Tom Holland’s Spider-Man received one of the most depressing fates at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film sees Peter Parker / Spider-Man team up with alternate reality versions of himself and Doctor Strange. However, Spider-Man’s quest to erase the knowledge of his secret identity leaves him alone and separated from his friends by the end.
A new theory shared online highlights a similarly grim and tragic backstory for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. The theory uses earlier MCU entries and trivia to craft a compelling thread that touches upon the fates of Peter Parker’s parents in the MCU. Here is what the theory says of Parker’s parents and why their fate is even more depressing than the ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
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Depressing Theory Reveals the Fate of Spider-Man’s Parents in the MCU
Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man charted a drastically different course in the MCU as the character’s origin story was never explored on screen. As a result, details about his childhood, which include traumatic events such as his parents’ demise, are never revealed to the viewers. However, a new theory from the YouTube channel JustTheNobodys sheds some light on the fates of Peter Parker’s parents in the MCU.
The theory first establishes that Peter Parker’s parents died during his childhood as evidenced by his story in the comics, and the earlier film iterations of the character played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. However, this event is never referenced in the MCU.
JustTheNobodys theorized that we have already seen how the MCU Peter Parker’s parents died. The hosts then discussed how the kid Iron Man saved during the events of Iron Man 2, was a young Peter Parker, a theory Tom Holland has himself confirmed in the past.
The film features a scene where Justin Hammer’s robots cause mass destruction during the Stark Expo. As a result, the hosts theorized the following:
“So theory is, what if Justin Hammer’s robots actually killed Peter Parker’s parents? In the MCU, as we see, there was a lot of destruction and possibly a lot of deaths.”
The theory is a compelling one as it uses preexisting canon information about Peter Parker’s past in the MCU and combines it with his comic book backstory.
As a result, there is some solid evidence to support that Peter Parker’s parents were killed during the events of Iron Man 2, thus resulting in him being an orphan. Consequently, the theory makes Peter Parker’s backstory even more tragic than losing his friends and Aunt May by the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Sony and Marvel Reportedly at Odds Over Spider-Man 4
2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home was Tom Holland’s most recent outing as the Friendly Neighborhood Web-Crawler. A fourth film in the franchise has been in development since 2019. However, work on the script for the fourth installment in Holland’s Spider-Man franchise was put on hold due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
In January 2024, it was reported that Kevin Feige and Marvel wanted the fourth installment to be more grounded and focused on the street side of the MCU. However, Sony was reportedly not on board with the idea and had their own plans, which involved the return of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker / Spider-Man. The yet-untitled fourth Spider-Man film starring Tom Holland currently does not have a known release date.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video and other VOD platforms.
