Mysterio
This section contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home!
Alas, we come to the most recent and idiotic example of a villain being marketed as a “hero.” Anyone who has ever read a Spider-Man comic book could have told you the entire plot of Far From Home before they even saw the movie. However, during the promotion for the movie, everyone swore that he was going to be teaming up with Spider-Man as another hero.
Many fans believed this. Quentin Beck coming through from the Multiverse convinced a lot of people this would be a heroic representation of the character,and, honestly, that would have been the perfect way to do it. Peter Parker and his new best friend Mysterio against a legitimate Hydro-Man, Molten Man and Sandman would have made for a fantastic movie, perhaps with Beck admitting his true intentions at the end of the film to make for a Sinister Six team-up.
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Instead, what we got was a character with no actual powers, the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse was erased as quickly as it was created, and the entire character and movie was an examination of what a world without Tony Stark is like. Even though the Mysterio character ended up being a fairly accurate depiction, the epic new hero that was being marketed seemed a little better.
Marvel put so much work into making Mysterio into a hero that when he was revealed to be the villain that many thought he would be, it was more disappointing than anything. With all of the other Marvel villains that have been overtly retconned, why not just do it again when it actually works this time?
Conclusion
Even though turning villains good seems to be Marvel’s new obsession, and even though fans seem to eat it up, it has gotten stale. Marvel has to keep their universes fresh, and there are only so many ways to do that. However, it can be done without compromising a character’s base values. Magneto is a bad guy, Loki is an evil being and, when they finally succeed with Mysterio, they decide to go crawling back to the source material in the same movie.
Let heroes be heroes, let villains be villains and, when you run out of either one, just introduce more! There are decades worth of Marvel characters that everyone would love to see on screen so, instead of giving a villain a change of heart, just give someone else their chance in the limelight.
What do you think about Marvel turning villains good? Let us know in the comments below!