Spider-Man’s history will be influenced by major MCU milestones, go back to Iron Man

If you weren’t made aware of it before, Marvel is using 2017 as the year it springboards Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Except that, as Spider-Man: Homecoming actor Tom Holland and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige have said, Peter Parker has actually been in the MCU for quite some time. Holland confirmed that Parker’s first appearance in the cinematic universe occurred in 2010 during Iron Man 2. Holland told ComicBook.com that Feige was interested in exploring other backstories that Parker has as it relates to previous MCU movies, but it was in an interview with io9 that Homecoming producer Amy Pascal confirmed what plans Feige had.

“The movie is designed for you to feel the movies that have been made in the Marvel universe [are] the history that’s in the books Peter studies,” Pascal said. “That was the world he grew up in and that was one of the key ideas of creating this character, so that he could have something that he wanted to be that he wasn’t a part of.”

Pascal, Feige and Holland are all interested in looking at the history of the character, but it can be difficult to try and find the correct path for connecting the dots. It would feel strange and disingenuous to fans to try and make Parker’s history stretch across an entire universe without a logical reason for doing so. There are a couple of events, however, that would make sense for the character.

Homecoming director Jon Watts said one of the events they would want to address is the moment Tony Stark revealed he was Iron Man on live TV. Not only would that be an influential moment in Parker’s life as a young kid caught up in the age of superheroes, but as a budding scientist, it would be a pretty memorable moment.

“The one is seeing Tony Stark on TV, revealing to the world that he’s Iron Man,” Watts told io9 in the same interview. “That would be so dramatic.”

The other moment that Watts, Feige, Pascal and Holland agree should be addressed, as someone who grew up in Queens, would be the Battle for New York that occurred at the end of the first Avengers movie. There’s no reason that Parker wouldn’t have remembered that and it could help address a couple of questions about his life now as a high school student. We know that Homecoming won’t address the death of Uncle Ben, as other Spider-Man movies have, but talking about the Battle of New York could hint at other things.

Spider-Man: Homecoming will be released on July 7.