So for those following my ITTL Spider-Man movie posts and the general path of the MMU, here at long last is the retrospective for the Second Spider-Man movie trilogy in this timeline.
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Return of the Webbed Wonder - A Spider-Man Second Trilogy Retrospective
Post from Comics and Nerds Net-log, by Jim Verner. July 5th, 2019.
In 2004, as the Galactus Saga drifted to a close and the Marvel Movie Universe began the road to its eventual conclusion and reboot in the 2010’s, audiences found themselves saying goodbye to some of the Marvel heroes who had lit up their screens for over a decade. Yet ironically the one hero who wouldn’t go out nearly as quietly was the very hero who’s own film back in 1991 had opened up that very cinematic universe which had become so beloved.
Despite being already 30 years old by this point, actor Seth Green would continue to play the role of Peter Parker aka Spider-Man across three new Spider-Man films in what would arguably be the characters second trilogy. Though of course, the term of trilogy might be slightly misleading in this instance, as only the first two films in said trilogy fully starred Green as the main character, with the second being more of a passing of the torch film, while the third film would only feature Green in a supporting role while a new Spider-Man got the focus.
But we’ll get into that later, instead let’s delve a bit further back and go all the way back to 1995 following the release of the third film and talk about the history behind how the second trilogy started and the story behind the original plans for
Spider-Man 4.
The Original Spider-Man 4 and the Avengers Years
Yes, let's originally there were in fact plans for Spider-Man to get his second trilogy years earlier than what eventually happened, which Disney canceled and would not revisit until the Galactus Saga neared its conclusion. The reasons why that later 90’s second trilogy didn’t ultimately materialize at that time are a bit numerous, but the main reasons it didn’t happen then were due to Seth Green wanting a small break from the role and due to Marvel beginning to consider adding Spider-Man to their upcoming planned Avengers.
Contrary to popular belief, Spider-Man was never originally a lock in terms of appearing in the first
Avengers film, at least not back in 1995, primarily due to the character never having been an actual member of the team at the time in the comics. While he’d certainly fought alongside their membership from time to time, he’d officially never been among their membership, with the closest there’d ever been to Spider-Man actually joining the team was in
Avengers #11 when a Spider-Man robot duplicate created by Kang the Conqueror infiltrated the team [1].
The first time Spider-Man ever fought with the Avengers and it wasn’t even really him. (Source: Wikia.com)
This fact led to some initial hesitation among Marvel executives about including Spider-Man in the first
Avengers film back in 1995. However, as plans for the film began to take shape, Marvel started to consider the possibility of bringing Spider-Man into the fold. While the issue of Spider-Man not being an official member of the Avengers team would be ultimately rectified somewhat when Ben Reilly’s Spider-Man officially joined the team in 1997 [2], back in 1995 the idea of including Spider-Man in the then upcoming Avengers film was still something that was regarded as more of an open question among Marvel execs than a actual certain fact.
Ultimately there were several reasons why Marvel eventually decided to include Spider-Man in the
Avengers film. One of the main factors was the success of the Spider-Man movies, which had catapulted the character to new heights of popularity. Marvel saw the potential in leveraging Spider-Man's popularity to boost the appeal of the Avengers movie, particularly among younger audiences who were already fans of the web-slinger.
Another reason was the fact that the
Avengers movie was set to feature a cast of lesser-known Marvel characters. While characters like Iron Man and the Hulk were well-known to comic book fans, they were not yet household names in the way that Spider-Man was. By including Spider-Man in the film, Marvel hoped to attract a wider audience and generate more buzz around the project.
The decision to include Spider-Man in the Avengers movie was also influenced by the fact that Seth Green, who had been playing the character in for half a decade at this point, expressed a desire to take a small break from the role. In the end, rather than potentially recast Green, it was decided he would get a chance at a small break from physically appealing as the character, instead only doing voice work for the various cameos the wallcrawler would have for the next few years, but never physically appear unmasked on onset. Meanwhile 2000’s Avengers would see Seth Green make his full true triumphant return as Spider-Man as a member of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, while as mentioned Ben Reilly would join the team in 1997.
