Mysterio Almost Had a Hulkbuster Costume in Spider-Man: Far From Home

Spider-Man: Far From Home mystified many fans over the course of its runtime, and the slippery villain at the center of the story was a huge part of that. Now, some Marvel fans are noticing that Mysterio’s design could have taken a wild left turn in the Spidey feature. When audiences get introduced to Quentin Beck early in the film, he looks like an MCU (read ‘realistic’) take on the classic design for the character. Fishbowl head and cape in tow to clearly mark the character as the staple of Spider-Man‘s rogues’ gallery.

Now, one poster on Imgur got a peek at the art book for Far From Home and couldn’t help pointing out how the film could have approached the villain. In the version below, Mysterio has a look that clearly channels the Hulkbuster armor that Tony has used in the past for various threats. Bruce Banner used that armor to fight in the Battle of Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War as well.

The color scheme remains basically the same as the final version, but the radical implementation of the head is what will catch the eye of most fans. Now, Mysterio is notorious for that fishbowl helmet he wears up top and the concept art doesn’t shy away from that. Instead, the entire large head area from the Hulkbuster armor is replaced by less obvious glass. This would also introduce some very strange, but nonetheless interesting edits to the story beats of the film.

Jake Gyllenhaal is not stranger to taking risks and his character — Quentin Beck, a.k.a. Mysterio was the perfect avenue to explore some changes. Far From Home writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna spoke with Variety about the changes Gyllenhaal brought to the table after the script had already been written. Some of them actually made the cut in the movie.

“Jake just really liked the idea that he was manipulating everyone’s love of superheroes and that need for heroes,” Sommers reflected. “He also wanted to make sure that the front half of his character played as realistically as possible. We all wanted everyone to believe that what we were seeing is what we were getting. We really wanted to make everything as specific as possible so it really did seem like this was a man out of time and out of place coping with a really insane situation that he tragically had gone through.”

McKenna’s response to the same question was more playful, he joked how Gyllenhaal’s choice for facial hair was huge. “He had a beard! He wanted a beard. He was right,” joke McKenna. “It was one of those things. He knows as an actor what plays and what doesn’t. What we really wanted was someone to really be an alluring, father-figure replacement for Tony [Stark]. Jake knew how to do that, from his performance all the way down to his hair. If you look at him, you think, ‘Oh! I want that guy to be my new dad.’”