#216 – Spider-Man Must Lead the MCU

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Today. This episode is going to be simple, fun but dangerous, quick but thoughtful and also captivating because I'm just excited about all the possibilities of this topic. We're talking about Spider man team ups. I need to see before, during or after Doomsday and Secret Wars. Some comic inspired, some game inspired, some just pure MCU potential. Will we ever see Tom Holland join the Spider Verse movies? Will we ever see him team up with Nick Fury like the real one that's not just Talos in disguise. There's so much potential for Peter Parker and Tom Holland as Peter Parker is our ideal Spider man to this day. It might just be where I'm sitting at my ripe Age of 34 years old this that I'm thinking about Peter Parker in the original Spider Man. Yes, I'm talking about Toby Maguire. Spider man, he seemed a little bit older when he started. I feel like Tom Holland is like just about hitting that age. I might be wrong, but it at least emotionally and the way he is feels about as youthful as the beginning Spider man in that Sam Raimi trilogy. So to say that Spider man is almost done in the MCU and for us to get another recast, I think that'd be a big bold lie and a big mistake. Let's talk about a few of the possible team ups that we could get and we haven't even scratched the surface of yet in the mcu. Let's start with Spider man and the Fantastic Four. We're starting strong now. Early in Spider man comics. The Amazing spider man number one. March 1963 to be exact. He broke into the Baxter Building seeking to join the team. There's an iconic cover artwork of that comic and I know it goes for a lot. It's a very, very inspiring and also famous team up, but we haven't seen it yet. I think the bag over the head, that's kind of iconic for what he when he does join them. I've seen that from the the video games, the blue suit, the awkward fifth member energy. I've never even read the comic Run again but the concept alone is just so iconic. Peter and John and Johnny Storm. This new Johnny Storm, I think that's chaos friendship right there. Instant chemistry. Human Torch and Peter Parker roasting each other mid fight cinema. I'm not just talking about Johnny and Peter. I'm talking about Peter Parker with the whole team. One of those beautiful MCU pan over. One scene shot of Speeder Wet Peter webbing somebody up and then Reed Richards taking them down and then Sue Storm putting him in the air. And then the thing grabbing them and spinning them and throwing them around. I don't. I just want to see one of those scenes with Spider man in the Fantastic Four. Both great potential. We haven't even, barely even started with this Fantastic Four. And Spider man with them would be a breath of fresh, fresh air. Another one. I was gonna say Yelena Biloba and Spider man, but I want to actually say New Avengers. The New Avengers, AKA the Thunderbolts with Spider Man. They're a darker team. They could use that quippy little web head in their team for one of their next exhibitions. Something street level, something fun to watch. Low stakes, but also high stakes for street level in that sense. Scorpion maybe, or let's say Rhino. Let's bring him in and have that. Have him need the team to fight. Spider man doesn't just fight with one team, he fights with all teams. Because what I'm kind of going for here is that Spider man could be the connective tissue of the entire mcu. And what better way to bind it all together than with webs. I'd like to see Red Guardian just like uber surprised at Spider man and what he can do. And just his. His vocal reaction to Spider man just in general, I think would hilarious. And Tom Holland's great at the comedic aspect of Peter Parker as well as the action oriented Spider Man. So to see those two team up, that whole team with him would be another treat. And really, I'm not limiting this to Secret Wars. There will be a time when that movie has come out and we move into the future. Believe it or not, it's not forever from now. It's a few. It's all happening soon, starting this summer with Brand New Day. But before we get there, let's talk about another team up with Spider man that could be really awesome and really unique. Just a cameo crossover moment. Five minutes, two minutes minimum. Spider man and the Insomniac Game version. If you haven't played this game, even if you're not a video game fan, I'd recommend you play it on story difficulty, which means you don't have to be a master at games. I'd play it on any difficulty just to get the story of that game. Peter Parker from Insomniac Spider man is a little bit wiser, a little bit older, and can definitely give some wisdom to our young Peter Parker. I mean, I'm calling him young. This gentleman is Going to be going on 10 full years this year as Spider Man Civil War 10 years ago. Are you. Are we crazy? That team up worked more like it. And having him cross over would be just a great moment. We've seen him with other Spider men in Spider man no Way Home. Maybe we'd like to see that again. I know some people do personally give him more crossovers. I mean, give those other guys their movies for God's sake. Sure. But let their team up be later. Even more later. Like in the and the Mutant saga where they know how to teleport to each other or. I don't know. I have a feeling that team up could very well happen in Secret wars too. The Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland, Spider man team up. We might see it one more time as like a reminder of how cool that was. Why stop there though? The game version is arguably the most fully realized. Spider man ever introduces a villain I never heard of from the comics called Mr. Negative. Another great movie. Potential villain for one of these special team ups. Yuri from that game. I don't know if she's from