Seth Green circa 2005 when the fourth Spider-Man film finally released ITTL. Green would play the role of Spider-Man ITTL for almost 20 years, in a long stint almost comparable to that of Hugh Jackman’s stint as Wolverine in OTL. (Source: Alamy.com)
The result of the prior decision to cancel however led to early plans for a fourth film planned for 1997 that Josh Weadon was already writing to be scrapped. While said plans would influence the direction of the eventual 2005 film, due to Weadon returning to write and direct and simply reusing a bit of what he wrote for the canceled 1997 version. One example of an element that got reused was with the film’s main villain, Venom, who was indeed planned as far back as 1995. Another reused element was the planned marriage between Peter and MJ, which would have occurred in the canceled 1997 film but would instead occur in end of the 2005 film, ending over a decade of jokes by fans of Peter taking a decade to finally pop the question.
Of course there was also new elements that didn’t exist in mid-90’s that Weadon had to consider for the 2005 film, like Spider-Man having been a member of the Avengers and the existence of Stanley O’Brian, the new third Spider-Man who was introduced in the early 2000’s in the comics [3], who Marvel could potentially and ultimately would indeed include in the new trilogy.
Casting for the role was extensive and widespread, with dozens of young actors of the day auditioning for the role, especially since it was guaranteed whoever got cast would go on to eventually play Spider-Man. Notably one of the finalists for the role, Wyatt Russell (son of Nick Fury himself, Kirk Russell), would later be offered the role of Stan’s younger brother turned greatest nemesis Terry O’Brian aka The Dark Spider, who would serve as the villain for the sixth Spider-Man film to be released in 2009.
Yet ultimately the role of Stanley O’Brian itself would go to none other than a 20 year old actor by the name of Adam Wylie, whose character would be slightly aged up a College Freshman due to Wylie’s age at the time of shooting. Wylie would go on to not only play the character of Stanley O’Brian in live action, but he would also voice the character in various other appearances such as 2009’s
Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and in the 2016
Spider-Man video game.
Adam Wylie, the actor cast as the MMU’s second Spider-Man Stanley O’Brian, circa 2005 (Source: IMBD.com)
As for the film itself, it would originally be scheduled for a release in early 2004 (it was in fact supposed to release before both Avengers films released that year), but production delays and Marvel putting all their focus on both Avengers films resulted in
Spider-Man 4 being delayed until 2005. It thus ended up leaving the film in a bit of a weird place where it was explicitly set in Phase II before
The Avengers: World War but released in theaters after the release of
The Avengers: The End [4].
At the time there was a lot of confusion among audiences who weren’t aware about the films timeline concerning the presence of Reed Richards and other characters who died in
The Avengers: The End, despite the film making it explicitly clear that the film is set before the arrival of Galactus and thus their deaths. Time though has helped somewhat fix that and nowadays most fans like myself when rewatching the MMU simply watch
Spider-Man 4 before rewatching
The Avengers: World War. Marvel themselves have even tried to smooth things over, as Disney Direct even includes the film in its proper chronological order for their MMU movie marathon catalog.
Still, despite its weird release schedule, one could argue that the ending of
Spider-Man 4 serves unintentionally as a nice little goodbye and bow to Phase II, even if it was meant to be in-universe more of one last happy moment before the events of
The Avengers: World War and
The Avengers: The End.
But I’ve gone over enough as it is about the behind the scenes that led up to the film, so let’s go over an overview of all three films from the second Spider-Man trilogy!
Spider-Man 4 (2005)
Set in Phase II before the events of
The Avengers: World War and
The Avengers: The End despite being released after both films,
Spider-Man 4 delves into Peter’s long awaited marriage to Mary Jane Watson, his struggle with the symbiote, and ultimately his fight against Venom.
Opening three months after the events of 2003’s
Four, the film opens with Peter swinging through New York at night, with Peter giving us a bit of a monologue recap on how everything has been since the events of
Spider-Man 3 and what Peter’s life is like at that moment. Notably however is that rather than his classic blue and red, he is wearing the Black Suit symbiote which he accidentally acquired during the events of 2003’s
Four [5].
