Spider-Man: No Way Home Concept Art Reveals Another Supervillain Almost Appeared

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" was a whole ordeal, wasn't it? Tom Holland's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man had to deal with the fallout from Mysterio unmasking him to the whole world with essentially a really convincing deep fake. He also had to worry about getting into college after half the world turned against him for "killing" Quentin Beck. Oh, and he had to rehabilitate and return a cadre of displaced supervillains to their own universes before they caused the entire multiverse to collapse in on itself. Of course, that's nothing Spider-Man (or a couple of Spider-Men) can't handle, right? Well, thanks to some newly released concept art, it looks like young Peter Parker almost had one other problem on his hands: The Sinister Six.

In the most recent chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's resident web-slinger's story, he had to face off with a few new yet familiar foes: Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and Electro (Jamie Foxx). However, at some point during the film's development, Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio was thrown into the mix as well. If this happened, then we would have finally gotten the long-awaited big screen debut of one of the most feared and ferocious factions in all of Marvel Comics history.

Unfortunately, for one reason or another, Beck's return (or even the debut of a Beck from another universe) was cut from Jon Watts' third Spidey film. However, we do get a small glimpse of what it would have looked like to have Mysterio involved in the climactic final battle at the Statue of Liberty thanks to some previously unreleased concept art from "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

Andrew Reeder

This art can be found at the personal website of digital artist and set designer Andrew Reeder. He's no stranger to the House of Ideas as his resume includes work on "Avengers: Endgame," "Avengers: Infinity War," and "Captain America: Civil War." He has also contributed to various other Disney productions such as "Oz The Great and Powerful," "Tomorrowland," and "Tron: Legacy." But the section of interest to us right now is the "Spider-Man: No Way Home" section of his website. There, you can see a number of digital models and lighting studies for various locations throughout the movie. But the highlight of the gallery is definitely the piece featuring Doctor Strange and Mysterio hovering in the sky around the Statue of Liberty and charging up their energy blasts.

At the end of the day, due to the many changes in the script, this scene never came to be. And as cool as it would have been to see the Sinister Six, I feel like it's okay that the group was left out. As weird as it is to say, the movie was perfectly balanced with its five villains, and Mysterio essentially had done what he needed to do during his time in the MCU. Messing with the delicate balance of the this already jam-packed movie could have thrown off the whole thing. Sure, in order to really earn it and do it right, it will probably be much more difficult to build up to a live-action Sinister Six again after this.

Although, "Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse" could surely have some fun with the group. Too bad that we'll have to wait until 2023 (or at least later this year when a new trailer drops) to see if they go down that route.