Whether and how the Disney and Sony Marvel universes are linked has already caused a lot of confusion – and the trailers for “Morbius” added to it. The film itself now creates more clarity. Warning, spoilers!
The situation around the “Spider-Man” cosmos on the big screen is and remains somewhat chaotic: Sony still owns the film rights to Spidey and the characters from his comics. Thanks to a deal with Disney, however, the popular wall-crawler appears in the mega-successful Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) of the mouse house.
At the same time, however, Sony is in the process of building its own Marvel film universe with villains and supporting characters from the “Spider-Man” comics. It started with the two “Venom” films, and “Morbius” with Jared Leto as a vampire is currently in cinemas. Despite contradicting statements and hints, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) – which, despite the title (so far) does without Spidey himself – works detached from the MCU.
Even before those lines were recently blurred with the post-credits scenes of Venom 2: Let There Be Carnage and Spider-Man: No Way Home, the first Morbius trailer created more confusion about the relationship from MCU and SSU. Not only did Michael Keaton appear there as Adrian Toomes aka Vulture, the villain from the MCU adventure “Spider-Man: Homecoming”.
We also saw Michael Morbius walking past a graffito of Spider-Man with the word “murderer” spray-painted over it. This seemed (despite the different Spidey suit) to be a clear nod to the Homecoming sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home, in which Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is responsible for the death of Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). have been done.
After that got many fans’ heads spinning, with the release of the film itself we finally know more. The short answer: No, Morbius isn’t set in the MCU, but…
THE MULTIVERSE CONNECTS MCU AND SSU
The MCU and SSU are still intrinsically separate universes. “Morbius” director Daniel Espinosa recently confirmed this again in an interview with the CinemaBlend website:
CB: What universe does Morbius take place in?
— CinemaBlend (@CinemaBlend) March 25, 2022
However, these two Marvel worlds are now loosely linked following the events surrounding the multiverse in the MCU film Spider-Man: No Way Home. This was already clear from Eddie Brock/Venom (Tom Hardy), who surprisingly ended up in the MCU at the end of “Venom 2”, only to return to the SSU a short time later.
So the SSU and MCU are basically parallel worlds, but they are part of the same multiverse and where through cracks in this same multiverse, transitions of characters from one world to the other are possible. This is exactly how Vulture suddenly appears in the end credits of Morbius. While “No Way Home” only showed how characters from other universes got into the MCU and were sent back to their own worlds a little later by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Adrian Toomes now seems to have been permanently transported from the MCU to the SSU.
AND WHAT ABOUT SPIDER-MAN?
But how does all of this actually explain the aforementioned Spider-Man image and the alleged “Far From Home” allusion from the “Morbius” trailer? The sobering answer: unfortunately not at all. There is no trace of the said scene in the finished film.
However, Daniel Espinosa also revealed to CinemaBlend that the SSU also has its own Spider-Man, but didn’t want to reveal more about it. However, it is rumored that Sony is using the SSU to build the super villain squad Sinister Six with the intention of one day pitting them against Spidey, though it’s unclear against which one.
Tom Holland is currently still on the road as a spider hero in the MCU, but it might be possible for Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire to make a (further) comeback, which many fans are longing for after their appearance in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”.
