In the past, we’ve seen quite a bit of alternate design work for the costume that Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio would wear in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But even that prior knowledge cannot prepare you for what’s about to be shown to you below. As it turns out, director Jon Watts’ sequel almost gave Quentin Beck a totally different suit, and it would have been modeled after the Hulkbuster.
Get a load of the tricked-out Mysterio suit that almost was:
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This piece of concept art, like all of the other Spider-Man: Far From Home suits that were shown off for Mysterio, came from Marvel Studios’ head of visual development, Ryan Meinerding. As you can see, it’s roughly the same build as the Hulkbuster we saw Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark break out in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, which would later reappear in Avengers: Infinity War, being used by Bruce Banner himself.
However, the big difference is that the coloring of the Hulkbuster suit shifts over into a mostly purple affair when Quentin Beck steps into its safe and cozy ass-kicking mechanisms. Not to mention, the whole suit is capped off with a green fishbowl helmet, because who’s Mysterio without the fishbowl? Honestly, if there’s no fishbowl, there’s no deal.
Even more intriguing than this image, obtained through Imgur, is what sort of role this suit might have played, had it made it into Spider-Man: Far From Home. The artwork originates from the book The Art of Spider-Man: Far From Home, and according to Ryan Meinerding (via ScreenRant), this Hulkbuster version of Mysterio came about when he was being envisioned as a "tough, grizzled space marine" who was the only person to escape his dimension.
Even if that particular backstory wasn't retained, maybe this suit would have given Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio even more of an image boost when he fought off one of the various Elementals he supposedly defeated, especially with his show-stopping cataclysm in the London finale of Spider-Man: Far From Home. Surely the public would have seen that suit and thought back to Tony Stark’s inventing days, shedding a tear for their fallen hero and welcoming his would-be successor.
Or, another sort of action this Hulkbuster suit could have seen would have been as a taunting nightmare visited upon Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, as Beck would have used this imagery to taunt him about Tony’s death yet again. Maybe instead of garden variety Mysterios marching towards him, these twisted Hulkbusters would have been moving in lockstep towards Peter, threatening him with the supposed disappointment that he visited upon the legacy of his deceased mentor.
Regardless, it was ultimately decided not to include this suit in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But what is clear is that this is another piece of Ryan Meinerding’s stellar resume of work that deserves to, at the very least, find some sort of life outside of the movies.
Though you could always scan the bonus features for Spider-Man: Far From Home, which is available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD, as well as Digital HD, this very moment. You never know what you’ll find lurking in there.
