My Marvel hot take is that Tom Holland only has one actual Spider-Man movie in his trilogy, and that’s the first one. Despite the fact that Spider-Man: Homecoming doesn’t feature a single scene of him swinging from skyscrapers in Manhattan, it’s still the only film in the trilogy to focus on Peter Parker’s hometown — and not Europe or the multiverse. Although an unconventional Spider-Man movie compared to what came before, Homecoming is the only one of Holland’s that shows him as a street-level hero helping his community with his boots firmly on the ground in his traditional Queens settings. It’s also the only film to truly nail Peter’s everyday school life, striking a balance of realism and faithfulness to the character the subsequent sequels ignore (and the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions never quite captured).

The more I rewatch Spider-Man: Homecoming (which just landed on the free streamer Tubi), the more I find myself hoping that Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be the return to form promised in No Way Home’s final shot.

One of the biggest reasons I hope Brand New Day is more like Homecoming is because of the Vulture. He reflected the sort of small-time crooks from Spidey’s rogues’ gallery that kept him tethered to street-level crime.........

© Polygon