Basically what happened when Peter got the black suit in Secret Wars happens, but during the events of 2003’s
Four. (Source: Wikia.com)
Now how the film handles the symbiote itself is a bit of a small departure from the comics, as the symbiote is pointedly not evil. It doesn't actually intend to cause harm to Peter, but its influence on Peter's emotions starts to disrupt his life, since unlike in the comics, the symbiote amplifies all of Peter's emotions rather than just the negative ones, instead as Peter furthers his bond with the symbiote, it heightens ALL his emotions.
One of the emotions that’s becoming stronger due to the symbiote is Peter’s own doubts and fears. When MJ almost gets killed in the opening of the film due to a fight between Peter and Vulture (played by Christopher Lloyd) after Vulture attacks and attempts to rob a gala hosted by the Daily Bugle, Peter gets flashbacks of Gwen Stacy’s death and begins to have pre-nuptial doubts, which combined with Peter’s fears about the world ending due to Galactus, makes him consider calling everything off.
These distracting doubts and fears allow Vulture to escape. Peter is left further conflicted when he learns that a Daily Bugle reporter whom he does not like named Eddie Brock (played by Sam Witwer) was injured and hospitalized as a result of the fight with Vulture.
As Peter’s doubts rise and the possibility of the wedding being canceled rises, Peter’s life gets even more complicated when he encounters the seductive thief in Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat (Katheryn Winnick), who he catches in the act as she’s robbing a museum while Peter is distracted by other goons. After a chase sequence between the two, Felicia decides to help Peter as he tries to track down Vulture. She acts as a seductress in a way, trying to encourage Spider-Man to consider abandoning his life as Peter Parker entirely and choose to be Spider-Man 24/7, playing on the heightened doubts he feels.
Not helping matters is that with the symbiote increasing his emotions, Peter also starts to feel a great overwhelming feeling of lust toward Felicia, causing Peter to almost cheat on MJ when the two kiss and nearly sleep together. While he eventually is able to control himself at the last minute, it’s obvious that the moment of near betrayal shook him greatly.
The following day after he nearly cheats on MJ, a skittish Peter goes to work, where we now see that he’s a teacher at ESU. It’s there that we finally meet Stanley O’Brian (played by Adam Wylie), whom Peter will act as a mentor towards. Yet Stanley has noticed how Peter has become increasingly erratic and eventually goes directly to MJ (whom he meets earlier in the film) over it. MJ, who was also growing concerned about Peter and now certain something is wrong with him, goes directly to Reed Richards and asks for his help, which Reed promises to provide.
Actress Katheryn Winnick, who plays Felicia Hardy/Black Cat in ITTL’s
Spider-Man 4 and both
Venom spinoff films. (Source: IMBD.com)
Eventually Peter starts getting worse, as his emotions start going extreme (somewhat like how Picard is in that scene in TNG when he takes Sarek’s emotions) and he even begins scaring Felicia as his guilt over kissing her leads him to snap and be extremely cruel towards her. When they finally find Vulture, Peter’s anger over MJ almost getting hurt earlier in the film leads him to go ballistic on Vulture, with Felicia having to stop Peter from outright killing him.
Peter, now terrified of what’s happening to him, is confronted by the Fantastic Four, who realize the symbiote is causing all of this and that it must be removed. Peter, panicking and not wanting to remove the symbiote, tries to fight the F4. Felicia, feeling guilt, tries to help the F4. Reed quickly realizes the symbiote is vulnerable to sounds however and uses a sonic amplifier to separate it from Peter. A sobbing Peter hugs MJ as the symbiote slithers away. It eventually finds a comatose Eddie Brock in his hospital bed and bonds with him, creating Venom.
The Venom symbiote wants to rebond with Peter, so he escapes the hospital and goes after the F4, MJ, and Felicia. Peter, feeling guilty, is nonetheless now back in his traditional red and blue. He goes on to fight Venom and protects MJ when Venom goes after her after already having brutalized Felicia.
Their fight eventually causes them to fall off a building and tumble into a DJ Dance Party club. Here the symbiote, wanting to rebond with Peter, sees an opportunity to bond with an injured Peter and leaves Eddie (who wants it back) and tries to go back to Peter. However Peter, who certainly does not want it back, fully rejects the symbiote and works with MJ to turn the DJ loudspeakers on at full blast and hurt the symbiote. The symbiote feeling betrayed, is captured by the arriving F4, who take it to the Baxter Building.
