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'Spider-Man' Gives Marvel What It Needs Most: Villains

This article is more than 9 years old.

Kelvin Chavez of Latino Review scooped the Internet yesterday with a big news dump alleging copious information about the upcoming Walt Disney / Sony reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. The general idea is that it will be a fresh start, sans origin, written and directed by Drew Goddard of Cabin in the Woods fame. Also, and a cautionary SPOILER ALERT if the rest of this short paragraph turns out to be true, the film will tangentially involve Spidey battling Iron Man as a kind of "test" to join the Avengers, which may mean that Robert Downey Jr.’s big Thursday announcement just got scooped. Oh and the Sinister Six will allegedly be formed by the end of the picture and they may or may not be spun off in some capacity. So presuming this is all true, The Spectacular Spider-Man (alleged title) may bring something new to the Marvel movie universe that is truly of value. I am speaking of colorful villainy.  

First of all, Goddard getting back on-board basically negates the whole “Marvel and Disney are no longer friendly to artists” narrative that swept the Internet for about an hour after Edgar Wright left Ant Man and Goddard left the Netflix Daredevil show to concentrate on Sony’s now-cancelled Sinister Six spin-off. The implication that Marvel wants one Spider-Man film a year is both terrible news (over-saturation of the character and potential burnout for those involved) and great news (it will force Marvel and Sony to tell small-scale stories). Also of note, as mentioned above, is that Spider-Man will bring along not just his amazing friends but his sinister foes. You don't just get Spider-Man, you get one of the best rogues’ gallery in comic books at your disposal to use how you will. There is a lot of good things we can say about the first ten Marvel movies. But having a surplus of memorable villains is not among their merit badges.

Now to be fair, unlike for example the Batman films, the focus in the Marvel films have been squarely on the hero rather than the baddie. The Iron Man films were about Tony Stark, just as the Captain America films were about Steve Rogers's heroic journeys. But it should also be noted that the various heroes that have made up the bulk of the Marvel universe don't exactly have a deep bench of four-color villainy. Can anyone outside the hardcore fans of each respective character name all that many Thor villains, or Captain America foes? Quick, who is Black Panther's arch enemy? And that relative lack of high-profile villainy has been reflected in the films. In terms of colorful baddies that might excite general audiences, Marvel has already exhausted most of their bench by the first or second film in a given franchise. 

Aside from Tom Hiddleston's turn as Loki in the Thor films (although he didn't really break out until The Avengers) and arguably Hugo Weaving's one-and-done Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger, the Marvel onscreen universe has mostly had somewhat generic villains that existed as extension of the hero's journey. The Winter Soldier is (intentionally) a blank slate and Mr. Shaw from Captain America 2 was only interesting because Robert Redford came him such gravitas. I like Jeff Bridges in the first Iron Man, but he is just an evil businessman. Iron Man 3 had to pretzel itself (in eventually delightful ways) in order to include The Mandarin, who is Iron Man's arch villain but also an unholy racial caricature. I won't be mean and discuss the bad guys in Thor: The Dark World or Lee Pace's mostly forgettable turn in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Bringing Spider-Man into the Marvel film universe brings a deep slate of visually dynamic and wholly recognizable villains to the table. Be it because of the various animated shows, the video games, the previous five films thus far, or just the overall popularity of Spider-Man, general audiences know the likes of the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom, Sandman, The Vulture, Black Cat, and Kraven. Since the film is starting from scratch, the filmmakers have total freedom in terms of who to cast, with the potential to cast some ridiculously famous people in what will likely be small roles without massive time commitments. Now obviously the Vulture isn't necessarily going to be the prime baddie in a future Captain America movie, but bringing Spider-Man into the Marvel world gives the possibility of any number of geeky combinations which in turn would create a whirlwind of trailer-friendly moments. Imagine a trailer button that featured Iron Man squaring off against Doctor Octopus, or a curtain raiser to any Marvel movie that had Green Goblin and Hobgoblin getting their butts kicked by Black Widow and The Falcon?

This is all geeky speculation of course. But it is a tool, both in terms of storytelling choices and marketing hooks, that Marvel has not really had before.  Now the X-Men comics have a deluge of baddies, but that hasn't stopped Fox from basically making the same “Professor X and Magneto have a heated argument!” movie since 2000. But I’m hoping Marvel won’t make that mistake while the upcoming X-Men: Age of Apocalypse will somewhat right that ship for Fox. For the record, that the films had to focus on the heroes as opposed to falling into the Burton/Schumacher trap of focusing on the villains is probably as much of a net-positive for the films thus as was their inability to just rely on Spider-Man and the X-Men back in the early planning stages of this would-be universe. But now that they have established a deep bench of heroes, the use of Spider-Man doesn't just bring the ability to have Spider-Man team up with (or do battle with) the various Marvel heroes, but also allows the interconnected Marvel universe to also include a host of colorful and iconic Spidey baddies.

I have said and still say that Marvel didn't need Spider-Man in their movie universe. But now that they have him, they can use his rogue’s gallery to fill one of the few outright holes that they have in their ongoing franchises. We’ll see if any of this comes to pass and it what fashion it cements itself over the next couple years. But I admit I wasn't entirely thinking about Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery when I discussed the relative usefulness of Peter Parker’s onscreen world. I still have concerns about Spider-Man overshadowing the likes of Captain Marvel and Black Panther, and I hope “and now they fight Iron Man” doesn't become the new go-to plot point for future films. But the director who helmed the best movie of 2012 getting a crack at Spider-Man and Spidey’s villains will provide an unexpected toy in the Marvel toy box.  That sounds like a win/win for both parties. What say you true believers?

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