Spider-Man 2 Spoils How Doc Ock Returns In No Way Home
Spider-Man 2's ending secretly spoils how Alfred Molina's Doc Ock returns in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home.
How Alfred Molina's Doc Ock returns in Spider-Man: No Way Home is an important question, and Spider-Man 2 may have already spoiled it. After the world learns he's secretly Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) turns to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in the first No Way Home trailer. Spider-Man asks to make his secret identity a secret again, and Doctor Strange wants to help. However, something goes wrong while Doctor Strange attempts a memory wipe spell on the world, and it ends up opening a hole in the Multiverse. Now, Alfred Molina's Doc Ock and other past Spider-Man villains can make their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Doctor Strange's spell even appears to affect Venom: Let There Be Carnage. In a Venom 2 post-credits scene, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and Venom watch TV in a hotel room when there's a bright yellow light, and the world around them changes. Brock and Venom are suddenly in a much nicer room, and there's footage of Tom Holland's Spider-Man on the TV. Specifically, the footage shows the Far From Home moment when J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) reveals Parker as Spider-Man. Venom approaches the TV screen, licks Holland's image, and says, "That guy." Thus, Doctor Strange transported Venom into the MCU, and the antihero knows he has a history with Spider-Man.
Spider-Man 2 may secretly reveal how Doc Ock shows up in No Way Home. In Spider-Man 2, robotic AI tentacle arms corrupt Doc Ock, turning him evil and convincing him that his dangerous fusion reactor experiment is a good idea. However, the fusion reactor, which looks like a miniature version of the sun, could threaten New York City, so Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man has to put an end to it. Eventually, Spider-Man helps Doc Ock break out of the tentacles' control. However, Molina's character realizes he has to drown the fusion reactor in the river to stop it. So, in the end, Doc Ock disappears into the water, along with the yellow, glowing orb. In doing so, the villain provides No Way Home with the perfect opportunity to bring him back.
The yellow fusion reactor paves the way for Doc Ock's comeback. When talking about reprising his role, Molina explained in an interview that Doc Ock would return from the point where he goes into the river. With that in mind, the fusion reactor comes into play. When Doctor Strange attempts his spell in No Way Home, it creates yellow light. This yellow light seemingly shows up when Venom gets transported into the MCU. Since the fusion reactor in Spider-Man 2 also shows a yellow light as Doc Ock disappears in the river, the villain's final moments could translate seamlessly into No Way Home. The new Spider-Man film could even repurpose footage from Spider-Man 2, showing the yellow light from the fusion reactor meshing with the light from Strange's spell and bringing Doc Ock into the MCU.
Marvel has a history of retconning past movie moments to work in new ways, so repurposing the Spider-Man 2 scene is nothing new. For instance, the studio retroactively put Spider-Man into a past MCU film. Following the release of Iron Man 2, fans speculated that a young child in the movie was Peter Parker as a kid. Tom Holland later confirmed that Marvel liked the fan theory, and now the studio acts as if Parker was in Iron Man 2 all along. By retconning Doc Ock's Spider-Man 2 death to fit seamlessly into Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel can continue to put a new twist on its past.
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