The film thus ends with Peter and MJ finally getting married in a grand and happy sequence that features the Fantastic Four and cameos from all the Avengers (supposedly the scene was filmed while they were filming both Avengers movies) while a bruised and sad Felicia looks on from a building. Before we roll credits we follow Peter as he swings through the daylight of New York City with his wife in his arms.
Pretty much this image is the last scene of the film before the credits roll. (Source: Pinterest)
Of course that’s not the last shot of the film, as there’s a after credit’s scene which shows a small piece of the symbiote that wasn’t captured and taken to the Baxter Building escaping into the sewers, passing by a newspaper that mentions a serial killer named Cletus Kassady (Jim Carrey) being captured.
As you might be able to tell, this was setting up 2006’s
Venom spinoff film, which would feature Sam Witwer’s Venom returning for his own film after Felicia Hardy breaks into the Baxter Building to try and destroy the symbiote, only for it to escape and rebond with Eddie, leading to Felicia having to then form an uneasy alliance with Venom (that grows eventually becomes a romantic fling) following the emergence of Carnage onto the scene.
I’d go more into it, but despite that film featuring Seth Green’s Peter Parker cameoing, that film and its 2008 sequel honestly deserve their own separate film retrospective.
Spider-Man 5 (2007)
A passing of the torch film, this film will have Stanley O’Brian (who was introduced in the comics in the early 2000’s [6]) gain Spider-Powers and become Spider-Man, see Peter mostly retire, the birth of Peter’s son Ben, and will feature the Sinister Six. The Sinister Six are up of all the minor side villains Peter fought in his previous films, like Rhino, Shocker, and Vulture plus other villains Peter is mentioned as having fought between
Spider-Man 3 and
4.
Peter, due to his upcoming fatherhood, is considering trying to remove his powers and he thus starts experimenting with various Spiders to not only figure out how his powers work, but also how to maybe remove them. One of his Spiders ends up escaping Peter’s lab at ESU however and bites Stanley O’Brian. Peter, unaware of Stan being bitten, freaks out about the missing spider.
Things get more complicated when a mass breakout at Rikers occurs when a mysterious villain called the Hobgoblin breaks out a number of villains Peter put away, like Shocker (played once again by Ben Mendelsohn), Rhino (Randy Savage), Electro (Michael Biehn), Vulture (Christopher Lloyd), and Sandman (Dominic Purcell). Peter tries to stop the prison break but fails to prevent their escape.
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Hobgoblin leads the Sinister Six in
Spider-Man 5, which is made up of Hobgoblin, Shocker, Rhino, Electro, Vulture, and Sandman. (Source: Deviantart.com and ComicArtFans.com)
Stan meanwhile is ecstatic and having the time of his life with his new powers. Nor is he entirely doing a good job of hiding that he has them, even using them to try and impress his best friend Daphne (played by Talulah Riley) by pretending to be Spider-Man and wearing a cheap looking knockoff of Peter’s suit.
Due to Stan’s awful efforts at hiding his powers, Peter quickly gets suspicious of the mysterious figure reportedly crawling on walls and jumping from building to building around ESU. As Spider-Man he confronts Stan and learns Stan was bitten by the missing Spider. Peter, realizing that there’s now a teenager with powers just like his, tries to mentor Stan and teach him the importance of responsibility and stop being so reckless with his powers. Stan however really doesn’t want to hear it or even do the hero thing, though he “appreciates the webshooters”.
As Peter struggles to make the arrogant 19 year old college kid with spider powers see sense, the Sinister Six launch an attack on Grand Central Station to draw Peter out. Peter and Stan both arrive, with the former moving to fight the Sinister Six, who are led by Hobgoblin. Here Peter learns that said Hobgoblin is none other than Harry Osborn (played by a returning Henry Simmons), his old friend who wants revenge against Spider-Man for the death of his father Norman. Harry, as it turns out, had found his dad’s old equipment, formula, and uniform and had decided to create his own Goblin identity, the Hobgoblin [7].
Meanwhile Stan finds his dying mother Josephine buried by rubble among the victims of Grand Central Station, having been one of the victims of Hobgoblins bombs. Desperate to save his mother, Stan pulls her out of the rubble only for her to die in his arms. Grief stricken, Stan swears revenge against the Goblin and the Sinister Six, though first he has to rescue the badly injured Peter who was defeated by the Sinister Six takes him to where he and MJ live to recuperate.
