Spider-Man: Far From Home’s link to other MCU films
By Josh Baggins
How does Spider-Man: Far From Home fit into the larger shared universe? Spoilers for the movie ahead.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is the most elaborate and rewarding Spider-Man film ever made and is an exceptional addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One of its best aspects is how it fits into the interconnected franchise in a way that makes its singular narrative more captivating and entertaining. Let’s look at all the ways Far From Home connects to the other MCU films.
The most apparent link is to the recent Avengers epics, as this movie directly follows Endgame and the death of Iron Man. Tony Stark leaves his impression all over Far From Home, most movingly when Happy and Peter share a moment of sorrow as they think about their friend and mentor, respectively.
Far From Home is also obviously a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the story builds naturally from movie to movie. The bookends of both films parallel each other, starting with their intros, which are comprised of homemade videos. In Homecoming, we watched footage that Peter himself filmed of his excursion to Germany with the Avengers. In Far From Home, Betty broadcasts her In Memoriam segment to the school for the fallen Avengers, including a fuzzy photo of Vision.
Then the movies both end with the disclosure of Peter’s secret identity. In Homecoming, Aunt May finds out that Peter is Spider-Man when she catches him dressed as the superhero. In Far From Home, Mysterio left the world a final farewell by not only framing the Avenger, yet also revealing his name. Aunt May’s expletive is cutoff by the credits in the former, while Peter himself is cut to black in the sequel. The Far From Home scene also introduces J. Jonah Jameson to the MCU, with J.K. Simmons surprisingly reprising the role he popularized in the Sam Raimi trilogy. This time his Daily Bugle is akin to InfoWars.
Far From Home also mirrors Homecoming in several other instances. In Homecoming, MJ gives Peter the middle finger in her dry humor, sarcastic kind of way, whereas Peter’s romantic rival in Far From Home gives Peter the middle finger in the more traditional sense. There is a humorous Homecoming scene in a car with Tony getting the door for Peter, and there is a comedic car moment in Far From Home when Fury gives Peter a stern look as he struggles to buckle his seat belt. And a big action sequence in Homecoming features Spidey saving his classmates at the Washington monument, while he also saves a few of those same friends in Far From Home when they are stuck on a falling Ferris wheel.
Midway through Far From Home, Mysterio is revealed as a villain misleading the world with his illusions. This in itself is not a shocking twist considering the character’s comic book history – he most famously tricked Wolverine into murdering the X-Men. In Far From Home, the surprising beats come from how the reveal would unfold and play out in unique style.
Quentin Beck speaks about working for Tony Stark and how he himself developed the hologram tech that Stark presented to audiences in Captain America: Civil War. Beck blames Tony for misappropriating and misusing Beck’s invention, as well as naming it BARF, or Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing.
Civil War is also referenced when Happy flies to the Netherlands to pick up Peter; the latter asks Happy to prove that it is really him and not an illusion. Happy recalls that when he took Peter to Germany to join Team Iron Man, he knew that Peter ordered an adult video at the hotel. Snippets of Peter and Happy at that hotel were also a part of Peter’s video journal in Homecoming.
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There is another nice Civil War nod when Fury passes control of Stark’s systems to Spider-Man, with Fury relaying a message from Stark: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”. Stark told Fury that Peter wouldn’t grasp the Shakespeare quote since it isn’t from Star Wars. Spider-Man is shown to be a Star Wars fan when he borrows a move from The Empire Strikes Back to take down Giant Man in Captain America: Civil War.
A clever detail in Far From Home is how Mysterio’s henchmen are all former disgruntled, demoralized, and dejected Stark employees. The only one that we have seen before is William… all the way back in 2008’s Iron Man. William was tasked by Obadiah Stane to recreate Stark’s miniaturized arc reactor. William is verbally berated by Stane when he admits that he cannot match Tony’s accomplishments (even though Tony built the arc reactor in a cave).
Another Iron Man callback comes when Happy watches Peter constructing his new Spider-Man suit and is reminded of Tony. It inspires Happy to turn up AC/DC’s “Back in Black”; Tony listens to that song in a military Humvee at the beginning of Iron Man. Peter seems to recognize the music. However, he tells Happy he loves Zed Zeppelin.
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Fury has a quick line to Maria Hill during Far From Home about how he thought the Skrull sleeper cells were a secret. This turns out to be an important clue that something serious is still going on with the Skrulls 25 years after the events of Captain Marvel. In the post-credits stinger, we learn that Fury was actually Talos, the benevolent shapeshifting alien from Captain Marvel, during the events of Far From Home, and Fury is really in a giant space station. Is Fury now running the Sentient World Observation and Response Department, otherwise known as SWORD? The specifics are not disclosed, but there is a good chance Carol Danvers is involved.