I'll kick things off by stating the obvious. If you're one of the 50 people who hasn't seen Spider-Man: No Way Home and you have no how managed to come this far without it being spoiled, then look away now. Oh, one more thing, if you're holding out until it comes to Disney+, I've got some bad news for you: it isn't. Anyway, now that's out of the way, as the seven billion of you still reading this know very well, No Way Home delivered on its secret promise and gave Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield one more chance to swing around in red and blue spandex.
At least, one more chance for now. Their performances were so good, fans are hoping both Spideys return to the big screen as their respective web-slingers again now the multiverse has been busted open. Having Garfield clash with Venom in The Amazing Spider-Man 3 seems like a logical next step, while I'm personally hoping Maguire gets a Logan-style sendoff in the Spider-Man 4 we should have got more than a decade ago. Speaking of Maguire, in particular, now that his Spider-Man has appeared in the MCU, I've been wondering where the Marvel Cinematic Universe now canonically begins.
Pinpointing the start of the MCU isn't like arguing which was the first Pokemon. It's Iron Man. Released in 2008, the film marked the start of a franchise that is now more than 20 movies and multiple TV shows deep. That is, until Maguire and Garfield showed up. All three of Maguire's Spidey movies hit the big screen before Robert Downey Jr. ever cobbled together his first Iron Man suit in a cave, so if you ask me, the start of the MCU can now be traced all the way back to 2002.
Watching the MCU back is a lot of fun. I did it two years ago when we were all locked up with nothing to do. However, as touched on above, even at that point it was already more than 20 movies long. Add the four flicks that have been added since then and muddy the waters with TV shows that take place before, during, and after the movies in the timeline, rewatching the MCU is quickly turning from a long linear journey to a tangled mess that'll have you Googling “how to watch the MCU in order” faster than a Thanos snap.
Now I'm telling you to throw another five movies into the mix the next time you watch them all back. Let me explain why that is not only a good idea, but an absolute necessity now Maguire and Garfield have been added to the mix. First, and perhaps most importantly, Maguire's first Spider-Man movie is better than the first Iron Man. Apologies if that's a hot take, but it just is. It might be campy, and at 20 years old it might even be a little outdated, especially when it comes to the CGI, but it is still a great movie. The sequel is too, and since you will want to watch the first two, you might as well go ahead and watch the third at that point. Yes, it's bad, but no, you can't skip it.
It's also worth noting that despite how many millions and billions Marvel makes from its movies, the MCU is presumably going to be something that goes on for decades and possibly never ends. Those of us loyal to the cause aren't going to be around forever. Its projects need to keep attracting new fans. New people who are going to invest in the Marvel machine. Young kids who might not know anything about superheroes. Show them Spider-Man, in any form, and they'll be far more likely to continue on than if you show them Iron Man.
Take that from someone with a two-year-old who is already obsessed with the web-slinger. He hasn't seen the movies, he doesn't understand what or who exactly Spider-Man is, he just knows he loves him. He's on his pyjamas, his lunchbox, he points him out when he sees him on TV or out in the world, which is a lot. In a few years time when his MCU journey begins, it will be far easier to sell him on a movie about a guy becoming Spider-Man than one about a guy building a super suit in a cave.
I might be thinking way too far into the future here, but my son and other generations of Marvel fans watching Maguire and Garfield returning in No Way Home has also played out in my head. I don't normally condone clapping and cheering in cinemas, but when it happened for the two of them showing up in No Way Home, I loved it. Imagine rewatching that moment years from now with a young Marvel fan who just says, “who the hell are these guys?” I'll be turning it off and rewinding all the way back to 2002, something that could have been avoided had we kicked off their MCU journey there to begin with.
I know I'm adding a whole lot of screen time to a MCU rewatch for those of you thinking about going back to the very beginning, or those of you like me who will be forcing Marvel on their children in the near future. It'll be worth it, though. Even if it's just for that moment when the portal opens and Garfield walks through, and they know who it is, and they're tiny minds are blown, just likes ours were. Plus, some of them are great movies, and even the ones that aren't are fun to go back and relive, especially if you haven't seen them since.
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