Now willing to let Peter teach him, a recovering Peter helps Stan learn how to use his powers and even gives Stan his own Spider-Man suit [8]. When Hobgoblin calls out Spider-Man, Peter and Stan go to him. Naturally it’s a trap, but Peter and Stan are able to work together to defeat the Sinister Six, partially by getting the Sinister Six’s own egos to start infighting among them and them to turn on each other.
Picture something like this for Stanley’s Spider-Man suit. (Source: Edited by Nerdman3000)
The Sinister Six are thus defeated, though unfortunately a very injured Harry escapes. Enraged, Stan starts attacking a downed Shocker, interrogating and demanding to know where Hobgoblin went, but Peter calms him down. Determined to find Harry, the two go home and decide they’d work on finding him tomorrow.
Stan however arrives home only to find a bloodied but grinning Harry Osborn waiting for him. With Stan previously not entirely hiding his identity well, Harry was able to figure it out. Now holding Stan’s father, younger brother, younger sister, and Daphne hostage, Stanley engages the Goblin while telling Daphne and his family to contact Peter.
After a tough final fight through the ruins of their apartment complex, Stan defeats Harry and expresses desire to kill him for the death of his mother. Peter, Daphne, and Stan’s father talk him out of it, with Peter reminding him of the whole Great Power, Great Responsibility message, resulting in Stanley sparing Harry.
Harry though begins laughing, mocking them that Stan and his family will never be safe since he knows who Stan is (and as a result of Peter unmasking while trying to pled to Stanley, Peter’s identity as well). To their shock however, Harry is then stabbed in the back and killed, not by Stan, but by his younger brother Terry O’Brian (played by Wyatt Russell).
Actor Wyatt Russell circa 2006, who plays Stan’s brother Terry O’Brian, a character will go on to be the main villain of
Spider-Man 6. (Source: CelebrityXYZ.com)
As the day ends, the film cuts to a montage of Peter at the hospital with MJ welcoming their son Ben, followed by Peter deciding to put away his research into the Spiders into boxes then meeting Stan by Josephine O’Brian’s grave.
The two talk, with Peter officially telling Stan that he’s retiring. He asks if Stan is sure he still wants to become Spider-Man. Stan says yes, saying that New York has seen the Amazing Spider-Man, now they’ll get to see the Ultimate Spider-Man. The film thus concludes with a laughing Stan and Peter both swinging through New York, racing each other against the city skyline.
Like with Spider-Man 4, we get an after credit scene that shows Stan’s brother Terry, angry and alone in his dark bedroom, walking up to his bedroom wall and starting to climb it, just like a Spider. Fans of current Spider-Man comics at the time no doubt understood what this was setting up, which we would see in 2009’s
Spider-Man 6 when Stanley O’Brian went up against the sinister Dark Spider.
Spider-Man 6 (2009)
Stanley O’Brian’s first and only solo Spider-Man film (though Peter still appears as a side character),
Spider-Man 6 features Stanley going up against the Spider Slayers and well as against his own brother Terry, who plays the Dark Spider.
The film opens with Stan fighting Hydro Man, Molton Man, an escaped Electro, and a bunch of goons by New York Harbor, before being surprised by the arrival of none other than a Sentinel. They are able to defeat the villains together, though not before the Sentinel gets briefly electrocuted by Electro and briefly short circuits.
As we soon learn, Specter Smythe (played by Brendan Gleeson), CEO of Smythe International, is repurposing Old Sentinels from the Sentinel Program as a peace keeping force to go after super powered villains (like Hydro Man) rather than mutants. Hearing that Smythe is planning a demonstration of these reprogrammed sentinels at a presentation the following day, Stan decides to attend along with Daphne and his brother Terry. There they meet the true man responsible for the Sentinel’s reprogramming, Specter’s own wheelchair bound son Alister Smythe (played by James McAvoy).
Michael Biehn, who plays Max Dillion aka Electro in both
Spider-Man 5 and in a cameo in the opening of
Spider-Man 6 (Source: Blu-ray.com).
