It has been five years since we saw the skyline of New York, bedecked with the webs of its most famous superhero, Spider-Man. For actor Tom Holland, the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on the tenth year since he was introduced in Captain America: Civil War. Before you get to the theatres to watch the upcoming film, let us take a look back the journey of Holland's iteration of Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
Captain America: Civil War
Tony Stark recruits a superhero he saw on YouTube? Peter Parker is a school-going teenager from Queens, who has been masquerading as the wall-crawler without the knowledge of his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). He is recruited by Tony Stark/Ironman (Robert Downey Jr) to stop Captain America (Chris Evans) and his from escaping Germany, so that they can save Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), who is framed as a criminal. His reward is a high tech supersuit from the billionaire superhero.
Spider-Man: Homecoming
While Spider-Man gets busy with his suit upgrade, Peter Parker and his best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) are outcasts. When Spider-Man comes across the heists by Adrian Toomes/The Vulture (Michael Keaton) and his crew, who masquerade as waste management crew, he discovers the sale of high grade weapons. In his quest to stop these dealings, he earns the ire of Stark, who strips him of the super suit in order to teach Peter Parker a lesson. As Parker resumes ordinary school life and comes out of his shell to take his crush, Liz (Laura Harrier) to the Homecoming event in his school, he discovers Liz's father is Toomes, who has planned to steal from Stark Industries. In a final showdown, with only his power and his grit, Parker proves himself worthy of his mantle to Stark. Oh, Parker also meets another outcast called MJ (Zendaya), but we will get back to her.
Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame
When Thanos (Josh Brolin) brings the fight to New York, Peter joins Ironman, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Wong (Benedict Wong) in trying to route out the invaders. Parker shows time and again to the veteran superheroes his strategic brilliance, whether it saving Doctor Strange or helping Ironman in trying to defeat Thanos. But ultimately, as Thanos completes collecting the Infinity Stones to decimate half the universe, so that the other half lives, Spider-Man turns to dust in front of his father figure, Ironman.
Five years later, Ironman an the other living superheroes reverses Thanos' act and brings back the dead including Spider-Man. But alas, he watches Ironman die, after killing every iteration of Thanos throughout every universe across every timeline.
Spider-Man: Far From Home
On a school trip to Europe, Parker has only one goal, confess his crush to MJ. But the five elements band together to delay the confession, as the Elementals attack, but the response is given by Quentin Beck/Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is tasked by SHIELD to ward them off. But true to his moniker Beck's mission is to get close to Parker, as he holds the key to the entire tech arsenal of Tony Stark, Beck's former employer. In the light of Ironman's death, Beck started to become Parker's mentor and help him trust his Spidey-sense, but in the end betrayal struck. As his dying act Beck reveals to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Peter appeals to Doctor Strange to make everyone forget that he is Spider-Man. But hinderances in that spell cause supervillains from multiple universes to pop in. That includes Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Dr Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Flint Marko/Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Dr Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans), Max Dillon/Electro (Jamie Foxx). Not willing to let them meet their fates, ie. death, Peter tries to save them, but in this process loses Aunt May. In her dying words, she gives Peter his most important lesson, "With great power, comes great responsibility." In a stroke of luck he is joined by other Peter Parkers: Tobey Maguire's iteration from Sam Riami's Spider-Man films, Andrew Garfield's iteration from Marc Webb's Spider-Man films. They teach him the importance of not losing sight of doing the right things, even in the face of great personal loss. But this costs him everything. In his last request to Doctor Strange, he wishes for everyone to forget who Peter Parker is, resulting in the last two people in his life, Ned and MJ forget him. He restarts his life as Peter Parker in a low rent apartment in New York, while continuing to be Spider-Man.
The Road Ahead
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day we also see the appearance of Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) from the two Daredevil series, The Punisher standalone series, and the special, The Punisher: One Last Kill. While a long road for him, he joins Peter in a fight against an unknown villain. In a smattering array of heroes and villains, Peter has to find his purpose as Spider-Man.