The Photo of Spider-Man Holding Cap’s Shield From ‘Civil War’ Worried Some MCU Fans at First

It may seem odd to the average person that Marvel fans are still going on about a scene in a trailer from a movie that came out four years ago. Even before the pandemic crisis increased, Reddit often stirred up discussions of movies, trailers and scenes that are long in the rear-view mirror. 

Now that the pandemic has intensified, forcing millions of Americans to hunker down in their homes, this is only going to be happening more often. Example: a discussion of the moment when the MCU’s Spider-Man first appeared in Captain America: Civil War.

Marvel rolled out Spider-Man slowly

To put the conversation into context, it’s important to remember how Marvel treated Captain America: Civil War. It was essentially a dry run at the Avengers two-parter everyone knew was coming, with almost every character that ever appeared in the MCU on hand. 

Even though the earlier movie was called Captain America: Civil War, the movie, was for all intents and purposes an Avengers movie, minus Hulk and Thor. 

The first trailer threw down the basic premise: Steve Rogers was trying to protect Bucky, who had been brainwashed as the Winter Soldier. This put him at odds with the other Avengers, particularly Tony Stark, and lines were drawn: were you Team Cap or Team Iron Man?

To many observers, what made the drama so compelling was that both sides made valid points. No one was entirely right, and no one was entirely wrong.

Fans had also heard Spider-Man would be joining the gang, but the first teaser did not reveal him at all. But the second saved him for the capper as he webbed Captain America’s shield (and Cap’s wrists), pulled the shield up and said simply, “Hey everyone.” Predictably, most fans lost their minds, but surprisingly, not everyone was thrilled. 

Fans thought maybe the Spidey moment in the trailer was a joke

On a Reddit post, fans were discussing that particular image of Spidey with Cap’s shield with the topic-starter saying, “Four years ago this image broke the Internet. ” Some responses were positive and nostalgic, with one fan saying the eyes narrowing was mind-blowing. Another responded that even though the image online was a still, they could practically see the eyes narrowing like it was an optical illusion. 

But another fan confessed, “It’s funny because I remember the comments about it were really negative. People said it looked like he’d been added to the trailer as an after-thought and that it looked really bad.  Proving that point, someone else wrote, “I hated it. I thought that it was so dumb and completely unnecessary, like they threw some pointless tech to give him more emotion. Friggin loved it when I saw the movie. I was way wrong.”

This is an all too common example of fans being sure something will suck and then being surprised. They said Michael Keaton would make a terrible Batman. They said Heath Ledger would be a terrible Joker.  Cut to years later, and fans are nostalgic for both. Now, however, fans are starting to be nostalgic for seeing movies in theaters, and with Black Widow being delayed indefinitely due to the pandemic, will other Marvel films follow?

Could ‘Spider-Man 3’ be delayed too?

The third MCU Spider-Man movie would seem to be safe, because it’s not coming out until July of next year, with production slated to start this July in Atlanta, where many Marvel movies are shot. Disney and fans surely hope the crisis will have abated by then, but even if it does, it’s highly likely that things won’t be “normal.”

Marvel movies are often linked together, if not in the main stories, then in the famous end credits scenes Marvel has made popular. So with Black Widow on the back burner now, that means something will have to change.

If Black Widow feeds into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+, or if it feeds into Eternals, either the whole release calendar will have to shift, or Marvel will have to re-edit the movies to remove the links. And even the TV shows are in question, since all of them have been shut down. 

The bottom line is, question marks hover over everything right now, since no one knows for sure when this pandemic will ease off. At the very least, in the meantime, fans will always have the old movies to debate.