Trouble happens though when the Sentinel from the day before goes berserk after it it activated and showcased at the presentation. Having reverted to its original programming, it starts targeting a number of mutants in the crowd, which surprisingly include Terry. Stan saves the day by defeating and destroying the Sentinels. Afterwards he confronts Terry, asking him why he never told Stan he was a mutant. The two get in an argument and Terry stalks off.
Alistair Smythe meanwhile is humiliated by the failure and destruction of his Sentinels. Worse Specter, who is totally embarrassed by the entire fiasco, verbally abuses his son and blames the whole thing on him. Thus Alistair swears revenge on his father and Spider-Man.
After a talk with Daphne, Stan goes to find his brother. Having a more amicable conversation now that their heads are cooled, Terry reveals to Stan that he has Spider like powers.
Confused by this since as far as he knows there were no other spiders that could have bitten Terry, Stan’s younger brother reveals that the night Harry Osborn took them hostage, the stress of the situation caused him to trigger his mutation. Said powers ended up manifesting like those of Stan and Peter, who had both been nearby when it happened. Stan, surprised, eventually becomes ecstatic at the idea of Terry and him maybe fighting crime together. Terry is much less enthused by this and belittles his older brother. A little hurt by his brother’s rejection, Stan decides to visit Peter Parker and ask him for advice.
Meanwhile Alistair Smythe confronts his father Specter at his office. There Specter continues to belittle and verbally abuse his son. Alistair, now certain he has no reason to regret what he’s about to do, kills his own father using a crude robot he built. With his father dead, Alistair inherits the family fortune and company, and begins production not on reprogrammed Sentinels, but on his own designs that his father previously rejected, Slayer Bots, or as they are now rechristened, Spider Slayers. Said Spider Slayers are now ordered to hunt down Spider-Man.
So like this but evil and you get Alistair Smythe for this film. (Source: Pinterest)
While at the Parker household, we see that not only is Baby Ben now a walking and wall crawling toddler, but is now an older brother, as Peter and MJ had another baby, a baby girl named Mayday Parker. Peter tries his best to help Stan and eventually Stan, now feeling better, swings home.
However, said swing is interrupted when Stan is attacked by a mysterious person in a black and gray suit who has Spider-Powers. Confused and realizing this isn’t Peter (despite the webs the other Spider person is using, which turn out to be organic webbing), Stan quickly realizes that the person attacking him is none other than Terry. Trying to defend himself even as he is utterly confused about why his brother is attacking him, the two battle each other. Stan eventually demasks his brother, only to see Terry seems mad and crazed, maniacally laughing at him and causing Stan’s mind to flash back to the Hobgoblin’s own laughter.
Eventually Stan knocks his brother out and takes him home, but not before he calls Peter. The two strap Terry down at a warehouse, and when Terry finally comes to, he is noticeably confused. Stan and Peter ask Terry if he remembers what happened, and he claims not to.
Moving away slightly, Stan and Peter talk quietly and try to assess what happened to Terry. Peter theorizes that Terry didn’t just manifest copies of their Spider powers when he got them, he also copies non-mutant powers. Not only that, but he also copied his powers off of the Hobgoblin, in particular Hobgoblin’s mental issues and dual personality which are induced by the Goblin formula. Essentially Terry may have his own Hyde personality to go with his Jekyll.
Yet as this is going on, one of Smythe's Spider bots manages to track Stan as he leaves and returns to the warehouse to pick up Chinese food. As Peter and Stan begin to have an argument over whether Chinese delivery or Pizza is better, they are attacked by a Spider-slayer. While they are able to defeat the Spider Slayer, in the confusion not only did Terry manage to escape but a smaller Spider bot managed to get a sample of Stan’s blood and escape as well.
Using the piece of Stan’s blood, Alistair begins work on trying to engineer a way to track people with spider powers in their blood. He also works on improving his Spider Slayer design based on the current data he’s received from his destroyed bots. He is interrupted to his surprise however by Dark Spider, who tracked him by following the small Spider bot that took a DNA sample. Terry offers him a deal of partnership, which a surprised and hesitant Alistair eventually agrees to.
