Heroes and the Creation of Myth: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Superheroes occupy a nearly-unique position in the history of human character creation. They are creatures of myth, but at the same time people with the concerns of human beings, even when they are themselves alien. This puts them in a position to not only be the subjects of myth, but to interact with and in some cases control the creation of the mythology which surrounds them.

In this series I set out to analyze the different ways heroes participate in the creation of their own mythology. I've decided to begin with the largest single continuity ever attempted in film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was going to watch or rewatch the eighteen existing MCU films in order to look at them specifically from this perspective in the time leading up to the release of The Avengers: Infinity War. I totally didn't get there in time, but I'm going to finish anyway. Today I'm looking at Iron Man 4... wait. No, this is Spider-Man: Homecoming.

I really wish I was going to spend this post talking about Spider-Man. On a personal level I really enjoy this particular nerdy, wisecracking Peter Parker, not to mention Ned and MJ and Martin Starr's lovely role as the Academic Decathlon adviser. But Peter the ur-character, the Peter Parker who is trying desperately to promote the myth of Spider-Man through his photography while clashing with J. Jonah Jameson's own vision of the myth of Spider-Man, is completely absent from this movie. It's one of the most powerful narratives of a superhero fighting to maintain control of his own myth, and it's disappointing that this movie chose to make its myth-making plot about Tony Stark's hubris and daddy issues instead.

But it did, and so I'm stuck with it, even though I feel like I've talked about the dude way more than I ever wanted to already. Would you hate me if I just skipped this and went on to Black Panther? Well, it wouldn't feel right to me. I set out on this quest, and I'm going to finish it all. Anyway, it's not really surprising that Tony Stark's thoughtlessness drives the plot of this movie, because this is the MCU and most of the bad things that happen have their root cause in one Stark or another. If we get to Avengers 4 and find out that Thanos' population-control ideas came from Tony's grandpa, don't say I didn't warn you.

This time around it goes all the way back to Tony's actions after the first Avengers movie and the cleanup from the Chitauri War. Stark and the government really quite sensibly want control over the wrecked alien technology scattered around the city, but by the Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. methodology they go after it with authority, trampling everyone who was there first. That includes Adrian Toomes, our villain for the piece, who gets the first part of his revenge by walking off with a truck full of Chitauri weapons.

Of course that's not enough for Toomes, or he wouldn't be much of a villain. He wraps his humiliation inside a myth, casting himself as "the little guy" to Tony Stark and the Avengers' massive military industrial operation, and in the beginning he's not all wrong. But pretty soon the little guy has a big house in the suburbs, an Audi, and a high-tech flying Vulture suit; everything an upwardly-mobile small businessman aspires to. (Although the Audi may not be so special; almost everyone in this movie has one. Only Aunt May misses out, and she drives a Volvo.)

But back to who we're supposed to be paying attention to: Iron Man. He has nominated himself as a father figure to Peter, along with everything Tony would want in a father: neglect, surveillance, condescension, disregard, and bailing Peter out of dangerous situations without actually solving them. I really hope Pepper is taking notes.

After Peter nearly prevents Vulture from destroying the Staten Island Ferry, and Iron Man has to bail him out at the last second again, Tony comes up with perhaps the only piece of real wisdom he's ever had: "If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it." It's a credo he should consider with regard to himself sometime.

But rather than giving Peter some time to reflect on that idea, Tony takes the good Spider-Man suit away from him and does nothing about Vulture, leaving Peter to track down and defeat a super-villain with nothing but his pajamas. Tony tries to recast this as some sort of test after Peter has been successful, and Peter is anxious to buy into that idea. But if it really was a test it was a sadistic one. If it wasn't it's merely profoundly irresponsible followed by gaslighting.

Either way, when Peter turns down Tony's offer to join the Avengers at the end of the movie, one can't help but be relieved. Any teenager blindly following this guy is bound to end up somewhere really unpleasant.

Previous entries in this series:
Part 1: Iron Man (2008)
Part 2: The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Part 3: Iron Man 2 (2010)
Part 4: Thor (2011)
Part 5: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Part 6: The Avengers (2012)
Part 7: Iron Man 3 (2013)
Part 8: Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Part 9: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Part 10: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Part 11: The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Part 12: Ant-Man (2015)
Part 13: Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Part 14: Doctor Strange (2016)
Part 15: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017)

_{All images in this post are from Spider-Man: Homecoming, copyright 2017 Marvel, used in this post under Fair Use: Criticism. Provided courtesy of FanCaps.net}