Have you ever wondered why Tom Holland’s Peter Parker never got an origin story in the MCU? By the time he is introduced in Captain America: Civil War in 2016, he has already had his powers for a couple of months, and Marvel decided to carry on from that point, leaving the origin story behind. While some think Marvel didn’t want to waste precious screen time showing a story that Sony has already told twice, fans believe that there is a little more history between Tony Stark and Spider-Man in the MCU.
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In the comic books, where all good superheroes start, Peter Parker is just your average genius teen when a radioactive spider bites him during a science expo. After a couple of weeks (and in some versions, mere days), he starts to exhibit signs of changes, like becoming more muscular, no longer needing his glasses, sticky fingers that allow him to climb walls and stick to ceilings easily, and so on.
We saw this transition in previous versions of Spider-Man movies, adaptations brought to us by Sony, as with Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man. It’s a story that we all know by now. Still, Peter Parker goes to a science expo or on a lab excursion at Oscorp, and “somehow” an extremely dangerous, experimentally radioactive spider has escaped from its containment facility and manages to bite Peter Parker.
Tom Holland’s story was a little different. As mentioned above, when Holland’s Parker was introduced, he had already somewhat gotten a handle on his powers. He had been his neighbourhood’s friendly Spider-Man for several months already. While some fans thought that the MCU would backtrack a tiny bit and explain it in Spider-Man: Homecoming, they didn’t. We only got a single line about how a spider had bitten Peter.
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It was later mentioned again in Spider-Man: No Way Home when Peter says that he hasn’t had a typical day since the bite, but the storyline was never explained, leaving many fans to question why. Some think it’s because Marvel didn’t feel like going into it again, knowing that their audience has probably watched the first two versions of the superhero adaptations, played the games, or read the comic books. But what if there was more?
While watching Spider-Man: No Way Home, a YouTuber by the name of @Jensun had a sudden realisation and shared it with their audience via Shorts. The caption reads, “I was watching Spider-Man: No Way Home When I noticed Something Strange…”
They first noticed that Norman mentioned that Oscorp doesn’t exist in the MCU. In most iterations, the radioactive spider that bit Peter originated at Oscorp. This begs the question, “Where did the spider that bit Peter come from?” We already know that a spider bit Holland’s Parker, but we don’t know when or how.
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@Jensun’s realisation answers those questions but also touches on how weird it is that Tony Stark knows everything about Peter Parker without ever sharing that information. Tony knows where he lives, knows his secret identity, and has even been monitoring his health.
Being the little genius that he is, it’s safe to assume that Peter has been attending Stark Expos since he was a young child. At this expo, Stark Tech shows off its latest inventions to the public and usually helps them sign contracts with the government, sell their tech to private buyers, or get shareholders to invest.
The next part of the short is where the real kicker is. “If Stark Tech manufactured the spider, it could’ve escaped at an expo and bitten Peter.” In @Jensun’s own words, this would somewhat explain the bond that Tony and Peter seem to share, which is far more than just that of a superhero and their sidekick. Tony seeks to protect and mentor Peter. Having thought that this was just because Tony loved how brilliant Peter was, there could be more to it.
Tony might feel responsible for Peter and his safety because it was his fault that the radioactive spider at the expo caused Peter to gain his powers. This makes Tony Stark responsible for creating Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Univers… Mind blown.
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