The design for the Spider-Slayers would mostly be of an arachnid design, as seen here. The size will of course vary. (Source: Artstation)
As Stan and Peter find and destroy a number of Spider bots that are causing havoc, they start noticing that the Spider bots are getting harder to beat. Eventually an entirely new larger Spider Slayer attacks them. As they dodge around the city away from it, they realize it can track both Peter and Stan. Upon defeating it, they rip open the bot and look through its parts. Peter eventually finds a scanner and realizes it’s tracking them by their Spider DNA.
Peter and Stan quickly realize that if it’s tracking them by their Spider DNA, then the Spider Slayers have likely also detected Mayday and Ben and are going to be heading towards the Parker family home. Panicked, they race there. Luckily they get there in time and are able to defend MJ, May, and Ben from the Spider Slayers.
Afterwards Stan tells Peter to stay and protect his family and that he’ll go after the one responsible for the Spider Slayers alone. Reluctant, Peter agrees. Swinging away and drawing a couple of Spider slayers away from the Parker home, Stan tries to find the source of where all the Spider slayers are coming from. He eventually realizes they are coming from Smythe International.
As he draws nearer, Stan is attacked by not only additional Spider Slayers, but his own brother, who is wearing four metal arms strapped to his back similar to Doc Ock (basically pictured the metal arms MCU Peter had in his Stark Suit). Realizing his brother is working with them, Stan struggles and tries to fight off his brother and the Spider Slayers.
Eventually they smash through the Smythe factory where Stan sees that a number of the Spider bots are building a giant Spider slayer that could wreck havoc through the city. As they fight, Stan tries to get through to his brother from behind the Dark Spider. He’s unsuccessful and eventually has to knock out his brother by electrocuting him with a loose wire.
Terry’s Dark Spider costume, which serves as a dark mirror image of Stan’s suit [10]. (Source: Reddit)
The giant Spider Slayer meanwhile activates, leading Stan to engage in an epic fight with the machine. The Big Spider Slayer also has a speaker system which Alistair Smythe uses to reveal himself and taunt Stan. After an epic fight, Stan defeats the giant robot spider [9] and arrests a panicked Alistair Smythe. However, he soon notices Terry is gone.
With Smythe behind bars, Stan calls Peter to inform him that Smythe and the robots have been taken care of. His call is interrupted to his confusion by a new call from Daphne. Answering, Stan feels a chill as instead of Daphne answering the phone, it’s Dark Spider. Demanding to know what he’s done, Terry tells Stan that if he wants to save his little girlfriend he better come quickly to the Empire State Building before she slips and falls.
Racing there and calling Peter to inform him what happened, Stan arrives to see Daphne dangling by a web held by Terry. Seeing Stan arrive, a laughing Terry drops her. As Stan dives to catch her, Terry attacks him to try and prevent Stan from saving her. Thankfully though, Peter arrives just in time and catches her.
A furious Terry then fights both Stan and Peter. As Stan once again tries to get through to his brother, Dark Spider reveals the truth: there is no double half anymore. Dark Spider has long since subsumed poor Terry. Realizing he can’t save his brother, Stan defeats and captures him, while Peter calls SHIELD to take Terry into custody.
Checking on Daphne, a relieved Daphne hugs him and then surprises Stan by kissing him. Daphne tells him she was so close to dying and felt afraid that she would have died before telling Stan she had feelings for him.
Talulah Riley, who plays Stan’s best friend and love interest Daphne, circa 2007 (Source: Alamy.com)
SHIELD arrives, led by Director Gyrich, to take Terry into custody [11]. Stan sees his brother one last time as Terry grins at him before he is put away. Saddened, he swings away with Daphne in his arms. He returns home to tell his father and sister what happened, leading to Stan’s dad crying in grief, which Stan eventually joins in.
The movie ends with a short time skip with the Parker family, Stan, and Daphne at a picnic in Central Park. Peter and Stan chat, but eventually the sound of firefighters and police are heard. Realizing there’s trouble, a grinning Peter tells him that it looks like this is a job for Spider-Man. Stan grins back and we end the film with Stan swinging by himself through New York.
Like in the two previous films, there’s an after credits scene that features Terry in his cell being offered a position in the Thunderbolts, and thus ends up setting up a potential
Thunderbolts film that ultimately never materialized.
