Guest Post by the Dynamic Mary Mordrake Cosplay. She has seen the Marvel Movies quite a few times, and is rewatching them all again because of something coming up called Avengers Infinity War! And SPOILERS for any Marvel Movie you have not seen!!!
Week 16: Spider-Man Homecoming (2017)
This is another one I didn’t see in theatres, because I didn’t think I needed another Spiderman movie in my life. I was tired of Spiderman. He’s so oversaturated, from Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to the endless list of Spiderman cartoons on Netflix, and the material was starting to get a little old.
But this one?
I love that this Spiderman is actually a kid. I love that he acts like a teenager, that his entire life doesn’t revolve around relationship drama, and that he desperately wants to be an Avenger but clearly isn’t ready. He’s chatty and anxious and excitable, and he needs to sort out his priorities and get his life together.
My favourite thing about this movie is that Peter wants to be an Avenger so badly and believes he is ready, but he’s still a teenager. He’s inexperienced, he talks too much, and he has a very loose concept of responsibility, to say the least. He’s everything a kid his age, with his life, should be, and that’s what makes this so good. He just moves from one disaster to the next, every choice snowballing until he’s gone from ditching the school decathlon to going, only to track the criminals he’s bugged, to being trapped in a high security warehouse, to missing the decathlon altogether and having to rescue his class from an alien tech time bomb. And after all of that, he still doesn’t see that if he hadn’t prioritized the “Stark Internship” over school and his future (which, his classmate Liz points out, is the reason she takes the decathlon seriously), none of this would have happened. He’s so preoccupied with being a superhero and becoming an Avenger that he believes he’s above going to school or going to class. He thinks he doesn’t need to be at school, because any minute now he’ll be moving upstate with the Avengers. Again, priorities. Stay in school, kids.
I love that this isn’t an origin story. We all know how Peter became Spiderman, and no one needs to watch Uncle Ben die again. I would much rather see this pseudo-coming of age story, where Peter has to learn the (very) hard way that he can’t just throw himself into being a superhero and ignore the rest of his life. I would rather see Spiderman panicking because he’s just realized he’s never been as high as he is right now on the Washington monument, or because he’s got to hold a ferry together and the fact that he does is probably his fault, or because he’s buried alive and he’s started to realize that he just might be in over his head. The thing is, Peter has such a big heart. He really wants to help people. Not because it’ll help his conscience, or make him feel better about himself, like Tony Stark, but because it’s the right thing to do, like Cap, or Clint. I wish that Civil War had been more like the comics, if only so that we could see Peter switching from Team Iron Man to Team Cap, because he is far more suited to that kind of team ethos.
“I think with a little more mentoring, you’d be a real asset to the team.” Yes Tony, he would be, as long as he’s mentored by someone other than you. I am so glad that by the end of this movie, Peter has figured out that he need to stay in school, he needs to be with his friends and his aunt, and he needs to balance his ordinary life with his life as Spiderman. Peter deserves so much better than Tony Stark. That’s right, I said it. Someone had to. And by the way, I might actually be a little excited for the next Spiderman movie? No, not Venom, I could care less. I just want to see more Tom Holland as Peter, more of Zendaya as MJ because although I am once again grateful for the lack of love triangle, I greatly enjoyed her character and she needed some more non-romance related screen time.
Let’s grab a few Random Thoughts and close out this train of thought before it entirely derails:
A) I need an entire movie that’s just Peter Parker’s video diary.
B) If there was a Captain America fitness challenge in my school, I might have enjoyed gym class a little more.
C) I entirely agree with the internet that we need Peter and Shuri hangouts in the near future.
D) Thanks for an actual diverse supporting cast, and for some characters that aren’t in literally every on screen incarnation of Spiderman, and for teenagers that look and act like teenagers.
E) Tony needs to stop being such a judgmental jerk. Iron Man 2 was a far bigger trainwreck than Peter could ever accomplish.
Man, I really feel like getting on Netflix and watching some Ultimate Spiderman now, because that’s the version that Tom Holland most reminds me of. You know the drill – tag me on instagram @marymordrakecosplay if you’re doing something cool for #RoadToInfinityWar! I just bought my ticket today – do you have yours yet?
Mary is a walking talking living encyclopedia of X-Men and Batman, an avid cosplayer, and obsessive reader. She’s dreamed of living in the X-Mansion and Batcave since she was eight years old, which is almost as long as she’s wanted to be a Sailor Scout. And Quicksilver is her Patronus. Oh, she may have watched a Marvel Movie or two along the way as well. You can check out her cosplay at http://www.facebook.com/marymordrake and instagram Mary Mordrake Cosplay and her fanfiction at http://archiveofourown.org/users/Harleydoll/works . Her twitter is @magnetictrifles and her Pinterest is Mary Mordrake.
Scoop here: When I first met Mary years ago, I found out she is a X-Men and Batman fan. Within a half hour, I found out she is an absolute X-Men and Batman fanatic of colossal degree who has read EVERY FREAKING SINGLE X-MEN AND BATMAN COMIC FOR THE LAST TWENTY YEARS. I do miss Uncle Ben and wish he was mentioned in the movie. But it would be even better if Uncle Ben came back from the dead and kicked Iron Man’s butt.
scoopsmentalpropaganda 