Marvel Is Finally Paying Off A Spider-Man Villain Tease The MCU Set Up 6 Years Ago

Before Spider-Man returns in his fourth solo movie, Marvel will explore another version of the web-slinger in the animated series Spider-Man: Freshman Year, through which it will finally pay off a villain tease set up years ago. After a lot of speculation about his arrival at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland) finally joined this universe in Captain America: Civil War, and has since starred in three solo movies – Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Spider-Man has also joined other MCU heroes in huge battles, as he did in Avengers: Endgame’s Battle of Earth, so he has faced a variety of villains.

Spider-Man’s first MCU villain was Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton), though with him came other villains that were quickly defeated. Far From Home saw Spider-Man dealing with Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) and No Way Home brought back villains from past Spider-Man movies in a multiversal crossover. However, Spider-Man: Homecoming set up a classic Spider-Man villain from the comics, but the MCU has failed to pay this off – but now, thanks to Spider-Man: Freshman Year, Marvel is finally giving this villain a chance, though not as the audience would have expected.

Spider-Man: Freshman Year Will Finally Pay Off Homecoming’s Scorpion Tease

Spider-Man: Homecoming introduced Mac Gargan (Michael Mando), a criminal and one of Toomes’ potential buyers of Chitauri and Ultron-based weapons. Gargan couldn’t complete his buy as Spider-Man followed him and had him arrested, but the confrontation with Spider-Man left him with a big scar across his left eye. Gargan was last seen in the mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: Homecoming, where he came across Toomes in prison and told him about a rumor he heard about Toomes knowing Spider-Man’s identity, and he wanted to know as he wanted revenge against the web-slinger. Toomes lied and claimed to not know, and Gargan hasn’t been seen since then.

While Gargan waits for a chance to go full Scorpion in the MCU, Marvel is paying off Homecoming’s tease in the animated series Spider-Man: Freshman Year. The series is set in an alternate reality from the MCU’s main continuity and will explore Peter Parker’s origin story and early days as Spider-Man, which the main timeline skipped. Spider-Man: Freshman Year will have Norman Osborn as Peter’s mentor (as Tony Stark did in the main timeline) and feature Doctor Octopus and Marc Gargan/Scorpion as villains. At the time of writing, it’s unknown what Scorpion’s backstory is about in Freshman Year, so it could be similar to the one in the main timeline or completely different.

Will Scorpion Ever Appear In The Mainline MCU?

By having Scorpion as one of its villains, Spider-Man: Freshman Year allows the audience to see what he would be like in the MCU, but it also raises more questions about his future in the main MCU timeline. While Marvel has ignored its own tease for years and two movies, it’s not too late for Gargan to become Scorpion, and it’s thanks to his comic book story. In it, Gargan becomes Scorpion after J. Jonah Jameson hires him as the subject for an experiment with the purpose of helping him catch Spider-Man.

Jameson is now present and active in the MCU, being the one who made Spider-Man’s identity public, but after the final spell in No Way Home, Jameson no longer knows who Spider-Man is. Jameson, then, could be looking for ways to catch Spider-Man, leading him to experiment on someone like Gargan. Another possibility is if Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) returns in Spider-Man 4, as he could be the one who hires Gargan to experiment on him. Gargan becoming Scorpion doesn’t have to be only for Spider-Man: Freshman Year, as he can still be the main villain in the MCU’s main timeline.