the comics, but I'd like to see a version of her in live action too. The next one would be Spider man and Black Panther. Now we cook Shuri and Peter Parker. Two geniuses, one Vibranium Lab, zero supervision from Black Panther. Wakanda forever. We barely got enough of Shuri in that suit. Now just imagine her and Peter designing tech together. Not even romance, just the brilliance. Colliding them outside of their superhero suits work really well. She wouldn't. She would outsmart him in about five seconds and he would love it. And I think that that Black Panther and Spider man team up would look iconic on screen and I think it just needs to happen. Another crazy awesome team up will be Shuni and Spider Man. I want to see those rings flying. I want to see Spider man whipping them out at somebody and then him catching them and them collaborating in a cool way. I want to see their own version of Thor and Caps hitting the shield with a hammer moment. I think Thor, those two characters are lively enough and will have really great personality clashes. Maybe a little bit of I'm the leader and no I'm the leader. No I'm the leader type deal. Cuz they're both kind of main character energy big time. Even in team ups we know this. So I think their story would be more of trying to get along. Spider man going to follow Shang Shangi on one of his missions or whatever he's doing. Maybe helping Shuni Take down the new 10 rings that is being run by his sister. Now that could be really fun if he brings a little spider companion along the way. Do it, Marvel. Try it. Try anything. Make Spider man the new Tony Stark. Make him the inter interconnective webbing of all of these franchises. Next up. I think we're already going here. This already might be happening this summer. Daredevil, the Punisher, Kingpin. If Spider man crosses fully into that street level sign, give me that hallway scene with Spider man and Daredevil. Give me an iconic moment of them running through a hallway beating up thugs. Maybe one of the hardest scenes we've seen from this Peter Parker yet. Both of them bouncing off each other, combining moves, using each other's powers to their advantage. Full team up. Energy acrobatics plus brutality. I'm talking about spider sense plus radar sense. Yeah, I'm excited about this. Let them fight their way toward Kingpin. And if Kingpin is going to be the real physical threat in this movie, I'm really hoping that he needs a little bit something extra. I'm not saying he's underpowered, but for Spider Man, a little bit, this Kingpin is a bit underpowered. I would not put it out of the realm of possibility that if this Kingpin from Daredevil and our MCU would take advantage of a super soldier serum for the next time Matt Murdock decides to crash his party. Or even like a mech suit, Iron Monger style from Iron Man. So much potential. I don't know what's happening in this next Spider man movie, but if Punisher is in it, there is almost in my opinion just a wasted opportunity. If they don't put Daredevil in that movie to some extent, even if it's for like a team up scene that kind of crosses over with the show. Spider man is more of a pest to Kingpin than Daredevil ever was in the comics and in the game. You know, they have a history. But let's, let's see these contra contrasting moral codes. Matt versus Peter versus Frank Castle. Still don't know what the heck they're gonna do with Punisher and Spider Man. He's a very violent villain. I don't think I've seen too much blood and killing in any Spider man movie. I don't know. I think they'd have a big difference. I think Peter and Frank would be a team up, similar to something like a rivalry and. And Peter kind of trying to save the people that Frank's trying to kill. But also Subduing them because they're both and they're enemies. But Peter doesn't believe in the killing, tries to see the good in Frank. And maybe he will pull a little bit of good out of Frank Castle and make him more of a hero than just a guy slaughtering prisoners in a hallway. Not that that wasn't iconic and awesome in the original Daredevil series. Another big one. This is the big one. Spider man and the Avengers. But for real. Yes, yes. Spider man has been in Avengers movies, Avengers, Endgame and Infinity War, but he's never led. And I think that's the arc. Peter becomes the heart of the team. Not Tony, not Steve. Peter. Say this once, and I'll say it infinitely times again. Until it happens. I don't want Tom Holland going anywhere. I think it's great that we have this long running of a spider man. It's something on the movie screens that we've never seen. It's one of the most iconic characters around. Tom Holland is perfect for the part. There's no reason to get rid of him unless he really feels like he needs to leave. And that's his choice. And honestly, I'd fully support him if that's what he needed. But I would really hope that, you know, he's the new anchor beam of the mcu. Me not knowing fully what anchor beans means yet to the plot of Doomsday and Secret Wars, I'm thinking something kind of big. Unless they change their mind and kind of retcon that, oh my gosh, let him rally the broken heroes. You know, like, kind of like the thesis of all of these team ups is who connects the Avengers now? Nobody. But in all reality, it could be Spider Man. These are just a few team ups I need to see. The possibilities are actually endless. I could probably give you more. Do you want a Hulk Spider man team up? Well, that might be happening this summer too. Spider man works with everyone. Street level, cosmic, multiversal. And if doomsday is building towards anything, it might just be Peter Parker becoming the center of the Marvel universe. This brand new day can completely lead into doomsday in one way or another. We don't know how, but we do know once he sees that face and it's his former mentor, Tony