How Spider-Man Rejoined The Marvel Universe With ‘Captain America: Civil War’

There hasn’t really been an amazing Spider-Man movie in more than 10 years. Amazing Spider-Man breathed new life into the character after the overstuffed and overstretched Spider-Man 3, but then they repeated the same mistakes with Amazing Spider-Man 2 with too much going on to really leave audiences wanting more. Sure, it made oodles of money, but even Andrew Garfield ripped into the studio notes that crippled the movie. We were left with the fate of another great comic book character hanging in the balance.

But with such great source material, how could we as a society let this happen? And how can we stop it from happening again?

Turns out, it just might take the cooperation of two studios and one unifying goal: To make Spider-Man great again (and rake in all the money that entails).

We know that our favorite Web Slinger will be back in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War (and is pretty awesome, according to James Gunn), but what led to that point was years of rights talks. Rights have slowed down and obstructed comic book characters in movies for a long time — it’s why no one could even say “Scarlet Witch” or “Quicksilver” in Age of Ultron and keeps people guessing about the future of the Fantastic Four.

Finally, after the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony knew that the character needed some help, so they came to a joint-custody style agreement: Disney and Marvel will work their magic with Spidey in their movies, while Sony benefits from added exposure and much needed good press as they reboot the franchise. Tom Holland is filling the red-and-blue spandex now, and there will undoubtedly be more Spider-Man-centric movies coming from Sony, like Sinister Six. It wasn’t exactly an easy process, but one that will certainly be worth it.

Look, studios, all we really want to see is Spider-Man back in action. It seems like we’ll get that soon, even if it’s just in the form of a Civil War cameo, but that’s still something. Going forward, though, just try and take a step back, work together, and do the Web Slinger justice, and we’ll be throwing all the money at you yet again. And hey, if you could give Sam Raimi another shot at it, we wouldn’t be complaining.

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