As Spider-Man reaches the end of a trilogy, we bring to you the many Easter eggs packed in the film that you might have missed!
1. Spidey asking, “The multiverse is real?”
When Spidey was taken aback, he questioned Dr. Strange whether the multiverse was real. Remember when Mysterio claimed to be from another universe and almost everyone believed him until he showed it was all a farce and he was nothing more than a con man?
2. Aunt May working at The Feast center.
Aunt May’s job at the FEAST center was inspired by a Spider-Man video game.
3. Wong as Sorcerer Supreme.
During the blip, Wong was promoted to Sorcerer Supreme in Strange’s sted—this isn’t a great surprise in and of itself, but it does put Wong’s presence of Shang-Chi in context.
4. Detaching the soul from the body.
Dr. Strange snatching Peter’s soul from his body echoes the moment in which the Ancient One did the same thing to him back in the Dr. Strange movie.
5. Uncle Ben’s “With great power, comes great responsibility” is brought back.
Aunt May, of course, delivers some classic Spider-Man advice to Peter before she passes away. Uncle Ben, do you hear us crying?
6. Remembering Gwen Stacy and Uncle Ben.
All three Spider-Men dealt with their traumas in various ways: Garfield’s Peter coped with the death of Gwen Stacy, while Maguire’s Peter grappled with the more typical death of Uncle Ben, who was slain in a mugging Peter might have stopped.
7. Recalling Peter’s best friend’s death.
Maguire’s Peter tells Ned about his best friend dying in his arms after attempting to murder him, referring to the events of Spider-Man 3, in which Harry Osborn sacrificed himself to save Peter from Venom.
8. MJ giving us a major Gwen throwback.
No Way Home gave Garfield’s Peter a chance to forgive himself by catching MJ when she’s falling- a scene that mirrored Gwen’s death almost precisely.
9. A guy in a Rhino costume.
When Peter recalls fighting a man dressed as a rhino, he’s referring to the Marvel comics villain Rhino. Rhino, played by Paul Giamatti in Amazing Spider-Man 2, however, does not appear in the film.
10. The plot of the movie is inspired by a storyline from the comic ‘One More Day’.
The plot of the film itself is heavily influenced by the event One More Day, in which Peter strikes a contract with Mephisto to forget his secret identity. Things, of course, go horribly wrong.
11. Eddie and Venom in the post-credits sequence.
The first post-credits sequence is a blatant reference to the post-credits scene from Let There Be Carnage, in which Eddie was dragged into the MCU. Since the spell was designed to target those who knew Peter Parker, it’s never made clear how Eddie got caught up in it, but he’s not in the MCU long enough to find it out. Before he can get to NYC, he’s sent back home, however he does leave a particle of Venom behind in Mexico. The inference here seems to be that Venom will join the MCU, but Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy, will most likely remain in his own universe.
12. Doctor Strange forgetting the spell.
As part of Mephisto’s rewriting of reality, Peter’s identity was wiped from the minds of everyone who ever knew Peter Parker was Spider-Man, which was basically everyone. Readers saw Peter’s wedding collapse and Doctor Strange’s spell take effect in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man Nos. 638-641 in a story called O.M.I.T. Peter, like Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, sought a last-minute change. In the comics, he draws MJ into the spell, making her the only one who remembers Peter Parker as Spider-Man.
13. The License Plate ’63ASM-3′ taking us back to Amazing Spider-Man #3.
Peter’s car’s license plate reads “63ASM-3” as he swings off to the George Washington Bridge to appeal to the head of admissions at MIT. This is a reference to Amazing Spider-Man #3 from 1963, which featured Doctor Octopus for the first time. Doctor Octopus makes his debut appearance in No Way Home a few moments later.
14. Dr. Strange donning a Columbia University Sweatshirt.
Dr. Strange sports a Columbia University sweatshirt throughout No Way Home. We recall how in the comics, Doctor Strange earned his medical degree from Columbia University
15. Spidey yet again makes sure that “No One Dies.”
When Peter learns that returning his villains back to their original universes means letting them die, he wants to change that reality. In the MCU, we’ve seen similar behaviour before, when Peter saved Adrian Toomes from smashing into the Vulture suit and dying. Peter has gone out of his way in the comics to avoid killing his enemies, including taking a bullet for Norman Osborn.
16. Norman Osborne makes a callback to the line “You know, I’m something of a scientist myself.”
Norman Osborn utters the iconic line “You know, I’m something of a scientist myself” when he first appears in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. This larger-than-life quote has now become a widely shared meme, which is why Norman repeating the phrase in No Way Home to convince Peter that he can help heal the villains using Stark technology is so thrilling.
17. Otto Octavius yet again says “The power of the sun in the palm of my hand!”
When Otto Octavius got his hands on an arc reactor he exclaimed: “The power of the sun in the palm of my hand!” Those were his famous final words before his own reactor malfunctioned and killed his wife, while turning him into Doctor Octopus.
18. Explaining the concept of Avengers.
When Tom Holland’s Peter attempts to explain Avengers to the other confused Peters, who think Avengers might be a really cool band… Tom quickly utters “Earth’s mightiest…” before he’s cut off. You may recall reading an Avengers comic book in which they are referred to on the cover as “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” similar to how Spider-Man is referred to as “Amazing.”
19. Aunt May’s Cemetery.
A long pan through sparse woods to a hillside graveyard introduces the scene where Peter visits Aunt May’s cemetery. The similar pan down a bare tree to a hillside graveyard was how we saw Norman’s burial in Raimi’s Spider-Man, years ago. Is it possible that Aunt May, Uncle Ben, and Norman Osborn are all buried in the same iconic graveyard throughout the whole franchise?
20. The “guy in the chair.”
Ned defends himself to the FBI by mentioning his number one mission in Spider-Man: Homecoming, being the “guy in the chair.”
21. Electro states that ‘There’s got to be a black Spider-Man out there somewhere’, which is a reference to Miles Morales.
After Electro is defeated, he’s disappointed to learn that his Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) is not black. He then reconciles the fact by stating that there’s got a be a black Spider-Man out there somewhere – which is an obvious reference to Miles Morales (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).
22. Nick Fury is ‘off planet’.
When Peter’s identity is revealed and the Damage Control team accosts him, he asks to see Nick Fury. They reply that the SHIELD head honcho is currently ‘off planet’. You may remember that Spider-Man: Far From Home’s post-credits scene showed him on a Skrull spaceship, doing god-knows-what, but little else is known about his star-faring adventures at the moment.
Nostalgic, enough?