The New 'Spider-Man' Movie Will Feature Other Marvel Characters Because Of Course It Will

The Marvel Cinematic Universe understands the inherent joys of a connected superhero world – various characters from all corners of the world can brush shoulders, team up, and occasionally battle it out. You pick up an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man and you get a scene where Peter Parker stops by Hank Pym's lab for assistance. You read a Daredevil story and Black Widow shows up to help out. This isn't exclusive to Marvel, but the company invented the modern concept of a shared universe back in the '60s. It's kind of their thing.

The film version of the shared Marvel universe has proven incredibly rewarding. Bruce Banner can pop up in Iron Man 3, Falcon can show up in Ant-Man, and so on. Did anyone think that the new Spider-Man movie would not take advantage of this? If there were any doubts, they were just put to rest: other Marvel characters will play a role in the next Spidey adventure.

Entertainment Weekly, who gets all of the big Marvel stories these days, spoke with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who had this to say on the subject:

He is in the universe now, and the fun of the universe is that characters go back and forth.

Is that enough of a "yes" for us to roll with? Probably. Sure. Why not? Feige declined to comment on what MCU characters may play a role in director Jon Watts' currently untitled film, but Captain America: Civil War director Joe Russo joked that it would be the Great Lakes Avengers, a team of D-list superheroes who worked under the watchful eye of Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Russo shouldn't joke about such things, because I would love to see an actual Great Lakes Avengers movie.

So now we have to spitball about which characters would be good fit for a Spider-Man movie, which will star Tom Holland as the latest cinematic incarnation of the webslinger. The most obvious option is Daredevil, since he's New York City's other street-level crimefighter, but Marvel's film division and television division aren't playing nice right now, so that's never going to happen. Another possibility is Captain America, since he's also a New Yorker and may have a thing or two to teach the young Peter Parker about great power and great responsibility. However, we have no idea where Cap will be after the events of Civil War and Spidey is officially on Team Iron Man in that movie, so that also feels a little unlikely.

So it's got to be Tony Stark, right? After all, Spider-Man sides with him during Civil War and his new suit is supposedly a Stark creation. Plus, this will create an interesting new dynamic for the MCU's most famous face – how does the aloof and eccentric Tony react when he's called upon to mentor a young superhero? Plus, we know that Holland won the part after an arduous audition process that involved chemistry tests with Robert Downey Jr. And double plus, this would be a way to keep the still-popular character in play despite the fact that there are no solo Iron Man movies on the horizon.

So there you go. We'll probably see Iron Man in some capacity when the new Spider-Man movie opens on July 7, 2017.