On the surface, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a multiversal jaunt that seeks to bring forward familiar faces to the filmgoing fandom. Alfred Molina is back in the hot seat as Doc Ock, Willem Dafoe’s Goblin pumpkin bombs return, and Tobey Maguire - though not physically present in the trailer - is on the tip of everyone’s tongues. However, there’s more to this latest Tom Holland outing than a two hour trip down memory lane.
Through Doctor Strange’s spell, it’s clear No Way Home takes cues from the comic book One More Day. Casual MCU fans may not be aware of it, but the story is infamous amongst hardened comic book fans. It was a 2007 Spider-Man story that launched on the tail end of Civil War with one goal in mind - undoing Peter Parker’s unmasking. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada controversially wanted to unravel years of Spidey storytelling, such as Peter and Mary-Jane’s marriage, and that’s precisely what he did. The idea was that Marvel could bring Spider-Man back to basics, making him a relatable everyman again - highlighting the very quality that made him a superhero staple to begin with. He would now be back to struggling with women, money, juggling his identity, and all the other tropes synonymous with Spidey.
One More Day was slated across the board. It was a rare moment of unison between critics and audiences alike. The story disregarded years of creative talents’ work in developing Spider-Man, erasing his marriage, his job, and undoing deaths like Harry Osborn’s. It was the polar opposite of character development. The Ultimate Spider-Man was running adjacent and had already brought classic Spider-Man back into the limelight, so with One More Day, fans no longer had two distinct comic runs to enjoy. It was panned at the time, and has been hailed as one of the worst Spider-Man comics ever since.
Despite its infamy and the profound effect it had on Spider-Man’s run, it’s being re-told in the MCU. Marvel Studios might be tackling an impossible adaptation, but it seems to be pulling it off, and that’s down to significant changes the trailer has already highlighted. No Way Home’s trailer shows us Doctor Strange casting a spell to make the world forget that Peter is Spider-Man, but in the comics, he refused. Instead, it was Mephisto under the guise of a little girl that offered aid, changing time to ensure that Peter and Mary-Jane never married. Whether this really is Doctor Strange is something we’ve debated even here at TheGamer, but it’s clear the movie is borrowing from One More Day while taking dramatic license with it.
Everything will be much more cohesive in the MCU, with No Way Home tied to the multiversal saga that ropes in WandaVision, Loki, Ant-Man, What If..?, and the Doctor Strange sequel, In the Multiverse of Madness. It also connects to previous films outside the MCU, bringing in the Maguire-Spidey villains and the Garfield-Spidey villains. That gives the story far more depth rather than being a throwaway attempt to retcon within canon - it has wider ramifications that go above and beyond just Spider-Man.
It also introduces consequences, something sorely lacking in One More Day. Peter got everything he wanted and couldn’t even remember the price he paid himself - there’s no lesson learned there. Writers since have tried to give his deal narrative weight, but it’s piling on top of an arc that was done and dusted the day it was released. Retroactively trying to make it mean something is alienating to new audiences, but it also dredges up a past that comic readers are desperate to forget. No Way Home has a clear difference - Peter seems to remember and will have to deal with the consequences of his actions. The moment people forget is not where the story concludes - it’s where it begins. The multiverse folds in on itself and begins to crumble, leaking into the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, leaving Peter and Strange to clean it up.
Should it be successful, the spell also has extra ramifications for our MCU Peter that wasn’t present in One More Day. Peter’s ties to Stark will be over. Happy won’t be able to bail him out with fancy tech and mountains of cash, leaving him and Aunt May to fend for themselves again. Everything would be back to the days of underoos and pre-Avengers adventures. Those days have been referenced on screen, but we’ve never actually seen struggling high school nerd Peter Parker in the MCU. He was the kid with ties to a rich businessman, which is a complete juxtaposition to what made Parker such an intriguing character. He was a working class hero, struggling to get by, juggling the need to pay for rent with the incessant call to do-goodery.
One More Day brought Parker back to his roots, but at the cost of 50 years worth of narrative growth. Undoing all of that felt cheap. It was unnecessary too. You could still jump into the old comics and get a taste of Parker in his… well, not glory days - his shambling about, struggling to live a normal life days. Having never seen that in the MCU, going ‘back’ to it will, in actuality, be the first time we see it, and that makes No Way Home’s twist on One More Day fresh and important. Maybe we’ll even see Spider-Man grow into an independent hero that can stand on his own, without Tony fighting his battles.