Box Office, Reception, and Legacy
On a whole, all three Spider-Man films were very successful, though the films did see slight diminishing returns at the box office.
Spider-Man 4 for example made around $853 Million, while
Spider-Man 5 made around $804 million. The most notable decline was for
Spider-Man 6, which made $697 million at the box office, with said decline being attributed to audiences not being a bit put off by the film’s new protagonist and general superhero fatigue.
In terms of reception,
Spider-Man 4 was the best received by fans and critics while critical and fan reactions to both
Spider-Man 5 and
6 tend to vary in terms of which film was better (I personally liked Spider-Man 6 the best out of the trilogy, but that’s just me).
As for the new castings, Adam Wylie as Stanley was pretty much universally praised by fans and critics, while Christopher Lloyd’s sinister Vulture, Wyatt Russell’s Dark Spider, and Sam Witwer’s Eddie Brock/Venom have all pretty much become fan favorites. Katheryn Winnick as Felicia Hardy/Black Cat meanwhile did a really good job in the role, though it’s a shame she basically got relegated to a side character in the
Venom films after
Spider-Man 4 since her chemistry with Seth Greene was honestly much better than her chemistry with Sam Witwer.
Ultimately though, despite being favorably received, the trilogy as a whole sits a bit of the weird middle child of the Spider-Man franchise, stuck between the shadow of the iconic and classic first Spider-Man trilogy from the 90’s and later the third newer Spider-Man trilogy from the 2010’s that featured the rebooted cast consisting of Logan Lerman as Peter Parker, Alexandra Daddario as Mary Jane Watson, Annabelle Wallis as Gwen Stacy, and John David Washington as Harry Osborn.
Yep, these two eventually play Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, in a bit of allo-irony considering both were in Percy Jackson in OTL. (Source: Pinterest)
Part of that is undoubtedly due to the trilogy being a bit uneven due to being less of a trilogy and more about Peter Parker passing the torch of being Spider-Man across two films starring Peter and one starring Stanley O’Brian. Another part of it is probably due to the somewhat standalone nature of the first trilogy, which does not require a person to watch the other MMU films while for the second trilogy you kind of at least have to know about them.
Or maybe it’s simply that the first trilogy is such a classic and the third trilogy is so recent and of today that the second trilogy just gets a bit overlooked in comparison. Hence why I sometimes call it the weird middle child of the Spider-Man film franchise, even if the trilogy as a whole is really solid.
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[1] -
Yes, that’s a real thing.
[2] - Officially this does mean Ben Reilly becomes an Avenger before Peter Parker in the comics. Peter himself wouldn’t join the team ITTL until after his official return in 2001.
[3] - Who you may be familiar with if you’ve seen my other guest posts. Essentially Stan is ITTL Marvel’s attempt at making a new Peter Parker, specifically their solution ITTL to replacing the slightly problematic (at least in terms of sales) Ben Reilly as the new Spider-Man without undoing Peter Parker’s perceived happy ending. In execution Stanley is basically what if Ultimate Peter Parker (with bits of Miles Morales origin story) existed and was a new character introduced in Earth 616, even up to including his run being written by Brian Michael Bendis and his run being called Ultimate Spider-Man, while also existing alongside and even been mentored by the class 616 Universe Peter Parker.
[4] - Basically sort of a OTL Black Widow movie situation, which was set during Phase III but released in Phase IV.
[5] - This initially led to some confusion when Peter shows up in
The Avengers: World War wearing his classic red and blue rather than the symbiote, at least at the time of the film's premiere.
[6] - See my earlier Spider-Man guest posts for more on the character of Stanley and what led to his introduction in the ITTL comics.
[7] - So basically the Harry Osborn Green Goblin origin but with the Hobgoblin name and aesthetic.
[8] - Think a red and blue version of the OTL Superior Spider-Man/Alex Ross suit, but with the classic white eyes and black frames as well as a white spider.
[9] - Jon Peters would be proud.
[10] - So basically the gray and black Spider-Man suit that Alex Ross designed.
[11] - A few fans would lament them killing off Nick Fury in
The Avengers: The End, as this scene would have been hilarious if it was Terry’s actor Wyatt Russell getting arrested by his real life father Kirk Russell.
