The Universal Lesson in Spider-Man: No Way Home
Over the holidays I watched Spider-Man: No-Way Home in the theater. It was a remarkable film, and it left an impression on me both because of the significance of what Marvel is doing with it’s flagship character at this point in the MCU (a character I grew up with as a comic book collecting and Sunday comics reading child of the 80s) and even more so because of the core message of the narrative: a story about growing up and facing life’s most difficult realities head on.
Spoiler alert: this article contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No-Way Home. If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to spoil the movie, save this article for later until after you’ve watched it.
Some backstory
For the first 10 years of the MCU, Marvel’s narrative largely centered around Tony Stark/Iron Man and the Avengers storyline. It was a compelling narrative about transcending ego to find true inner strength and reach full potential, and about the importance of working together with others for a common goal.
Along the way, Marvel introduced a fresh take on Spider-Man in the lovable, brilliant and witty, warm hearted and fun Peter Parker (Tom Holland).
However, counter to the previous two iterations of the big screen Spider-Man, this Peter Parker is still just a high school student barely discovering his own power and looking for a place to put it to use in an oversized world of larger-than-life superheroes.
Luckily for Parker, Tony Stark takes him under his wing as his mentor and pseudo father-figure, attempting to teach him restraint, responsibility, and a bit of patience (something Stark himself aspires to but often lacks, which probably all the more fuels his sense of obligation to teach it to the young Parker).
They have quite a journey together starting with the events of Captain America: Civil War and eventually it all culminates in the Infinity War saga as Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and friends find themselves in outer space battling for the soul of the universe (yes, it is very dramatic, and pretty fun to watch).
In the end, after Tony Stark has given his life to save the universe and defeat Thanos, he apparently had already foreseen Peter as the Avengers leader of tomorrow (see Spider-Man Far from Home and the gift of the glasses with full control of Stark Enterprises).
But Peter is still — in many ways — just a boy (or a young adult, at least).
Over the course of his journey we watch him learn many challenging lessons about responsibility, integrity, courage, and leadership. But we still have the sense that this is a person looking to the adults in his life for cues on what is the right thing to do, and for validation for who he is as a person (e.g. recall how badly Peter just didn’t want to let Mr. Stark down during his “Stark Internship Program” time).
And in a very real way, Aunt May is Peter’s guardian angel, his truest guide. Having raised him, she is the mother figure in his life who both reminds him to take care of himself and is the voice of his moral compass. She has a heart of gold, of course, so it’s easy to see how her influence has shaped the character of this hero who seems to care for others so much.
Which brings us to Spider-Man: No Way Home…
The Spider-Man: No Way Home story spends a lot of its energy doing some much needed cleanup work to reconcile for Spider-Man fans the inconsistency of having three different Spider-Man movie series and actors between Sony (Tobey Maguire in 2002, 2004, and 2007; Andrew Garfield in 2012 and 2014) and Marvel Studios with a fairly common solution in the whole alternate universes deal.
In short, after Peter Parker (the one in the current MCU) has been exposed as being Spider-Man publicly via a video clip that Mysterio apparently leaked to The Daily Bugle (see the post-credits scene from Spider-Man: Far From Home), Parker is now left trying to find a way to conceal his identity again and seeks the help of Dr. Strange who attempts to cast a spell to make everyone forget he is Spider-Man.
However, after a lot of interference from the very nervous Peter Parker during the casting of the spell, Dr. Strange aborts the whole process, but apparently only after a side-effect of the not-quite-finished spell being that anyone in other alternate universes who already knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man were somehow teleported into the current universe, including the other Peter Parkers and their villains from those universes (i.e. from the main characters from the other film franchises — this is the cleaning up part).
The journey of growing up
At this point in the story, we are watching our protagonist experience one of the first real challenges many of us experience in our journey of growing up: realizing that life is far more complicated that we’d usually like it to be, and often not easily fixable.
Peter is no stranger to pain. Countless battles have inflicted him with real wounds, the disappointment of failure, the heartbreak of failed or ended relationships, and the pain of loss.
But Peter is about to experience his most devastating loss yet.
In an inspiring, admirable, and well intentioned attempt to heal the villains of his alternate universe counter-parts before sending them back to their universe healed instead of as the villains they were, something goes terribly wrong (again, Peter is facing one of life’s givens: things don’t always go according to plan) and the Green Goblin attacks both Peter and Aunt May, mortally wounding Aunt May.
It’s especially unexpected for Peter because Aunt May was part of Peter’s motivation to see the best in the villains he was trying to heal and attempt to help as she explicitly invited him to trust Norman Osborn (Green Goblin).
So when he betrays them both, attacking them, you can feel the disappointment and frustration in Peter.
Before Peter or Aunt May realizes how badly she is wounded, she turns to Peter and says the line that will surely form the foundation of his conscience as he continues his journey.
