5 Reasons You're Wrong About 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'

Image via Marvel Studios Published Oct 24, 2026, 8:20 AM EDT Eddie Possehl is a dynamic and driven writer/director with a passion for the written word and all things film, television, comics, and games. His passion for storytelling led him to establish his own production company in hopes of achieving his dreams. His dedication to his craft has attracted renowned talent like Yuri Lowenthal to collaborate with him on his projects. As he grows and improves, Eddie is a shining example of a self-starter. Sign in to your Collider account There's no denying that when Tom Holland's Spider-Man entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War, then spun off into his own solo franchise with Spider-Man: Homecoming, people had their complaints. It was considered a good movie, but got flak for the inclusion of things like Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) as a mentor figure. There was a common notion that Spider-Man: Homecoming is a great movie, but not a great "Spider-Man movie," and I'm here to claim why that's simply just wrong. Is Holland's first solo outing perfect? No! But it is genuinely a great film and deserves far more credit than certain portions of the Spider-Man fandom give it. If someone wants Iron Boy Jr. content, they can watch Avengers: Infinity War (more on that later). 5 Characterization is Excellent Image via Sony Pictures Releasing The young, goofy, and lovable characterization of Peter Parker in this 2017 flick is very well-written by the numerous writers on the project, and well-performed by Holland. This Pete is far different from the previous two iterations of the iconic hero, but not in a bad way. With Marvel Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and director Jon Watts going in a far more high school-focused direction than ever before—taking massive inspiration from John Hughes films—this version of the young hero is smack-dab in the middle of his biggest developmental years. He begins the film as a youthful, optimistic, naive hero that just wants to do good, having yet to face true villainy . . . until the Vulture (Michael Keaton) comes around. He grows a lot over the course of Spider-Man: Homecoming's runtime, and by the end of the project he's grown from this naive boy into a hero of his own. He has the heart of Spider-Man, the humor, and the sheer determination and willpower he holds in the comic books that people love so much. 4 A Great Supporting Cast Image via Columbia Pictures/Marvel Studios No matter what Spider-Man content one is consuming, his supporting cast has always been a crucial part of his life and stories. While the likes of Harry Osborn and Mary Jane Watson are common mainstays, Marvel Studios and co. decided to switch things up for Spider-Man: Homecoming. This actually works, though, as it makes Holland feel like his own unique iteration of the hero, including the likes of Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) as his best friend, and Liz Allan (Laura Harrier) as his love interest. Peter's supporting cast in Spider-Man: Homecoming makes the world feel lived-in and adds so much to the high school sequences. They all bring great comedic relief, provide great internal conflict for Peter, and truly feel authentic. The film ditches a lot of the typical high school tropes found in movies like these and crafts a very diverse group of characters to bring a true high school experience that feels natural and real. 3 The Vulture Image via Sony Pictures Releasing There's zero question that Michael Keaton's Vulture is one of the greatest Spider-Man movie villains of all time. What makes him so great is that Vulture—Adrian Toomes—is an understandable villain. His feelings and motives are justified, despite him doing bad things as a result of it. The movie provides a decent criticism of billionaires like Tony Stark, and how they can negatively affect the working class with their actions, and does so via Toomes and his crew being screwed over by Stark and Damage Control at the top of the film. Toomes and his crew have every reason to feel the way they do, as what happened to them is genuinely messed up. This leads Vulture to be a villain that audiences find themselves truly invested in. It's not hard to say that a mass majority of audiences watching Spider-Man: Homecoming are not millionaires or billionaires, so they can find themselves truly relating to the villain. He's almost the other side of the same coin Spider-Man is on. Not to mention, the stakes are only raised by the fact that Toomes is actually Liz's father. Having a good villain can make or break a superhero movie, and Vulture helps make this flick something truly enjoyable and amazing. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What MCU Superpower Would You Have? Strength · Spider-Sense · Invisibility · Chaos Magic Eight honest questions about how you actually are: your first instinct when things go wrong, what your friends rely on you for, how you handle stress, what your real flaw is. Answer them and we will tell you which power you would wake up with. The best ones in the MCU are never random, because they always say something about the person who got them. 💪Super Strength(Hulk) 🕸️Spider-Sense(Spider-Man) 🫧Invisibility(Fantastic Four) 🔮Chaos Magic(Scarlet Witch) FIND YOUR POWER → 01 What is your first instinct when something goes wrong? Go with the honest answer rather than the heroic one. AGet in front of it. BReact before I have finished thinking. CStep back and work out what is happening. DFeel all of it at once, then move. NEXT QUESTION → 02 How do you handle being the centre of attention? Every hero on this list answers this differently. AFine, as long as it is for something useful. BI did not plan it, but here we are. CI would much rather nobody noticed me. DIt depends entirely on my mood that day. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What do your friends rely on you for? They would all name the same thing about you. ADoing the heavy thing nobody else wants. BSpotting trouble before anybody else does. CNoticing what everybody else missed. DSaying the thing everybody is feeling. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with stress? Nobody picks the healthy one, and that is fine. ACarry it quietly and say nothing. BTake on more, which never once helps. CGo quiet and disappear for a while. DLet it out, then clean up afterwards. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What is your actual flaw? The useful thing here is picking the true one. AI carry things that are not mine to carry. BI cannot switch off. CI keep far too much to myself. DI feel everything much too strongly. NEXT QUESTION → 06 What kind of help do you actually give people? Everybody has one default, whatever the situation is. APractical help, straight away. BI turn up before they have asked. CI quietly remove the problem. DI sit with them in it. NEXT QUESTION → 07 How do you want strangers to see you? Answer for the first ten minutes, not the first year. ASolid, and worth relying on. BQuick, warm and switched on. CI would rather they formed no opinion yet. DInteresting, and a little hard to read. