What path should the MCU Spider-Man take? I've got some ideas...

Oh look, another Spider-Man article!

So here we are at the end of Phase 2 of Marvel's Cinematic Universe.  It was a fun couple of years with some ups and downs, but overall an improvement over Phase 1.  But, moving into Phase 3 we're finally going to have Marvel's face and mascot Spider-Man a part of the universe with his debut being in Captain America: Civil War.  With Tom Holland (The Impossible) cast as Peter Parker and Jon Watts (Cop Car) set to direct, now the question is what sort of tale will be told.

Well, I have spent the past few days with my anonymous partners in crime brain storming ideas for possible paths for this series to take within the rumored guidelines Marvel and Sony have.  Those guidelines are:

1. No origin story.  We know all know it.  Spider bite, lets criminal go, Uncle Ben dead, great responsibility.  If the audience absolutely needs a primer, just put it in an opening sequence ala The Incredible Hulk.
2. Peter in high school.  They cast Tom Holland because they want a teenage Spider-Man, so you can betcher butt we'll be seeing more of Peter's school life and relationships with his classmates.  Kevin Feige has spoken about wanting this one to be sort of a John Hughes film in the same way Ant-Man was a heist movie.  Expect classmates like Flash Thompson to be more in the lime light than before.
3. New villains initially.  This new MCU series is supposed to present us with something new, so rehashing old villains right out of the gate would probably send the wrong message.  However, that doesn't preclude previously used villains being central antagonists down the line.
4. Three to four movies.  The current rumor is we'll be seeing this series play over three or four movies.  For this series I'm about to describe, we'll assume four.

With those guidelines established, let's get this ball rolling with the first Spidey solo MCU movie in the list.

Villains:  Mysterio and Chameleon

Plot:  Spider-Man (Chameleon) is caught on camera robbing one of New York City's many museums.  This prompts several local news affiliates to completely turn on the new local superhero (spearheaded, of course, by the Daily Bugle).  To make matters worse another "superhero" by the name Mysterio vows to bring the wall crawler to justice, regularly appearing wherever Peter pops up and making his life and attempts to clear his name miserable.  At school, Peter's vigilante activity gets constantly dogged on by his fellow students.  The only person who refuses to believe Spider-Man has gone to crime is ironically Peter's high school bully, Flash Thompson.  Eventually, Spidey figures out that the imposter Spider-Man is in cahoots with Mysterio, allowing one to rob unimpeded while the other runs interference for the real deal and patsy.  He manages to take down Mysterio, but Chameleon disappears into the crowd.

Mid-Credits Sequence:  Cut to a bar in Russia where Chameleon is describing his harrowing experience with Spider-Man to his half-brother, Sergei Kravinoff.

Based on:  Amazing Spider-Man #13

Notes:  For your first Spider-Man standalone movie, you want something self-contained.  You don't want to drown this series into MCU canon immediately.  If it sucks or underperforms incredibly it wouldn't be ending on an advertisement for a future movie.  Just keep it a low barrier of entry, and keep the villains motivations simple.  Nothing wrong with bad guys who just want to rob banks, you know?  Mysterio is a character many of us have wanted to see in live action for a long time.  His illusions should be visually engaging and would be able to show off the capabilities of Spider-Man's spider-sense in a way previous movies have not.  Chameleon, being another master of deception, would work well in conjunction with Mysterio.  On top of that, if you don't cast Dmitri at all and rely on your established cast to portray him he could be considered an MCU freebie who can appear anywhere, be it TV, Netflix, or film without having to keep an actor on contract.  Also, establish that Peter was bitten by the spider at Oscorp.

When it comes to Peter's classmates, obviously the previously mentioned Flash Thompson will be featured.  I would also include both the two big loves of Peter's life Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson as classmates but refrain from touching on romance in the first movie short of Peter mentioning a crush.  Harry and Norman Osborn should be introduced, with Harry serving as the popular and rich kid at school like his Ultimate universe counterpart.  Some other classmates that are worth adding as background characters would be Liz Allen, Kenny Harlan, Rand Robertson (along with his dad Robbie at the Bugle), Miles Morales as an underclassman, and Debra Whitman.
Villains:  Kraven, featuring Shocker.

Plot:  Kraven comes to New York.  Feeling generally unchallenged at this point by traditional game, he aims to go on the greatest hunt of career by taking down New York's Spider-Man.  He even hires some local criminals to rob a bank (led by Herman Schultz AKA Shocker) so that he may observe Spider-Man in action.  Meanwhile, at school Peter's friend Harry Osborn has begun to abuse narcotics due to his generally crappy home life being ignored by his dad.  Peter's friends attempt to organize an intervention, which he misses due to his Spider-Man activities.  Harry eventually overdoses and is hospitalized.  Meanwhile Kraven observes the age old thing about superheroes: they tend to go out of their way to save civilians.    Setting a trap at a hospital in Spider-Man's typical patrol area (which Harry is also hospitalized at and being visited by friends) he lures the wall crawler in to a final confrontation. 

