Over eleven years and twenty-plus films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has established a fair array of tropes and common themes from movie to movie. One of the longest-running jokes concerns the fact that the Avengers don’t really go out of their way to disguise themselves while going undercover, as they regularly just opt for a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses. As one Marvel fan recently pointed out on social media, that seemingly-played-out trope actually worked surprisingly well when audiences were least expecting it. Reddit user AnkitSaha_013 recently pointed out just how well the “hiding in plain sight” disguise worked in one moment of Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhall) was spying on Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) long before his character made his grand entrance.
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This Mysterio moment is something that’s blown fans’ minds in the months since Far From Home‘s release, in part because it adds a whole other layer to his dynamic with Peter. While he initially presents himself as the next great superhero in an attempt to earn Peter’s trust, it’s later revealed that he’s a former STARK employee who is out for revenge in a very specific way.
“With Mysterio, there were versions of the story where he was at the forefront as an out-and-out villain that Peter and Nick [Fury] were chasing around Europe as he pulled off these events, all building to this back story of why he was doing it, which was a wholly different third act. We went down a lot of different roads,” co-writer Chris McKenna previously told the New York Times.
“But ultimately,” added co-writer Erik Sommers, “because Mysterio deals so much in deception, it was sort of natural that it led to a story structure where his entire identity was a mislead for a while.”
For well-read comic book fans expecting Mysterio’s eventual heel turn, “You kind of can’t worry about that when you’re coming up with a plot like this,” McKenna said.
“You just have to hope that you can get away with it long enough so that when the reveal comes up, people are still having fun with the movie.”
Upcoming Marvel Studios projects include Black Widow on May 1, 2020, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in Fall of 2020, The Eternals on November 6, 2020, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on February 12, 2021, WandaVision in Spring 2021, Loki in Spring 2021, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 7, 2021, Spider-Man 3 on July 16, 2021, What If…? in Summer 2021, Hawkeye in Fall 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder on November 5, 2021, and Black Panther 2 on May 6, 2022.