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would you want a superpower for? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your power. ATo protect the people I care about. BTo never be too late again. CTo move through the world unnoticed. DTo change something I could not change before. REVEAL MY POWER → The Gift Is Given Your Power Is…Four powers, and four completely different kinds of person behind them. Here is what you would wake up with, what it would cost you, and why the MCU keeps handing it to somebody exactly like you. Super StrengthYou get the power that is really about taking the hit so that nobody else has to. Strength in the MCU always lands on people who were already carrying too much, which is exactly why it suits you. Your instinct is to put yourself between the problem and the people, and you do it before anybody has thought to ask. Bruce Banner is the most interesting version of this because his story was never about lifting things, it was about control. The catch with strength is that people stop checking whether you are alright, since you have made a habit of looking like you always are. You would be the one everybody calls at two in the morning, and you would answer every single time. Spider-SenseYou get the power that never switches off. Spider-sense is a gift and a nervous system on permanent alert, and the people who get it in these films are always the ones who were already worrying about everybody. You read a situation faster than you can explain it, and you are usually right in a way you cannot show your working for. Peter Parker is the template because he takes on more than he can hold and then apologises for not holding it well enough. Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived in July 2026 and put him back to being local, broke and permanently on call. The cost here is real, since a power that warns you about everything also means you are never quite off duty. InvisibilityYou get the quietest power in the building, and quietly the most useful. Invisibility comes with force fields for a reason, because the people who prefer not to be seen are usually the ones holding a shield around everybody else. You notice everything, largely because you spend more time observing a room than performing in it. Sue Storm is the strongest member of her team and the least interested in anybody saying so, which is very much your energy. The Fantastic Four: First Steps finally gave the family a proper MCU home in 2025 and made her the centre of it. Your risk is that being unseen becomes a habit rather than a choice, and the people who love you would like a look in. Chaos MagicYou get the biggest and least comfortable power on the list, the one that runs directly on feeling. Chaos magic is not really a superpower in the MCU so much as an emotional state with consequences attached. You feel things at a volume other people do not, and you have spent years managing that rather than being managed by it. Wanda is the best written character Marvel has, precisely because her power and her grief turned out to be the same thing. WandaVision remains the high point of Marvel television, and it works because the spectacle is only ever a symptom. The warning attached to this one is simple. A power that answers to how you feel is only ever as steady as you are. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 2 A True Spider-Man Story at Heart Image via Sony Pictures Releasing There's a stark contrast between stories that include Spider-Man and a true bona fide Spider-Man story. Despite it never being said, the feeling of "with great power comes great responsibility" lies throughout the entire movie. A good, classic Spider-Man story manages to blend big stakes with an emotionally grounded plot. The feeling of the burden of responsibility should be ever-present, and it truly is in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Most importantly, though, Spider-Man: Homecoming really hones in on the importance of staying true to oneself, which is ever-true to the web-slinger. Spidey is always incredibly true to himself, and seeing Holland's variant learn that and the importance of finding one's power from within and not from technology is genuinely compelling and the beating heart of the movie. He's also quite street-level in this project—something people have been asking for him to return to since Avengers: Infinity War, partially leading to the mass love for Spider-Man: Brand New Day—and very much a "friendly neighborhood" hero. The massive complaint with MCU Spider-Man is that for most of his career, he was facing world-ending threats and not street-level whatsoever. Many forget that this is not the case with Spider-Man: Homecoming, which adds to its charm. 1 He is NOT "Iron Boy Jr." Image via Sony Pictures Releasing The claim that the hero audiences see in Spider-Man: Homecoming is "Iron Boy Jr." is simply incorrect in almost every single way. The inclusion of Iron Man as a mentor figure does not make this true and, in fact, has the opposite effect. The entire point of Stark's inclusion is to push forward the main point of the movie: Spider-Man is his own hero, not the sidekick to an Avenger. It's hard to believe that one can watch the "If you're nothing without this suit, you shouldn't have it" scene and still believe the Iron Boy Jr. claims. Simply put, Peter's character arc in Spider-Man: Homecoming is proving that he is not Iron Boy Jr. and does not need to be an Avenger like he thought he did at the beginning of the movie. Peter putting on his classic homemade costume and pursuing Vulture without the tech he's grown so accustomed to is him showing that he is Spider-Man without help from Stark and that the suit doesn't make the man, the man makes the suit. This also makes him getting the suit back from Stark at the end of the movie far more understandable because the entire point is that it doesn't matter he got the suit back and it's merely a cherry on top. It doesn't undo his arc, but shows how much said arc changed him. He isn't more of a hero because he got it back, he got it back because he's a hero without it. It's the frosting on the cake that is the completion of his arc. The most important aspect of this film that disproves Iron Boy Jr., however, is the fact that Pete turns down an Avengers membership after wanting it for so long. An Iron Boy Jr. wouldn't do that, but Spider-Man would. Sure, this is undone in Avengers: Infinity War, but that doesn't change the fact that in this movie, Peter is Spider-Man. Nothing more, nothing less.