[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Homecoming]
Spider-Man: Homecoming is, and isn’t, a typical origin story. It is in the sense that its narrative serves to distinguish this version of the character from a couple of other iterations, everything from recent movie Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to musical-theater Spider-Guys Reeve Carney and Justin Matthew Sargent (let us not dwell on live-action TV Spider-Dudes Shinji Todo and Nicholas Hammond).
But Homecoming is not a typical origin story in the sense that it doesn’t re-hash the same, “Got bit by a radioactive spider, then my uncle died, now I gotta fight my best friend and his dad” backstory that so many recent Spider-stories have.Sure, there are familiar Spider-tropes and characters in Homecoming, but the film’s most unique focus is on the adolescent life of 15 year-old Peter Parker, played by 21 year-old Tom Holland. Holland’s version of the character was previously introduced in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, which also featured scenes that established Peter’s home life with surprisingly young Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). Homecoming continues to emphasize the fact that Holland’s version of Spider-Man is a teenager first, and a super-hero after that. In fact, the key to this new film’s success is how much it gets right about Parker’s high school life.
For starters, there are a number of throw-away gags that indicate how young and eager-to-please this new Spider-Man is. When a hot dog vendor asks Parker to prove that he’s Spider-Man by doing a back-flip, Parker readily complies. And when he’s doing his rounds, Parker anxiously texts and leaves messages for mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.
) and unofficial super-guardian/liaison Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). Time moves slowly for Parker, as we see in a scene where he, trapped inside an underground warehouse, gasps after he realizes that only 37 minutes have passed since he entered. He’s careless enough to have his super-identity compromised when best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) catches him slinking back into his bedroom. And Holland’s Parker even almost succumbs to peer pressure when Ned begs him to boost their non-existent street cred by showing up, in costume, as Spider-Man to a party thrown by popular girl Liz (Laura Harrier).It’s also important to note that Liz, Parker’s love interest, and Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori), Parker’s pint-sized arch-rival, are also both nerds. In almost every iteration of the character, Flash is characterized…
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