3 Spider-Man Movie Plots That Will Never Be Resolved

The greatest magic trick for big budget screenwriters is planting and payoff — foreshadowing, teasing out a plot and making it all feel natural and compelling. This has led to some of the best moments for Spider-Man and Marvel Comics adaptations in general, but not every idea planted has paid off. As these franchises grow, some of the dropped plot threads are hanging more and more conspicuously, and fans are taking notice.

Dropped ideas will become particularly prevalent for the MCU in the coming years as fans take a broad look at the Multiverse Saga and wonder what ever happened to those Eternals, or to Kang the Conqueror. In fact, big pivots like that may be a good thing to help obscure some of the small, less consequential ones listed below. These pertain specifically to Spider-Man, who is good at improvising, thankfully. Here are three of the biggest plotlines dropped in Spider-Man movies that we’re not likely to see picked back up any time soon.

Peter Parker’s Parents

Of all the big Spider-Man movies in the last two decades or so, on The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield has introduced us to Peter’s parents, Richard and Mary Parker. We see them in the very beginning of the first movie, when they realize their home office has been burglarized. After that, they rush Peter over to Ben and May’s house and disappear for good.

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Peter’s parents are central to the plot of the movie as well — Peter voluntarily gives some of his father’s research to Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) which allows him to transform into Lizard. The movie ends by teeing up even more information on Peter’s parents — an imprisoned Connors meets a shadowy figure who asks if Peter knows “the truth” about his parents.

Peter’s parents were shown in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as well. Here, we get another tee-up about their death and disappearance, and we even learn that Peter’s father created the genetically altered spiders that gave Peter his powers. Still, it’s left hanging as if there’s more to uncover here, but to explore this storyline in the movies, we’d need to start from scratch.

The comics have a deep and fascinating past for Richard and Mary Parker. Back in 1968, Stan Lee depicted them as CIA agents who infiltrated Red Skull’s organization and died in the line of duty. They had connections to Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D. and other familiar Marvel staples that are now familiar in the MCU. Exploring this history in the upcoming Spider-Man 4 could be great, but it likely wouldn’t carry on the story started in Amazing Spider-Man.

Scorpion

Even if we see Mac Gargan (Michael Mando) again in the MCU, it won’t be the direct follow-up to Spider-Man: Homecoming that many fans were expecting. If you recall, the mid-credits scene in that movie shows Gargan and Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) meeting up in prison. Gargan seems intent on seeking revenge against Spider-Man immediately, but a lot has happened since then so any plot he enacted would feel a bit distant from that threat.

Gargan told the Vulture that he had friends outside of prison who were helping him plot revenge. Despite his own issues with Peter, Toomes decided not to share Spider-Man’s true identity with Gargan or anyone else. That shouldn’t be an issue anymore since the entire world forgot Peter’s identity at the end of No Way Home, but Gargan may still want revenge on the vigilante himself.

Gargan is well on his way to becoming the comic book villain Scorpion, but at this point it’s hard to imagine a villain like Scorpion playing the main antagonist of an MCU movie. Instead, we may see him play a tertiary role like Brock Lumwo’s brief appearance as Crossbones.

Madame Web

Finally, with Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent film series now on an indefinite hiatus, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever find out more about the mysterious spider powers granted to the characters in Madame Web. The movie tied Spider-Man’s whole power set to mystical arts practiced in the depths of the Amazon rainforest rather than a radioactive spider impacted by an experiment in New York City. It literally plants the seeds for infinite possible stories about three different Spider Women, and Cassandra Webb herself. However, chances of seeing any of these ideas pay off seem incredibly slim right now.

All four of the movies referenced here are streaming now on Disney+. The next Spider-Man movie is in development now, with no release date yet. However, we can expect to see the MCU’s Peter Parker in some of the upcoming titles as the Multiverse Saga reaches its crescendo.