Does Whatever A Spider Can

So, Marvel’s corner of the internet broke last night.  In a big announcement Marvel and Sony noted they have joined forces to re-invigorate the Spider-Franchise.  While confirming my feeling that there was no deal in place when it was “leaked that the deal was done”, they did sort of pull it off.  Not quite as suspected.

Basically, we are looking at Spider-Man appearing one of the upcoming MCU movies occurring before the next Thor film.  This rules out his first appearance being in the Avengers: Infinity War.  And the most likely candidate is Captain America: Civil War.  Then, in 2017, there will be a new Spider-Man film from Sony.  It sounds like the deal put to death the plans for the various proposed spin-offs.  Amy Pascal (who jut stepped down from Sony) along with Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios will produce the new Spider-Man film, with Sony having final say.  Sony retains the rights to all Spider-Stuff.  This is interesting, because it is the first time the MCU is getting to use a character that Marvel Studios does not hold the rights to.  And does this mean we can see, say the Daily Bugle or J. Jonah Jamesom appear in MCU movies and TV?  Will this version of the Spider-Man corner be fully integrated?  Or just a very tightly held case by case basis?

So, what Spider-Man are we getting?  A grown up Spider-Man?  For Civil War, that would make the most sense.  But then there is the issue that Spider-Man’s biggest part of Civil War in the comics was giving up his secret identity and being buddies with Tony Stark.  A teen Spider-Man would make the Stark friendship seem strained…and in the MCU, the concept of secret identities has never taken hold.  So, throwing in the secret identity stuff into the Captain America Civil War film may feel forced.

Will they play off like Spider-Man has been around the entire time, we just were not hearing about him?  Or will the new Spider-Man be yet another origin based reboot?  Will we have a new high school Spider-Man?  Or will the rebooted Spider-Man be older straight out of the gate?

If Sony just trusts Marvel to do their thing with Spider-Man, it may work.  But that could be a big “if”.