Whether swinging from building to building or fighting off New York City’s villains, Spider-Man has been able to defeat all challenges; however, the recent split between Disney and Sony might be his greatest trial yet.
The first Marvel comic dates back to the late 1930s, and since then,  numerous writers have grown the small comic book company into the massive franchise we see today. The Marvel universe has over 7,000 superheroes and villains, with almost 50,000 other characters mentioned a few times in the comics.
Many of these characters have been seen on top of the box office and recently the Marvel movie, Avengers: Endgame, passed Avatar as the highest grossing movie ever, earning almost 2.8 billion dollars. With Marvel doing so well, fans such as LFA junior Rohan Miglani, were shocked to hear of the release of Spider-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU.
“It just hit me out of the blue; Spider-Man is such a large part of the MCU,” said Miglani. He has watched and loved almost every major title in the Marvel universe and is sad to see the franchise go. Miglani also stated, “Sony and Disney should make Tom Holland and his Spider-Man character a priority.” He hopes both companies will make amends, a popular opinion among fans.
In 2009, The Walt Disney Company bought Marvel for 4.24 billion US dollars. Recently, Sony and Disney have disagreed over whether or not they would continue the previous contract, or split the gross made with Sony. Disney’s previous deal gave them 5% of first earnings and the rights to all merchandise. While Spiderman was a Marvel character, Sony now holds the rights to Spider-Man after Marvel was forced to finance some of its characters away during their bankruptcy recovery in 1999.
After the split between Disney and Sony, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will most likely not show up again in the Marvel universe, which saddens fans immensely.
Some fans are still skeptical of this news, because of how well the Spider-Man franchise was doing before this move, with successful movies such as Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. Tom Holland provided the Marvel universe with a new and exciting take on a classic superhero, and one that was going to try to replace the recently retired Iron-Man played by Robert Downey Jr and Captain America played by Chris Evans.
Whether or not Tom Holland’s now famous take on Spider-Man appears in another movie, this disagreement between Sony and Disney left Marvel fans concerned for what’s to come.