Uh oh. Spider-Man: Homecoming is in danger of becoming the next Spider-Man 3.
That movie, the end of the Tobey Maguire take on Marvel”s web-slinger, had the issue of being inelegantly overpacked with villains. The Sandman, Venom, and the Green Goblin – a bit much. And that was only three villains! Now Homecoming has more.
Upcoming Sony-Disney team-up Spider-Man: Homecoming has signed on yet another villain. The latest addition to the Tom Holland Spidey”s rogue gallery: Phineas Mason the Tinkerer.
… Who?
Confession: I had no idea who this dude was. Wikipedia tells me he”s a supervillain with “an almost superhuman gift of genius in engineering, able to invent sophisticated gadgets from nothing more than spare parts left over from ordinary household appliances.” Wait, engineering is a superpower now?
Tinkerer is a pretty deep cut. Even Marvel.com says, “Very little is known about the criminal known as the Tinkerer.” He did first appear in the same issue that Vulture made his debut (Amazing Spider-Man No. 2 in 1963), but the Tinkerer hasn”t made his mark like the iconic winged villain.
Michael Chernus at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Photo credit: Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Cast as the Tinkerer is Michael Chernus (you may recognize him from The Bourne Legacy or Orange Is the New Black), Deadline reported today. The Tinkerer was previously theorized by some as a possible part for Prometheus actor Logan Marshall-Green, who was cast as an unnamed villain.
Michael Keaton and Bokeem Woodbine (Fargo) are also on board to play troublemakers.
Too. Many. Villains.
My colleague Donna Dickens joked that she hopes there”s a scene where Spidey accidentally comes across a Wreck-It Ralph-style support group meeting for villains. Funny. But really now.
At least one of these guys has got to be a compelling villain. We”ve had too many uninteresting antagonists in superhero movies lately, most recently in Suicide Squad.
Once I went down the rabbit hole of Googling Tinkerer, I dug up what may be the reason they”re adding him to the lineup of Homecoming baddies: In an April 2006 issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, the Elijah Stern iteration of the Tinkerer claims he”s figured out how to use vibranium as an unlimited power source. Vibranium is huge for the MCU”s mythology and will probably continue to be key with Black Panther on the way. Maybe they felt that Stern-vibranium storyline was something to mine?
Are they packing in all these villains to set up a Sinister Six movie? If Drew Goddard”s still on board, I”d be down for that, but I don”t want Spider-Man: Homecoming to suffer on the way there.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is set for a July 7, 2017 release date, so I suppose we“ll find out what this herd of villains is all about then.