Stark, father figure, there's gonna be some moral complex going on with Peter Parker and even maybe having a hard time fighting Doom and maybe trying to pull him back to the light side, similar to Luke and Vader. Maybe, just Maybe, who knows? Dr. Doom isn't even that much of A villain. He's just trying to be the hero that saves what he can from the multiverse collapsing. If the multiverse is collapsing, it's not because of Doom. And if Doom goes out to seek to fix it, he's technically an anti hero if he's killing innocent people along the way, but which Incursions do anyway. So I don't know, seeing him work with Peter even a little bit with the mask on, then the reveal of his face would shock Peter. It would make him faint maybe, I don't know, like he saw his mentor die nearly in his arms. So that would be a huge, huge moment. So all in all, Tom Holland needs to stay. Let's see some more team ups. Let's see Spider man jump across movie to movie to movie. Let that. Let him join Deadpool for, for a few scenes. Let him join anyone that we've come to love in the Marvel universe. I think he will connect with them and his humor. Slash him just showing up with a super epic iconic Spider man web slinging, it's just, it's heartwarming, honestly. It's like we will have the homecoming going all the way through Endgame and then we'll have the far from home going into a whole other saga of Spider man where later down the road, in another 10 years, we're going to have a whole giant Tom Holland, Peter Parker story to go over and maybe even just watch all his films that he's in without watching anything else. It'll all connect. That's just what's running across my mind this morning. As for Marvel Maniac, I let you not forget that we have Daredevil born Again Season 2, premiering on March 24, 2026. It is yet to be known if they're gonna drop them all at once if that's just their new thing. Personally, if they do week to week, it's a good telling that they didn't believe in Wonder man and they should have because damn, what a miss. If you just wasted that show on a full release, week to week would have been better for Wonder Man. But all I know is if you haven't watched that show, go give it a go and then listen to our after show for it. Because I was wrong about it at first. I was putting it down because of them throwing it all up and as if it was a bad show. But in reality they. They threw it all out there because they thought it was a bad show. But any Marvel fan and any superhero fan surely would have a good time watching Wonder Man a little off topic. But again, I recommend that big time. So Daredevil Born Again is actually rumored to leak right into Spider Man. Brand new day. So it's a definite must watch. We'll do a connect with connective like history and what you need to remember about Daredevil and the Punishers and all that. Hopefully like in the next week or two. I. I don't want to go too crazy on it. There was a time in this podcast where I wanted to go through every Netflix series episode by episode. It's just not gonna happen. It sounds exhausting. Not that I don't like the show, but just to go deep into every episode. No one's doing it because nobody wants to listen to that. We want to stay in the present, but also remember what worked. And that doesn't mean I'm not advising you to co watch Daredevil, the Netflix version and some of the Defender shows and the Defenders, they're all great. It's just a lot for me to cover when I'm trying to kind of COVID the present day MCU and what's possible. So we'll do a cool recap, we'll talk about it a little bit, and then we'll go right in to weekly coverage of Daredevil Born Again season two. We covered the first season. If you're interested in watching the first one to catch up, you can listen to our after shows. I don't know what numbers they are to the top of my head, but they're back there each episode, so go check that out as well. I had a lot of fun ranting to you this morning about the possibility of Spider man being the center and heart of the mcu, which he might just very well already be. We just need more of that. And I think Marvel's definitely working in a direction where they want to see more interconnective tissue similar to the Infinity Saga. More team ups and more character work bringing everybody together. So when the Avengers movies come around, it's not just, oh, hi, I'm Reed Richards. Oh, hi, I'm Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Yeah, we gotta meet each other first and then go fight. Let's just see them give each other a glance and a nod, knowing we know they've worked together before. Now let them go cause chaos. Wherever the MCU is going, though, I trust the Russo brothers and they're launching it into whatever direction that may be. That's a. This has been Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. I'd like to advise you or just ask you to rate the show, give it a thumbs up and or five stars or whatever platform you're listening on. Similar to that. Also, our Discord is live and running, but I am having some great conversations with some good friends and fans. You're completely welcome. In the notes of this episode you can find it. It's a free join server. There's no payments or anything. We're stepping a little bit away from Patreon for now, but I may revisit it later. If you wanted to go join the Patreon and listen to my 20 plus minisodes, I'd say it's worth it for a month membership and I hope to see you very soon. Maybe right next to me in the theaters. Who knows? Watching Daredevil, Spider Man, Fantastic Four, the New Avengers, everyone coming together, rallying because Spider man was able to bring them together and web up the perfect Avengers that we've ever seen in our lives. Let's see where it will go. I'm ready. Are you ready? Until next time. With great Parkers come great responsibility.