Without spoiling anything, Spider-Man: Far From Home covers Peter Parker on a school field trip to Europe. All his classmates are there. He still spins a web, any size, catches Eurocrooks just like flies. But from there… if you have not yet seen Avengers: Endgame, we wish to be respectful. The first shot in this trailer contains a major spoiler for that film — so we’re warning you now so that you can go see Endgame then come back and watch this trailer and join the discussion.
Even then, the trailer first before we start speculating.
It had been rumored a couple of weeks ago that Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck aka Mysterio was from an alternate universe. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) introduces him as such to Peter (Tom Holland). “The Snap” blew a hole in reality. Though you might be wise to ask — which of the three snaps? Thus… how long has reality been bleeding over?
More importantly, if you are familiar with [amazon text=Mysterio&asin=0247620505], you know that he’s… pretty much full of crap. In the comics, Quentin Beck was a movie special effects artist who turned to crime, creating illusions to show off his artistry while endangering citizens. (Let me take a pause to gush how wonderfully true to the comics Gyllenhaal’s costume design is — we have come a long way from Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin.)
On the other hand, Fury wouldn’t just take anybody’s word for there being alternate universes. Somebody else has to have checked it out for him. It’s possible that part of Beck’s story is true, though it seems likely that Beck is a fraud from the main MCU Earth, taking advantage of the fact that there are alternate Earths. (Which, by the way, absolutely opens the door for how mutants could have existed for decades without it being an issue in the MCU movies — the X-Men are on an alternate Earth without the Avengers.)
As always, I’m more drawn in by the emotional arc, and that’s where the specific spoiler is — Tony Stark is dead. Peter is grieving. Enter an older, more confident superhero with technological knowledge — at least, Mysterio claims to be that — and Peter has a new father figure to replace Tony who replaced, to some extent, Uncle Ben. We’re going to see a hard fall for Peter, and maybe a step toward a version of himself more confident in his own abilities, ready to walk in two worlds — Marvel Phase Four and Sony’s Spider-Verse.
All we can say for sure is… you do NOT ghost Nick Fury.
Spider-Man: Far From Home opens in the US on July 2, 2019.
