gasped when the movie revealed that Vulture (Michael Keaton) was actually the father of Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) prom dance girlfriend. Spider-Man: Homecoming kills me. It kills me.
It's hard to do, especially with Marvel involved, since I've read most of the books. Here's an example of Marvel Studios breaking established continuity in a very positive way. Adrian Toomes, the Vulture in the comics, is a frail old man in a wingsuit. He's too old to have a teenage daughter. (He's almost too old to have a teenage granddaughter.) His family isn't an integral part of his story.
This is the Marvel Cinematic Universe version. Keaton plays Toomes, a blue-collar worker who is tired of being sidelined by people like Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who seem to break the rules time and time again and always get away with it. Eventually, we realize that the Toomes family lives in a very nice house, and their lifestyle is clearly not cheap. After Stark and Damage Control (essentially a government superhuman cleanup crew) cancel Toomes' rescue contract, he is forced to break the law to keep his family comfortable.
I also like this comic because the villains in the comics are so dumb that they often can't figure out a superhero's secret identity, even when it's obvious. But Toomes figures out that Peter is Spider-Man during a really awkward car ride. Peter has been secretly in love with Liz (Laura Harrier) throughout the movie and finally works up the courage to ask her out, only to find out that her father is a supervillain during prom, which is the perfect setup for Spider-Man. Being Spider-Man is both Peter's gift and his curse. Spider-Man keeps ruining Peter's life, just as he keeps making Spider-Man's life difficult by supporting Peter's lifestyle.
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films are arguably more faithful to the tone and spirit of the classic comics, and more dramatic, than the lighthearted Spider-Man: Homecoming. That said, I'm not sure there's a scene in Raimi's film that feels more ripped from the old Stan Lee/Steve Ditko book than the scene with Peter, Liz, and Toomes in the car.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever written, but I have to: Spider-Man: Homecoming left a hole in the MCU timeline the same size as Ego's Living Planet.
The opening scene of Spider-Man: Homecoming is a flashback to the aftermath of The Avengers, where Adrian Toomes' team salvages the wreckage of the Battle of New York. The film then jumps forward eight years, with the subtitle "Eight Years Later" appearing onscreen. While The Avengers takes place in 2012, Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place in 2020.
Theoretically, if the story takes place shortly after the events of Captain America: Civil War, that's fine. We see the plot of Captain America: Civil War again at the beginning of Spider-Man: Homecoming. And Civil War is said to take place four years after the events of The Avengers (which I wrote about in my History of the MCU column about that film), which would be 2016. So somehow, Spider-Man: Homecoming takes place in both 2016 and 2020. Maybe Doctor Strange will use the Time Stone in Infinity War to explain all of this.
At the end of Homecoming, Tony gives Peter what he wanted: full membership in the Avengers and a new high-tech Spider-Man suit. Now that Peter has what he wanted, he realizes that being a superhero isn't what it's cracked up to be and decides to reject Tony. He decides to remain the friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. Tony agrees that it's a good choice and pretends that the whole thing was a test, kissing his returning girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, making her first on-screen appearance in the MCU since Iron Man 3).
We don’t know what role Spider-Man will play in Avengers: Infinity War yet, but we know he’ll be there, and so will Marvel. Their deal with Sony to include Spider-Man in the MCU includes his appearances in Avengers 3 and 4. So it was a very deliberate and smart move for Marvel to introduce this new suit in the final moments of Homecoming. If you’ve seen the promotional material for Infinity War (like the one above), you knew he’d end up donning the Iron Spider suit.
This is perhaps the coolest of all the Marvel Easter eggs. Two of the Vulture goons, Herman (Bokeem Woodbine) and Jackson (Logan Marshall-Green), wear energy gloves that resemble the Marvel Comics villain Shocker. They even wear Shocker's famous red and yellow hoodies. But that's not even the best part of this Easter egg.
The Easter egg is that we've seen this glove before. It was originally worn by Crossbones (Frank Grillo) in Captain America: Civil War. Spider-Man overhears a conversation between robbers while following them on their way to the heist:
The "Lagos Massacre" references the beginning of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (The "Triskelion Chaos" references the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, another fun Easter egg.) It also explains why Jackson and Herman only wear one Shocker glove, instead of the two he usually wears in the comics: In the Lagos scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America rips one glove off Crossbones' hand during a fight and throws it to the ground. The other glove burns to ashes when Crossbones detonates it.
This detail is just ridiculous: Captain America disarmed Crossbones, threw away the gauntlet, Vulture's teammates picked up the gauntlet (but only the gauntlet), upgraded it, and then it showed up in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Whoever came up with this idea should get a medal, or at least not get an award.
I may be a Spider-Man fan, but Spider-Man: Homecoming is one of the most watchable and purest films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Director Jon Watts, his writing team, and the teams at Sony and Marvel set out to create a Spider-Man without baggage — no origin, no Uncle Ben, no worries about rent or college tuition, no conspiracy involving Peter’s parents or their secret lab in the subway station — and they succeeded. Not everything goes Peter wants, and not everything works out in the end, but ultimately this is a movie about the hero’s passion, and in that sense, it succeeds.
I’ll get there in a second, but the main point of this column is this: Marvel’s superpower is its casting. They find the right person for every role, every time. Tom Holland is great as the young Spider-Man: funny, gentle, and radiating kindness. Michael Keaton is perfect as the Vulture, partly because he’s Michael Keaton; the guy who once played the hero and has now gone dark, perfectly embodying the Vulture and his belief that Peter is too naive to understand how the world works. Zendaya’s classmate at Midtown High, Michelle, is hilarious and funny, providing some comic relief. Jacob Batalon steals the show as Peter’s friend Ned “the guy in the chair.” (My favorite line from Ned is when he’s caught helping Peter on the school computer at prom: “I was just… watching… porn.”)
Of course, the final key member of the team is Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, who serves as Peter Parker’s mentor, hero, and scientist. Much of the marketing for Spider-Man: Homecoming has focused on this: This is the first Spider-Man movie in the Marvel Universe, and Iron Man is a major player in the film. Ultimately, though, Downey’s role is more than just a cameo, and he’s more important to the film’s promotion than the plot. He only appears in about four major scenes; the rest of the film is played by Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, Stark’s head of security, as an authority figure at Stark Industries. Downey’s entire set piece centers around a scene where Iron Man rescues a drowning Spider-Man from a lake, only to reveal that Tony isn’t even in the armor. He’s controlling the armor remotely while he’s enjoying his vacation — almost literally over the phone, monitoring his performance.
So the Marvel twist doesn’t add much to the film, but it doesn’t detract from the main plot and fits perfectly with the film’s themes of growing up and dreaming big. (Peter toiling away in Queens while auditioning for the Avengers in Manhattan is essentially Spider-Man: Night Fever.) Plus, Marvel is where Spider-Man belongs. Its values about power and responsibility—even if the film never states them explicitly—are Marvel values, and the studio has incorporated them into many of its films in Spider-Man’s absence. Peter Parker’s return makes this a satisfying homecoming, even if Peter, as always, fails to get the Spider-Man dance with Liz.