In 2018, Marvel’s Cinematic Universe was flourishing. The studio had come a long way from the all-but-certain bankruptcy it faced in the early ‘00s — granted, it’d managed to save itself by pawning the rights to its most popular (and profitable) characters, Spider-Man included. But by building an empire on the shoulders of virtual nobodies like Iron Man and Captain America, Marvel became a juggernaut on the big screen. It’d even gained enough clout to lease Spidey from his stewards at Sony Pictures, earning him his official MCU debut in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming.
