After Sony dropped the newest Morbius trailer Monday, many fans have mixed feelings about a cameo from Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes, AKA Vulture.
While Vulture is a Spider-Man bad guy, and Morbius takes place in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, he also has inextricable ties to the separate (but related) Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Cinema’s first portrayal of the Vulture character was in the MCU in Spider-Man: Homecoming. In fact, his origin is directly tied to Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark since he was originally a scrap contractor cleaning up Stark Tower after the Battle of New York.
The Tom Holland-helmed Spider-Man films are sort of the overlapping section of the Venn diagram of the MCU and SSU and not all the characters in each universe crossover.
Keaton’s latest appearance in the Morbius trailer occasioned one fan to ask, “can they just stop the act and say it takes place in the MCU? Because why else would the MCU vulture be in the movie?”
Then again, since a previous trailer for Morbius showed Oscorp tower — which was established in Spider-Man: No Way Home as not existing in the MCU — another Twitter user concluded, “there’s no way it takes place in the MCU.”
However, in No Way Home, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange opens the floodgates for multiverse shenanigans with a botched spell. That includes revealing there are multiple versions of some characters in other universes. So it’s entirely possible Keaton’s Vulture may be a variant.
Since the SSU’s Venom, played by Tom Hardy, slipped into the MCU for a moment as a result of Strange’s botched spell in No Way Home, that seems to establish that some characters can crossover from one universe into the other. As such, another fan could not figure out whether this may be MCU’s Vulture having slipped into the SSU or if it is — again — simply a variant.
Regardless of the no doubt convoluted explanation, the movie will present, Keaton’s involvement was enough for one fan to get even more pumped for the film than ever before.
And, of course, the fan theories and rumor mills are operating in overdrive.
Morbius comes to theaters April 1.