Basically turning the hospital into a death maze, he fights Spider-Man to a standstill before Peter gets the upper hand.  Realizing he's finally been confronted with prey he can't match, Kraven's pride is finally satiated and as final act he detonates the support structures to the hospital.  The building implodes down onto Kraven killing him and buries Spider-Man and Kraven's hostages under the rubble.  Spider-Man's pinned in place and about to give up when he hears the hostages nearby.  Realizing he's still needed, he manages to push off and dig his way through several tons of wreckage to get to the hostages and get them out.  Peter takes a day off from school to recover, finding out later from Gwen that Harry's father shipped him off to rehab in Europe.  Most of Peter's friends are mad at him for not being there when Harry needed him.  Gwen however sees Peter's devastated with guilt and cuts him some slack.

Mid-Credits Sequence:  Norman Osborn discovers Peter Parker is Spider-Man via archived camera footage from the Midtown High field trip the previous year.

Based On:  ASM #15, Kraven's Last Hunt, If This Be My Destiny

Notes:  Chameleon being included in the first movie gives us a through line to Kraven in this one and explains why Sergei chooses Spider-man out of all the possible superheroes in the MCU to hunt.  I chose to base this more on Kraven's first appearance rather than try to do a direct adaptation of Kraven's Last Hunt.  The latter story is pretty damn dark and also is built on 23 years of history between the two.  However, Kraven killing himself after having closure calls back to the story arch.  Peter being pinned under the rubble is a call back to "If This Be My Destiny," one of his most iconic moments in all of comics.

This film would also be portraying Harry Osborn's history of drug use here; a storyline that famously had Marvel come into contention with the Comics Code Authority.   This movie should also take the opportunity to portray Norman Osborn in a different light, one of a disinterested asshole who's completely focused on his work.  We'll be leaving this movie on a bit of an Empire Strikes Back downer where what victory Peter had is bitter sweet.  He'll be less of a social outcast and a bit more of a pariah at school.


Villain:  Venom

Plot:  Start with a flashback to the later 80s.  Richard parker and Eddie brock Sr. are working on a project for SHIELD when Hank Pym tenders his resignation with the organization over concerns that they'll discover and abuse Pym Particles.  Parker (who looks up to Pym) begins questioning their project being at SHIELD while Brock Sr. (who looks up to Howard Stark) insists they continue.  Richard agrees, despite having very obvious reservations.

Flash forward to Peter.  He's still a social pariah at school due to the Harry Osborn events the previous year.  Gwen Stacy and he have gotten close, but he never the less feels isolated.  He begins digging through old video tapes and finds one of him and his family along with the Brocks.  He looks Eddie Brock Jr. up and finds he's attending Empire State University.  Wanting to have a friend free from the current drama going on in his life, he visits Eddie who seems genuinely surprised and happy to see him.  He shows Peter the work both their fathers had been working on (which he describes as a cure for cancer) and Eddie had since continued with his professor, Miles Warren.  Peter begins hanging out with Eddie regularly, working on the project and searching for any notes his father kept prior to both of their passing.  During one of the experiments in the lab, Peter doesn't use proper controls and a drop makes contact with his skin.  In the middle of the night he wakes up wearing a black costume and in the middle of foiling a robbery.  He decides not to tell Eddie because of how good it makes him feel as well as assisting him as Spider-Man.  However, it starts to make him more aggressive at school, much to the concern of Gwen and Mary Jane.  Finally, when Flash makes an offhand remark about Harry it causes Peter to snap and break Flash's arm.

Gwen goes to Empire State to confront Eddie, since he only started acting this way since they started hanging out.  Eddie reveals himself to be a manipulative scumbag, while Peter feels remorse for Flash's arm (doubly so because Flash apologizes to Peter).  He realizes whatever this project was designed for is dangerous.  He attempts to remove the substance, but is unsuccessful and loses control, nearly killing a carjacker before crashing into power lines.  He breaks into Empire State University and destroys the sample.  Eddie, being protective of the weapon, sees Spider-man destroying it and deduces he's Peter Parker (because he's not stupid.)  He collects a backup sample and tests it on himself.  Lacking Peter's conviction and moral ground, Eddie promptly losses his mind, becoming Venom and attack Peter outside his school.  The fight spills onto the streets, where Venom kills several people, including Gwen's father George Stacy.  The personal grudge match finally ends when a building set ablaze by a car fire collapses on Brock, seemingly killing him (though they are unable to find a body).  Peter's horrified by the events and resolves to end being Spider-Man, throwing his costume away in the garbage.

Mid-Credits:  Osborn conducting an experiment with the same compound that gave Peter his powers injects himself with it.

