Warning: SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Far From Home are ahead!
Deception is the name of Mysterio’s game. While Spider-Man: Far From Home initially depicted Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck as a superhero from a different Earth, it was all a ruse, as he was really just a disgruntled and unstable ex-employee of Tony Stark desperate for fame.
But in an earlier version of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the plan was for Mysterio not to be a human, but a Skrull, the alien species that finally debuted in the MCU during Captain Marvel. According to Erik Sommers, who co-wrote Far From Home with Chris McKenna:
There were some early, early versions of this movie where Mysterio was a Skrull… There were a lot of Skrull versions of the story early on. When you’re doing a con artist movie, what we finally landed on—we sat down and talked about how do we keep on fooling the audience, how do we keep on having a lot of fun reveals? How many distractions can we get away with before people want to murder us? [The Mysterio Skrull reveal] was an early idea about why he was doing everything he was doing.
Chris McKenna then added to Collider that while this ‘Mysterio is a Skrull’ idea didn’t necessarily “make it to paper,” it was discussed for a while. In the end though, it was just one of the many ideas that McKenna and Erik Sommers hashed out with director Jon Watts and other people working on the movie that were ultimately set aside.
While Mysterio being a Skrull certainly would have been an unexpected twist, especially for longtime comic book fans, the way Spider-Man: Far From Home ended up going with him was more faithful to the spirit of the character. However, unlike his comic book counterpart, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck wasn’t tricking people on his own. Mysterio with a team operation, with its members including William Riva, the scientist Obadiah Stane yelled at in Iron Man.
Even though Mysterio didn’t end up being a shapeshifting alien, Spider-Man: Far From Home still managed include Skrull representation. In the post-credits scene, it was revealed that Nick Fury and Maria Hill were actually Talos and Soren, who we previously met in Captain Marvel and were holding down the proverbial fort on Earth while Nick Fury is out in space with other Skrulls (it’s unclear where Maria Hill is).
It appears that Mysterio’s time in the MCU is done, as he seemingly died from his gunshot wound. Then again, since Mysterio’s gimmick is fooling people, then perhaps he managed to fake his death (a classic comic book trope) and he’ll be back to antagonize Spidey in a later movie.
Either way, while Spider-Man managed to ultimately defeat Mysterio, the illusion-casting baddie had a contingency plan in place. In the Spider-Man: Far From Home mid-credits scene, taking place a week after the battle in London, J. Jonah Jameson from TheDailyBugle.net released doctored footage showing Mysterio blaming Spider-Man for the Elemental attacks and revealing that Peter Parker is the web-slinging hero. Peter’s now in quite the pickle, which should spice things up for his next standalone adventure.
Be sure to read CinemaBlend’s review of Spider-Man: Far From Home, and stay tuned for any updates regarding the next MCU-set Spider-Man movie and when we’ll see the Skrulls next. Don’t forget to also look through our Marvel movies guide to learn what this franchise has coming down the pipeline.
