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Just like its predecessor, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home is packed with little references and jokes. Or, at least, judging by its first trailers, it is.
Some of them are obvious, some of them are subtle, and some of them give us some pretty big hints about the movie’s villains. Let’s dig in.
Is Tony Stark still alive?
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Unclear. The charity event that Spider-Man is appearing at in the trailer appears to be in celebration of a $500,000 donation from Pepper Potts. This might mean Tony’s gone. Or it might just mean that Pepper, as Stark Industry’s CEO, is signing the checks — which we can all agree is a responsible reaction to Tony “Impulse” Stark.
Spider-Man is not forgotten
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Peter’s favorite bodega, which was sort-of accidentally blown up in Spider-Man: Homecoming, has been rebuilt — and they framed all the Spider-Man news coverage of the destruction to put on the wall.
Happy birthday, Peter
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Aside from the erasure of years, so that Marvel fans won’t stress out trying to make sense of the MCU timeline, Peter’s passport reveals his birthday, Aug. 10. The date is also the day that Spider-Man made his comic book debut in the pages of Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. (We can assume Peter is a little younger than that, though.)
Remembering the past
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The monogram BFP on Peter’s suitcase is a clear nod to his late uncle and mentor, Ben Parker. What does the F stand for? Ben Parker has no canonical middle name, so perhaps ... the F is a sign of respect.
Hotel De Matteis
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The Venetian hostel that Peter and company call temporary home is named in tribute to J. M. DeMatteis, a long-time writer of Spider-Man comics in the 1980s and 1990s. Matteis penned beloved stories like Kraven’s Last Hunt, the early ’90s return of Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin, and the beginnings of the infamous Clone Saga.
Amazing Spider-Man #212
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It seems pretty likely that the elemental monsters — one made of water, one made of sand, and one made of fire — who appear in the trailer are illusions created by Mysterio to make himself look cool. That, after all is his entire MO as a supervillain.
But the boat behind Ned in this shot is solid evidence that even if they are illusions, the element monsters are also deliberate nods to other Spider-villains. Amazing Spider-Man #212 (“Asm 212”) marked the first appearance of Hydro-Man, a villain who can take the form of water. And you’re probably familiar with Marvel’s Sandman from his appearance in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 — he’s a guy who can take the form of sand, and a dead ringer for the rocky-sandy monster in the trailer.
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And finally, there’s a brief shot of this giant melty fire man:
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He could very well be Spider-Man: Far From Home’s interpretation of Molten Man, a metallic Spider-Man villain who could heat his surface until anything that touched it was incinerated — sometimes he’s even been able to take on a lava form.
This leaves us with only one question for Far From Home: Where’s the air-villain?
