/ Warning, this article contains spoilers for the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home /
Spider-Man: No Way Home has finally been unveiled to impatient fans with its share of surprises but also its slew of weaknesses. Rumors have been swirling around since the casting announcement a long time ago of Jamie Foxx (Electro) and Alfred Molina (Doctor Octopus) so much so that many uncertainties surrounded the other former villains of the Marc Webb and Sam raimi. For example, the Green Jester by Willem Dafoe was only announced in the final weeks leading up to release, as was the Sandman and the Lizard. The latter two, despite incessant rumors, only appeared for the first time in the second trailer of the film, in November 2021.
No Way Home will have unveiled to his unanimous fans the long-awaited presence of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, the two previous performers of the weaver, rather than his iconic villains. Yet these on their own are different from all the story arcs of the other villains of the MCU.
The villains of Spider-Man: No Way Home do not fall under a traditional story arc in the sense that they have already experienced one. First element: If the majority of the antagonists of the Tom holland are indirectly created by Tony stark (Adrian Toomes was part of a cleaning company that lost big contracts after being replaced by a cleaning company Stark, Mysterio is a former technician of Stark on an invention that the latter humiliated by calling him VOMIT…), these villains have their roots in another universe and in a completely different script treatment.
Those Sinisters Five Multiverses are not wicked by nature and even offer a general truce in the face of the weaver’s wish to help them. The opportunity to bring them back for a second film allows them to flesh out their psyche a little more in depth and make their desires of life from before stand out. It’s the Green boffoon which poses a real problem of choosing between two dualities: Accept your new “you” and give up the old one. An intelligent message that will have carried the Peter Parker of Tom holland far from its usual comfort.
This desire to juggle two lives will also be the leitmotif of No Way Home. Strange assures him, it is this desire to Peter Parker to be To fart but also Spiderman the same time. It is rare that a villain has pushed a superhero so far to his limits. MCU, without leaving his skin there at the end.

No Way Home goes against the trend of MCU to have villains allying with each other – instead, each of the villains in the movie have different motivations (one of them even siding with Spider-Man for the scaffolding finale – Doc Ock in this case), and they actually only find themselves briefly sharing the same provisional covenant that they all have with Spiderman in the second act of the film.
It speaks to the complex motivations behind each of the villains in the film, each of them having redemption cravings or moments that show their more human side. This reversal of the treatment of the villain almost passes Spiderman himself for an antagonist (remember that he stuck Strange in a mirror dimension who simply wants to send the antagonists back to their respective dimensions).
At the end of the movie, the villains are “Heal” their anomalies and return to their respective occupations. Strictly speaking, they do not know an “end”, nor a detour through the prison box. They simply pass from one status to another that they can pursue in their respective dimensions. In any case, many fans have successfully pointed out that the villains of No Way Home had successful trajectories. We can bet that this inspires the future creators of Marvel for their next choices.