Madam Web: Is Spider-Man in this spin-off movie with Dakota Johnson and Tahar Rahim?

Warning – The article below contains spoilers for “Madame Web”. Please continue if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Among the superheroes of the cinema is the Marvel Cinematic Universe with infinite ramifications. The DC Universe is in the midst of an overhaul. And the films produced by Sony, as well as from the Marvel catalog and more precisely from the adventures of Spider-Man, whose adaptation rights are shared with Disney.

It was under their guidance that Venom and its sequels, as well as Morbius, were born. Feature films featuring Spider-Man, whether Peter Parker or Miles Morales, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland, are conspicuous by his absence. Despite the production’s attempts to connect its universe and the MCU in the post-credits scenes.

With her heroine acting as a mentor to Spider-Man in the comics she comes from, is Madame Web the first film in that branch to feature Spider-Man?

There is an answer “no”. More precisely: “No, but…”. If there are several versions of Spider-Woman in SJ Clarkson’s feature film, Spider-Man is missing. But the film ensures that his absence is not skewed, as it takes place in 2003, when Peter was not yet born.

At least at the beginning of the plot. Because Adam Scott plays a certain Ben Parker, the hero’s soon-to-be deceased uncle, and Emma Roberts plays Mary Parker, Peter’s mother. who is visibly pregnant when she first appears and gives birth to a baby boy before the adventure ends. His name is never spoken on screen, but as the saying goes, “We know each other”.

If there’s no Spider-Man in the movie, Peter Parker is technically there, but he can’t help the heroine, played by Dakota Johnson. In this sense, the feature film is faithful to the comics from which it is inspired, in which Madame Web, elderly and widowed, helps Spider-Man. With an origin story card game.

Which Peter Parker in “Madame Web”?

A temporary trick that allows Madame Web to avoid running into the same obstacle as Venom and Morbius. And to keep a margin big enough so that the question doesn’t come up again in a sequel that happens ten years later.

The film still keeps his Peter Parker identity a secret. If the story takes place in 2003, it can’t be about Tobey Maguire, who has been playing superheroes for a year, nor Andrew Garfield, who in 2012 has been around for 9 years. So Tom Holland? The fact that Aunt May isn’t around (much less Marisa Tomei in the role) helps keep things vague.

One last option remains: the map of the multiverse, already dropped in Venom and Morbius, which helps explain Peter Parker’s absence. But we’ll probably have more certainty on the matter thanks to the expected Kraven and Venom 3 in the second half.