THE GOOD
1. Civil War
When Marvel announced its Phase 3 lineup, one of the most exciting announcements was the title of the final installment of the Captain America trilogy: Civil War. The namesake event comic is one of the best selling comic miniseries of all time and was critically acclaimed to boot. The events in the story split the Marvel Comics Universe down the middle over the issue of hero registration. Iron Man's pro-registration camp believe that heroes should reveal their secret identities to the government and work as trained government agents. Captain America's anti-registration faction believe that this would only bring bad things into heroes' lives.
One of the core elements of this story was Spider-Man's involvement. Trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible, Spidey finds himself involved with both sides at different points in the story, and even makes a major personal decision based on the pressure from one of the group's leader. Imagining a cinematic take on this story without having Spider-Man's presence seems difficult, if not impossible, and now that Spidey has joined the MCU, we don't have to worry about this being the case. In fact, it is very likely that Spider-Man's necessity to this upcoming story was exactly what pushed Marvel Studios to claim their right to feature the character in their Cinematic Universe.
2. We can expect better quality for future Spider-Man standalones.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the Tobey Maguire trilogy as well as the newer Andrew Garfield movies. But we all know there were serious problems with many of these movies from a film quality point of view. I am no film guy or critic, but it really doesn't take one to notice some of the issues of the movies. Whether the overcrowded feel of Spider-Man 3 or the hit-or-miss script of ASM 2, none of the movies (besides Spider-Man 2) really felt like they were solid examples of great film.
Now how many of the MCU movies that have been released so far (from Iron Man to Guardians) have been poor quality from a film perspective? I can't really think of any that have as many problems as most of the previous Spider-Man movies. Even though Sony will continue to produce the future Spider-Man titles, I think we can reasonably hope for Marvel's quality control to make future Spidey films a higher-quality experience.
3. Spider-Man reclaims his rightful throne (maybe)
Ever since Marvel debuted its Cinematic Universe with Iron Man, Tony Stark effectively staged a coup against Peter Parker to become front and center in the Marvel Universe. He's popped up in most of the movies, even after his own trilogy has finished, and plans to be a major character in the MCU indefinitely. Since he basically started the MCU, I don't necessarily have a problem with him being the main guy in it. My problem is that this bleeds into the comics as well. One cannot read any Marvel comic without Iron Man showing up somehow. He basically leads the Avengers, and has even directed SHIELD at one point. It's an unfortunate truth that the movies influence the comics just as much as, if not more than, the comics influence the movies. A great example is the cancellation of Fantastic Four and "X"-prefixed comics, likely due to Marvel not owning the movie rights to these titles.
If Marvel had not sold Spider-Man's movie rights to Sony, there is a pretty good chance that they would have used a Spider-Man movie to start their Cinematic Universe, and Spider-Man would have continued to be Marvel's flagship character in the MCU just as he is in the comic universe. Due to his immense popularity, there's a very real chance that Spider-Man could take back the Number One Headband from Stark in the Cinematic Universe. You wouldn't hear me complaining. Of course, this is all speculation, and I really don't find this to be incredibly likely.
THE BAD
1. Spidey the loner.
One of my favorite parts about the Marc Webb/Andrew Garfield movies is that Spider-Man is the only superhero in New York in that particular universe. This is true for the Raimi/Maguire films as well, but we didn't have a shared Cinematic Universe at this point, so it wasn't significant. Since Garfield's Spider-Man didn't have Captain America or Thor to back him up, it put a lot more pressure on him to stop the villain, be it the Lizard, Electro, or the Goblin. This really emphasizes the R-word that is the core essence of Spider-Man's motivation.
Although everyone's inner fanboy will be stoked about the possibility of Spider-Man working alongside the Avengers or maybe even Daredevil (depending on how closely the upcoming Netflix series will be intertwined with the movie universe), Spider-Man works best on his own. Of course he has been on basically every team in the comics at one point (heck, he's even been with the X-Men), but this was more from a business standpoint than an artistic one. His popularity put him on those teams, not any character trait that he posesses. Now that he will share a universe with the Avengers and Guardians, we won't have that added drama of him carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders all by himself. Even if he thinks he still does, we'll know in the back of our minds that if he fails, the Avengers or somebody else will still have a chance to save the city, or something.
2. Spider-Man joining the MCU takes away from up-and-coming characters.
According to the announcement, Spider-Man will be appearing in a yet unnamed MCU movie before getting his own movie in July 2017. This pushed back a few of Marvel's other Phase 3 films, including Black Panther and Captain Marvel. I consider myself to be quite the Spidey fanboy, but this still bothers me.
One of the exciting parts of the MCU's Phase 3 was that we are finally getting to some lesser-known characters. We already experienced the wonderful film that was Guardians of the Galaxy, which was the first experience with the Guardians for most people. The same will be true for Black Panther and Captain Marvel, who are both really interesting lesser-known characters who could greatly benefit from a cinematic appearance. Furthermore, both of these characters bring desperately needed and called-for diversity to the MCU. Black Panther will be the first black character to be the main protagonist in a superhero movie in this era, and Captain Marvel will be Marvel's first female lead in a superhero movie, second only to DC's upcoming Wonder Woman movie scheduled for release in 2017. But since the acquisition of Spider-Man to their Cinematic Universe, Marvel quickly shoves new and exciting characters aside to make room for their moneymaker. It's disappointing when a company of any creative art sacrifices fresh and diverse characters for a character that they think will make them more money.
3. Enough with the reboots...
Okay, so it still remains to be seen if the new Spider-Man will be Garfield's Spider-Man, or yet another reboot will be in store for the Wall Crawler. I desperately hope it is the former, because a new reboot is exactly what this character does not need.
Spider-Man has had 5 movies in which he is the protagonist since 2002. That is second only to Wolverine in this era, who has been the main protagonist in 6 movies since 2000. There was a lot of controversy following the quick announcement of a reboot shortly after the end of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Fans were divided on which series they liked better, and newer fans have even become confused on the different elements introduced in both movies. If we were to get another Spider-Man reboot, it would simply cause more division and confusion among the Spider-Man fanbase, which nobody wants to see. Even though this would likely be the last Spider-Man reboot for a while, I think most fans would be weary of seeing yet another different cinematic version of Spider-Man. Let's hope this doesn't happen in the first place.
So there are my initial thoughts. What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
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