She says, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
It is a lesson we all need to learn, and a lesson we hope that all with great power have at some point learned.
Then moments later, Aunt May is dead, and Peter is completely devastated at the loss of the person who loved him most faithfully and unconditionally in his life.
Facing reality with courage and compassion
In the next scene, we find Peter sitting on the roof of his school trying to make sense of his life and the loss he has just faced.
He is in a place of deep inner pain and perhaps shock.
Fortunately for Peter, there are friends who love him deeply and choose to meet him in his pain. M.J. and Ned, and the two alternate universe Peter Parker’s show up to help Peter in his time of need.
M.J. and Ned embrace Peter and hold him in his pain. They are the archetype of unconditional love experienced from a supportive community in the moment of the darkest despair.
And they connect Peter with his alter-ego’s from the alternate universes by bringing the other two Peter Parker’s along for a conversation (another interpretation of this scene is that when we find the unconditional love of our friends who hold space for us exactly where we are, in our most broken moments, we are able to connect with the voice of our fractured selves within that often hold the deepest and most compassionate wisdom for us to hear).
In their conversation, what we watch unfold is the great question that life asks each one of us: What will you do with your pain?
It is a question that often defines who we are, and who we chose to become.
It is not said explicitly in the film, but that is the essential question Peter is facing and that his friends are helping him face in the dialog of this scene.
Initially, Peter sees the pain as too much, and wants to simply hide from it by pushing the button on the little box that Dr. Strange created that would send everyone from the alternate universes back to their universe immediately (something Dr. Strange wanted to do from the beginning but Peter interrupted and intentionally chose not to do because he believed that trying to help them would be worth the effort).
But now that he’s discovered that his desire to help has cost Aunt May her life he is doubting his own ability to help, he is deeply disappointed at the outcome of his efforts, and he is ready to give up and end the story right there.
Thankfully, Peter has some wonderful friends. The other alternate universe Peter Parkers relate to Peter’s pain from their own stories of loss and failure and help Peter recognize that things not going according to plan is often just how life works, and it doesn’t mean that our efforts are in vain.
Eventually, Peter chooses to face his pain and transform it rather than hide from it or allow it to make him cynical, jaded, or disconnected from life.
And that’s the universal lesson in this story: Pain is an unavoidable given of life. The question is “what will you do with your pain?”
The great invitation of life is to transform your pain into something beautiful — whether it is love, healing, forgiveness, compassion, kindness, creativity, growth, or some other motivation with generative results.
It’s a beautiful invitation, and it is a message that our culture needs now more than ever as we are so often tempted to respond to pain with something much more destructive like blame, retaliation, indignation, or a myriad of other forms of arguing with reality.
A story about growing up
I’m on my own journey of growing up. Even though I’m a 40 year old adult with children, in many ways I’m still learning what it means to be a healthy, mature adult.
This year hit me with several of my own difficult realities to face (fortunately nothing quite so bizarre as alternate universe villains showing up in my life to attack me and my family).
So I can appreciate the journey that this fictional character who has captured my imagination for decades is on in a very personal way. It is a story that for me seemed divinely timed to speak to me in my own journey (thanks Marvel Studios). It’s funny how movies, songs, and stories can be like that.
I’m looking forward both to seeing where my own journey of facing reality drawing from the strength and character that I’ve cultivated within me will take me on, and to watching where the MCU’s Spider-Man will go from here.
On a final note, it was especially nostalgic and creatively satisfying to see where this story ended.
At the end of the film, due to the whole only way to resolve the alternate universe thing plus Peter Parker’s exposed identity being for Dr. Strange to wipe everyone’s memory of Peter Parker entirely, we find Spider-Man where many of us who grew up reading the Amazing Spider-Man (comic series or Sunday comics storyline) found him as kids: a bachelor living alone in a cheap NYC apartment trying to make ends meet by taking pictures of himself fighting local criminals and selling it to The Daily Bugle to pay rent.
There was even a nod to the vintage Spider-Man costume (bright blue and red) which Peter sewed by hand himself in his apartment.
In some sense it was sad because Peter has now lost everyone and everything he relied on.
And yet it was also inspiring to see the courage and conviction that he demonstrated in making that call to allow himself to be isolated from everyone he know because it reflected his maturity in getting to a point where he knew he could survive completely on his own if he needed to.
After all, in many ways, isn’t having the courage to stand on your own and draw from your inner strength what growing up is about?
Having lost everyone and everything, we find that the hero is able to start afresh drawing on all that he learned from his experiences so far.
The journey of growing up is not so much about what we gain, accumulate, or accomplish — but about what we learn and who we become in the process of the journey, and the people who help us get there along the way who remain in our hearts and minds forever, whether present in our lives or not.
And then, even if there is no way home, home is always with us because it is within us.