Based On:  Ultimate Venom, a bit of Spider-Man No More

Notes:  Out of all my proposed movies in this series, this one is probably the most directly lifted from the comics.  It's also the darkest out of all of them.  It starts with Peter in a bad place and ends with him in a worse place.  We didn't get a great representation of Venom in Spider-Man 3.  I wasn't as outright offended by it as some people, but it was just rushed and half assed.  That being said, Venom can be hard to do in the span of one movie.  You have to set up the alien costume and its capabilities while introducing Eddie Brock, etcetera.  Fortunately, the Ultimate Spider-Man version of Venom does much of this pretty deftly in a self-contained story while giving Eddie Brock a much more personal dynamic with Peter than the simple "you ruined my reputation" path the character had in his original incarnation.  Plus the "friend from childhood not being who you remembered" angle fits into the high school drama aspects they've said they wanted to go for.


Villain:  Green Goblin

Plot:  Having not been Spider-Man awhile and approaching graduation, Peter's in a much better place emotionally now.  He's dating Gwen while Flash has gone from a bully to a close friend and has assisted in getting Peter out of the dog house.  However, Aunt May is struggling to find money to help send Peter to college.  Flash also reveals he's joining the army out of high school as he wants to be a hero like his MIA idol, Spider-Man.  Peter contemplates returning to crime fighting and perhaps trying to go Avenger full time to help pay for his education.  It's around this time that Harry returns from Europe and invites Peter over to catch up.  When he arrives, Norman Osborn sets him aside and reveals he knows who Peter is under the mask.  He then threatens Peter's identity as well as the wellbeing of his loved ones unless he comes to work for him as an industrial spy.  Peter initially refuses, but Osborn transforms into the monstrous version of the Green Goblin in front of him, quickly over powering Peter from raw power and Peter being rusty.  To demonstrate his resolve (and madness), he kills his own son Harry.  He agrees, fearing for the lives of his loved ones. 

His first task is to break into Stark Tower and steal various prototype blueprints for weapons Stark allegedly destroyed when he stopped weapon manufacturing.  Peter pulls off the heist and returns the tech to Osborn.  Pleased by the results, he tells Peter to await further instructions.  Peter's friends, realizing something is wrong, confront him but he says nothing and starts distancing himself.  At home, he finds out that Stark Industries has awarded him with a scholarship.  He recalls the times he's fought alongside Earth's mightiest and has a rallying moment.  He pulls out a new costume he had been creating on the side and confronts Osborn, refusing to be manipulated.

Osborn mocks him and transforms, revealing he has begun manufacturing the weapons he had Peter steal, including a teched out and oversized glider, various grenades, and even repulsor gauntlets.  They have a brief fight at the top of Oscorp before the Goblin decides to make his threats honest, fleeing and finding Peter's girlfriend.  He takes her to the top of the George Washington Bridge, where their dialogue reveals to Gwen that Peter is Spider-Man.  A fight breaks out, Gwen is knocked from the bridge, and (which will make Stan Lee happy) Peter manages to save her.  Pissed off royally, Peter and Goblin go into a knock out brawl.  Peter, having studied the blueprints for the weapons he stole, takes advantage of some prototype design flaws in the tech.  Osborn's glider blows up with him on it, resulting in his demise.  Peter gets Gwen home safely, but she's conflicted on whether or not there can continue seeing each other as he lied to her for so long and was there at her father's death.  Their future together is left ambiguous.  Regardless, Peter decides to return to being Spider-Man full time.

Based On:  Ultimate Spider-Man: Legacy, Marvel Knights Spider-Man

Notes:  While he wore a dumb helmet, Willem Dafoe did a great job as Norman Osborn in Raimi's movies.  But we've seen that version of the Goblin done three times now.  X-Games Goblin and Leprosy Goblin just weren't as good and left a sour taste in people's mouth.  That's why we're waiting until this fourth movie to finally have the Green Goblin again.  But I'd love for it to be a different take on Osborn, and one that's legitimately horrifying and despicable.  But, given we've seen Norman Osborn and various Goblins on screen a billion times, let's outright kill him off.  Don't leave it ambiguous like Brock in the previous movie.

Something that hasn't been done well in the past Spider-Man movies is when a villain learns Peter's identity.  When they use that against him, typically someone just immediately runs off and kidnaps the love interest as bait to kill him.  Instead, I'd prefer to have the villain actually use than knowledge against someone as blackmail and coercion.  In Marvel Knights, Osborn used coercion to get Spider-Man to break him out of the Raft supervillain prison.  Having him steal from an ally like Stark (or Danny Rand) would be a far more compelling use of that trope that we honestly have not seen before.
And that would be the end of this series I'm proposing.  There's enough room for future sequels here if Marvel absolutely wanted to continue, but enough closure at the end that it wouldn't feel like an incomplete ending.  Plus we got through that only outright killing two villains, leaving one ambiguous and three still alive.  Plus we'd likely see Pete pop up elsewhere.  Perhaps you can get Tom Holland on a Netflix show.  It would be great to see Spidey and Daredevil team up in an adaptation of the Death of Jean DeWolff.  There's plenty of Spider-Man stories out there, both solo and with other characters.  We can do without rehashing the old movies for the billionth time.

What are some Spider-Man plotlines you think would work within the MCU's parameters?  Leave comments below.