Spider-Man and the Fight for Redemption

Spoiler warning for Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The latest Spider-Man movie to hit theaters has taken the world by storm. It currently holds the sixth place in the highest grossing films of all time. The hype leading up to its release surely indicated the effect it would inevitably have on the box office, but the storyline it follows has a surprising twist from the average superhero movies of today.

In No Way Home, we find Peter Parker in a difficult situation. His identity has been revealed to the world, he has been accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and he faces the greatest challenge of all: college applications.

With all the controversy surrounding him, Peter and his friends are unable to get into any of the colleges they applied to. Feeling guilty, Peter decides to ask another local superhero, Doctor Strange, to use magic to make everyone forget he is Spider-Man. However, Peter keeps trying to make exceptions to this rushed plan and the whole spell comes crashing down, only to discover that he could have just called the admissions office.

When his spontaneous actions lead to villains from other universes entering his own, Doctor Strange gives him the task of capturing them so they can be sent back to their own universes. However, when Peter discovers that they were about to die in the moment before being sent to his world, he chooses to try helping them recover at the encouragement of his aunt.

At this moment, the movie changes from the traditional formula of superhero movies. The focus is no longer on the comic book style action and instead on the redemption of these villains. They have been set up in their own movies as good people who made poor decisions and fell into crime and destruction. This is not a Spider-Man who is saving just the people of New York; it’s a Spider-Man who is saving his villains.

While it begins to work and he manages to remove the AI from Doctor Octavius, a sudden twist leads the rest of the villains to deny his help and run back into the city. It also leads to the Green Goblin killing Peter’s aunt. In his darkest moment, he receives encouragement and aid from the Peter Parkers of the 2002 and 2012 series. They help him to continue his mission of curing the villains.

In the finale, after curing the rest of the villains, Peter must face the Green Goblin. Though Spiderman is tempted towards vengeance, he chooses to cure the Goblin. While this seems to be the end, the events of the whole film have led to an even greater problem with more villains entering the world. Since these events originate from Peter’s own selfish choice at the start of the movie, he must finally make a selfless decision for the sake of the world. In order to avoid the villains appearing, he must redo the spell to make everyone forget Peter Parker ever existed. 

The film ends with Peter in a lower point than most other Spider-Men have been in. He has no family, no friends, and no life except for his Spider-Man life. He has to rebuild his life from the ground up. However, after being in positions where everything has come to him easily with the support of other heroes, it’s refreshing to see him learn an even greater lesson in responsibility and finally take the shape of a Spider-Man more akin to that of the comic books. He struggles, he falls, but he always returns with selfless determination. This movie not only sees the redemption of the villains, but the redemption of Peter Parker, completing his origin trilogy and paving the way for a new chapter of his story.