The most anticipated film of 2021 is here. Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third installment of the saga starring Tom Holland, hits theaters today with plenty of familiar faces and rumors about possible arachnid returns, to unleash the Marvel multiverse with the help of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch).
Although the movie is, in many ways, and end for the British actor’s era as Peter Parker, this is Marvel and a hero’s return is always possible, especially if this is none other than the company’s flagship character and among those that have been on the big screen the most times. For now, Spider-Man: No Way Home has two post-credits scenes that directly address the future of the Disney and Sony superhero universes. Be careful, SPOILERS ahead.
As we said, Holland’s third arachnid adventure is full of old acquaintances such as the villains from the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb movies: Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin or Jamie Foxx’s Electro, among others. We can also confirm, after the film’s release, that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers stop by New York to lend Tom Holland a hand.
However, many will have missed Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his Venom in this multiversal adventure. Well, they are the stars of the first post-credits scene. Let’s remember that, at the end of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Eddie moved into a universe in which he saw J. Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons) talking about the threat of Spider-Man. We now know that this change of scenery was due to Strange’s spell to make the world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
We meet Eddie and his Venom in a bar in Mexico, where the former is blown away by what the bartender, played by Cristo Fernández (Ted Lasso) tells him: “You’re saying this whole place is, just, tons of super people,” he tries to understand. “There was a billionaire, he had a tin suit, and he could fly. Right? And there was a really angry green man.” Throughout this Avengers conversation, they also mention a “purple alien who loves stones” in reference to Thanos.
After assimilating what the waiter told him, Eddie decides he must go to New York and “speak to this Spider-Man” (Venom prefers to go skinny-dipping), but he begins to disappear back to his universe as a result of the spell that Strange casts at the end of No Way Home. However, something remains on the bar counter: a moving black spot, a fragment of the symbiote. Will we finally witness the confrontation between Spidey and one of his most iconic enemies in the comics? For now, some of Venom has remained in the MCU.
The second post-credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home is the trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the sequel to Doctor Strange set for release on May 6 next year and in which Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer will have to deal with the consequences of having tampered with time and space.
From what we see in the preview of the Sam Raimi film, the multiverse has gotten out of control and Strange goes to the abandoned cabin where Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) lives to ask for help. The witch has been isolated after what happened in WandaVision and assumes that her fellow Avenger is looking to hold her accountable for what happened in Westview. However, Strange only wants her to help him understand the multiverse, the one that Wanda investigated at the end of her series in search of her lost children.
The teaser also offers us a look at a darker version of Benedict Cumberbatch’s sorcerer (a character that will be remembered by fans of What If…? as Strange Supreme), brings Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) back, and shows us the heroine America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), as well as a monster with tentacles and one big eye that could be Shuma-Gorath.
The latter is an interdimensional primal entity, a Marvel version of H. P. Lovecraft’s monsters, who plans to take over the world for a change, and has already been rumored to be the main villain of the sequel. For the rest, this teaser also reveals Rachel McAdam’s Christine, the protagonist’s love interest, in a wedding dress, but we don’t know what that can mean.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will thus serve as a bridge between Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has unleashed the Marvel multiverse, and the future of the MCU, where other dimensions and universes, including the animated What If…?, will collide.
For now, we have the two most powerful sorcerers of the Avengers (Strange and Wanda) and new allies like America Chavez (hopefully, another member of the upcoming Young Avengers) to control this threat. The dangerous and bizarre Marvel multiverse has just begun…
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