The Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us, over the course of 23 movies, the best representations on the silver screen of some of the most beloved Marvel characters. It’s to the point where very few casual fans can separate the character of Tony Stark from Robert Downey Jr., or Captain America from Chris Evans. The portrayals are that accurate. However, the men and women who work on Marvel Comics for a living sometimes nitpick details, as when famed writer Dan Slott pointed out this one flaw – to him – in Avengers: Endgame.
Should superheroes kill? It’s a great debate. And the use of the “Kill Mode” in the Iron Spider suit does rub this particular Spider-Man fan the wrong way… and that traces all the way back to the MCU Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland) being blessed with too much tech thanks to his tie to Tony Stark.
Traditionally, Peter Parker is supposed to be a struggling teenager from Queens who needs to sew (and constantly repair) his own suit. It’s part of his innocent charm, that while super teams like The Avengers or The Fantastic Four have all sorts of access, Spidey must revert to his meager means in his aunt’s Queens abode.
MCU Peter, however, was gifted with amazing tech from the get-go when he was brought under the wing of Tony Stark. His initial suit came with Jarvis-like A.I. He had a built in parachute, a small drone on his chest, and a “Kill Mode” that he could engage.
Now, the joke of Spider-Man: Homecoming is that he repeatedly stopped his suit from engaging in this destructive cheat code.
And this pays off in Avengers: Endgame when Spider-Man is overwhelmed by Thanos’ minions.
But Dan Slott, who wrote multiple Spider-Man comics for years, disagreed with the choice – and I’d be lying if I said I disagreed with him. I never loved Peter having access to all of Stark’s tech, and him initiating a kill mode in any instance feels false. Like Slott, I don’t think it felt false enough to ruin Avengers: Endgame. Not in the slightest. But it’s better seeing Spider-Man in a suit that’s more his design by the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. In fact, that red-and-black number is now my new favorite on-screen Spidey suit. What’s yours?
The fans seem to love Avengers: Endgame. The movie finally surpassed Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time. And now we wait patiently for the next MCU movie, which will be Black Widow on May 1, 2020. And then we can start nitpicking that one.
