(image rights: Sony Pictures)
Three years ago I wrote an in-depth analysis of technology and the Gen-Z identity challenge in ‘Spiderman Far From Home.’ I didn’t expect to be inspired any more by a Marvel film. Yesterday ‘Spiderman No Way Home’ brought me to my laptop again.
The latest Spidey franchise never failed to impress us with its fresh portrayal of our beloved wall-crawling hero (and not just because of Tom Holland). With each movie it’s only grown in depth and nuance, fittingly as Peter Parker himself grows in maturity. The last installment of the (hopefully) first trilogy not only concludes his journey as an adolescent, but challenges him to face his own inner demons through possibly the second-best solution to therapy: helping others.
In the best way possible No Way Home rapidly warps and exceeds our expectations from the multiverse-gimmick apocalypse promised in its trailers. The catastrophe is far bigger than we imagined, and the solution is way stranger: “fix” the villains by ridding them of the superpowers that corrupted their bodies and minds. But the most important battle Peter conquers is the grief that stole his youth — the deaths of his beloved mentors and guardians. Staying true to his convictions of compassion and mercy in the midst of tragedy grows him as a person, ready to combat his own inner demon in (almost) true adulthood.
(warning: major spoilers for Spiderman No Way Home)
Peter learns to make decisions and sacrifices without the direct guidance of an older mentor.
It could’ve been easy for Dr. Strange to ‘replace’ Tony Stark in the mentor role for the young hero. It’s true Peter first goes to him to solve his problem for him. Strange’s fury at this misguided, should’ve-been-a-last-resort attempt is reasonable, and telling of Peter’s character in the beginning of a movie: he’s acting like a kid. As an adult you learn that there are no magic spells to solve your problems, even in the MCU (look at the ones who tried). Tampering with reality always comes with consequences in any universe. We quickly learn that Strange’s role in the film is a minor one, not to stand alongside and monitor Peter’s moves like Iron Man, but to catapult him into making independent decision.
While at first Peter begins by solving his problems the “grown-up way” (following Dr. Strange’s instructions, he isn’t the kid he was in the first two movies. He’s made mistakes like this before and he’s lost important people along the way. Peter doesn’t look for a new Tony Stark or Nick Fury in Strange. In fact he defies Strange completely. Against what may seem like wiser, practical and pragmatic judgment, he decides for himself how to deal with his consequences. It’s not a move of disrespect, but one that follows his own conviction: to do the right thing for the people in front of him. He can’t leave even those villains as someone else’s problem.
His youth and development stage isn’t to be disregarded completely; he still takes guidance from some direction. This decision stems from Aunt May, the adult he’s trusted and relied on his whole life. Her conviction to protect and help those in need influences his own. This isn’t lost when he loses his aunt, the one family he had left. Instead he carries on her and Tony’s legacy of what it means to be a true hero.
Peter learns compassion from Aunt May and chooses to validate “villains” struggling with mental health.
In a whirlwind spin, we see Peter not battling each supervillain but helping them battle themselves — or trying to. The first attempt isn’t completely successful, but what first attempt ever is with mental health?
Because Spiderman truly speaks infinite volumes, in words never spoken, but in every way the characters illustrate themselves, of mental health. The stereotypes against them, the internal struggles, the loss of hope in any solution. Each villain has a story behind their sandy, green, electric-charged or tentacled exterior. There’s something behind the monsters they’ve put on (or forced to put on), and Aunt May can see it. But the villains either don’t want to ditch their ‘problems’ or they feel they’re in far too deep to ever be normal again. Dr. Strange thinks they’re somebody else’s problem. And Peter (at first) thinks they’re hopeless, too. Sound familiar?
It pierced me through the theatre screen the moment Peter talked of “fixing” them. We know there are no quick fixes to mental health. As someone battling more than one form myself, I know the dread of having made too many mistakes to turn back. Too many mistakes with job, relationships, conflicts. Hurting people through your mental health can debilitate your sense of ownership and responsibility over your actions. It can at once make you feel powerless to be any “better” and complacent to find any solutions. Nothing ever works, so why keep failing?
Now I know not all the villains were innocent in acquiring their powers. Equating mental health to super-powered evil can send some terrible messages about its validity. I don’t see the connection as direct, but a subtle under layer to the villains’ storyline. Not all their problems are simply interior. Some of them chose behaviors that led to their deformities. Others were simply unlucky. Others were shaped by their environment. But they all have one thing in common: they have something to fight for, and they have someone fighting for them beneath their monstrous exteriors. Their desires to change are masked by the powers they wore for so long as armor.
But the greatest win as a mental health sufferer and advocate was seeing May’s compassion toward the worst of them all: Norman Osborn, vulnerable and scared in his true form. Even by the final battle Green Goblin isn’t really Green Goblin. He’s a man who lost himself to an unwelcome stranger, fighting to win him back. Peter’s rage toward him is justifiable — he’s lost the only family member he has left to another destructive monster. It’s only through his other Spidey selves that he remembers who he is and what he stands for. He still needs help to make the right decision — but that’s true of even grown-ups. Taking guidance from trusted people is a sign of maturity. Turning that guidance into personal decisions is a mark of adulthood.
By aiding even Osborn, seeing him as a human in need of help before seeing the creature who killed his aunt, Peter sets up a Marvel narrative that’s incontestably Spiderman: redemptive, sacrificial, human.
Peter faces his worst villain in the final moments of the film: adulthood.
A bit of morbid humor, but in all seriousness, the scene struck me all the same: Peter moving into a dingy, cramped New York apartment with an empty bed and a grouchy landlord. It felt inevitable and satisfying — two indications of a good ending. The question that probably lingered on us pragmatic brains’ minds after Peter’s ultimate sacrifice was: how will he survive? He has no parental figure. No money. No job. No home. Not even a school or friends to offer him comfort.
Then we remember that Peter is no longer a boy. He’s finally joined the ranks of our two other-verse Spideys in the adult world. Keys tossed onto a stained mattress, a single cardboard box of belongings, views for miles and dreams yet fulfilled. It’s an image many of us remember from our first day of college. Peter has no college to welcome him to his second chance at family, second chance at home. No roommate. No professors. He’s forgotten and alone in the world, thrust into adulthood without the four-year entry cushion privileged to his peers.
Yet he strides with more assurance, if also a deep-seated weight, down those snow-covered sidewalks, to his aunt’s grave, to his first solo apartment. In a way his decision not to convince MJ and Ned to remember him is a thoughtful, self-made one. After losing so many loved ones it will take time and courage to risk including them in his life again. He will first navigate this new world on his own. He will (hopefully) fight his haunted past as a man, forge his own path, and rekindle his lost relationships as a man. Recovery from grief takes an adventure of its own. For a hero like Peter it may come in new ways of saving a life inspired by his late aunt.
