Marvel fans got their first official look at the MCU's version of Spider-Man when Tom Holland swung into Captain America: Civil War as a guest of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Being part of Team Iron Man meant that Spidey received a costume upgrade, but we didn't get to see all of the bells and whistles that come with a Stark-designed suit... until now. For a large chunk of this summer's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter Parker (Holland) will be fighting crime using the Civil War suit, and he'll learn that it comes, with FAR more gadgets than the teenager from Queens is used to. Let's break the suit's powers down now.
During a recent visit to the Atlanta set of Jon Watts' upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, we learned all about the suit that Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) will give to Peter Parker -- a suit that, according to the latest trailer, Stark will also take back because he's not sure Peter's worthy. Before Spidey gets stripped of his tricked out Swiss Army Knife of a costume, he's going to get a chance to explore several of its high-tech functions while battling the Vulture (Michael Keaton) and the Shocker (Bokeem Woodbine). While it's not quite the Iron Spider suit that Spider-Man received in the comic books, Spider-Man: Homecoming is going to feature a ton of technological upgrades for our friendly neighborhood wallcrawler. Since this is a Stark designed suit, we should start with the obvious enhancement:
The Suit Has A JARVIS-Type Voice
Iron Man rarely fights alone. He either has War Machine (Don Cheadle) or a fellow Avenger by his side in battle. And yet, even when Tony has to go solo on a mission, he's always accompanied by his artificial intelligence program JARVIS... and Spidey will have one for himself, albeit it temporarily. On the set, co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll dove into elaborate details of the tricks attached to Spider-Man's new suit, which will kick in once Tony deactivates something Marvel is calling "The Training Wheels Protocol," and talked about the voice Peter Parker will hear in his head. Carroll told us:
Most notably, [the suit] starts talking to him, and he goes, 'Oh, this is weird.' And he starts asking it stuff, but he's not super slick or Tony Stark smart, who invented the OS and did all this. He's a kid. So he's like, 'Um, how do I get to where that thing is?' And it's like, 'Um, I don't know. Pretty much drive? How are you going to get there?' And he's like, 'Um, if I didn't have a car, let's just say, how would I get there?' And it's like, 'Well, if you walk...' And he's like, 'No, OK, alright... I guess just give me directions and I'll figure out the HOW I'm getting there.'
At the time of our set visit, Marvel and Sony had not cast the voice of Peter Parker's JARVIS, so expect that to be a fun surprise when Spider-Man: Homecoming hits theaters. For more on other surprises, keep reading.
Spidey Gets Fancy New Webshooters
You might have caught a moment in the most recent Spider-Man trailer (pictured above) where Spidey is able to shoot a web ball that's timed to release. It doesn't explode on a villain immediately, but triggers a few seconds after Peter fires it. Cool effect, but that's not something we ever saw this kid from Queens design into his homemade webshooters. That's because the Stark designed webshooters will come with an elaborate new interface. As co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll told us on the film's set:
That is sort of the interface for the web shooters. So even before [Tony Stark] deactivates the Training Wheels Protocol, he's got a really high-tech web shooter. And one of the ideas is that when he does this [wrist-flick movement], he can adjust the spray, and he can even scroll through different web settings, like spinning web, web ball, ricochet web... you know, all of the stuff we can see him do in the comics, Tony has built into this. That was sort of unlocked for him. So when he shines that, it will go [boom noise], and if he wants to shoot just the one swinging web, it will go down really small. And if he wants to web a guy to the wall, it goes [makes noise] and goes like that. It's kind of like a DSLR camera. He can shoot without it, or he can hold that thing a second, get his aiming right, and really choose a web to shoot.
The comics always had fun with Spider-Man's shooters, as the brilliant young teenager would invent new types of webbing in his home laboratory, or run out of web cartridges at inopportune times, in the heat of battle. An upgraded Spider-Man suit will mean more webbing options, thanks to Tony Stark's creative brain... but since we know that Peter will lose the suit at some point, he's going to have to head back to the lab once he's in the homemade pajamas again. Truthfully, though, that's how I like Spider-Man best.
Spider-Man Gets His Own Surveillance Drone
This one popped up in the last trailer, literally. And it surprised fans as much as it will surprise Peter in the movie. But on the new suit, Spider-Man's chest spider detaches, flies, and has an added benefit. According to co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll:
At one point, there's... the Spider logo on his chest goes [makes motion with hands] and floats off and starts giving him surveillance data, and he's like, 'What?' In fact, that startles him when it happens because he didn't even know that would happen.
This occurs during the Washington Monument rescue scene, where Peter must don his Spider-Man suit and rescue his classmates from an attack that occurs during a class trip to our nation's capital. Likely, the flying spider drone funnels data back to Spidey's aforementioned JARVIS. I sure hope that Spidey doesn't get used to these tools, because as we see in the trailer, he's going to get stripped of these devices, and rely on his low-tech pajamas to finally take The Vulture down once and for all.
The Suit Will Have Even More Gimmicks Than That
Marvel and Sony didn't want to give away all of the tricks in Spider-Man's new bag. I got the impression that, because they knew they'd eventually strip Peter of the high-tech suit, they would have a lot of fun loading him up with toys, following the deactivation of the Training Wheels Protocol, so that he could play with them on a temporary basis. As co-producer Eric Hauserman Carroll explained to us on the Spider-Man: Homecoming set:
Long story short, we tried to look through the comics and pull out all of the sort of fun and wacky things that Steve [Ditko] did, which seemed even harder to explain when he built it in his own bedroom.
In addition to all that we mentioned, Carroll told us that the new suit comes with the following tricks:
It has wings in the armpits (seen above)
It has a heater
It lights up (at an inopportune time)
It has an air bag
It deploys a parachute during a mid-air battle with The Vulture
It has a holographic interface, probably similar to Iron Man's helmet
But eventually, those will all go away, and Peter Parker (Tom Holland) will be back in the homemade pajamas, as seen in the exclusive set photo provided below:
Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives in theaters on July 7. For more information learned on the set, click here and dive in.
