Tom Holland’s Spider-Men counterparts both experience betrayal and loss by way of good friends. Holland has not, and no, Mysterio doesn’t count.
Very few are unfamiliar with the story of Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, best friends since childhood. Peter later becomes Spider-Man, and Harry, either Hobgoblin or the Green Goblin. Things go south between the two friends, and Harry dies — or, in the case of The Amazing Spider-Man, kills Gwen Stacey and is kept in an asylum for the criminally insane.
It’s a lot to take in, but the storyline works. Nothing hurts a character more than having their best friend turn on them, then try to murder them. In fact, one could even say it’s a Spider-Man classic. With the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films, it was not just their best friends, but evidently, every friend they made that ended up wanting to hurt them in some way. However, as of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the bug seems to have skipped Tom Holland.
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In every one of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, the only “friend” who betrayed him was Mysterio. To be honest, though, Mysterio was never his friend, to begin with. So, he doesn’t count. This means Holland’s Spider-Man has yet to experience having an actual friend betray him, perhaps even make an attempt on his life.
The latest installment of Holland’s Spider-Man franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home, included a funny scene during which both Maguire and Garfield’s characters express how they experienced friends betraying them. This resulted in Ned Leeds, played by Jacob Batalon, looking rather shocked and making a promise to his own best friend that he would never betray him.
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Promises can be broken, though, especially if one cannot remember actually making said promise, as in Ned’s case — since No Way Home ended with everyone forgetting that Peter Parker exists. In fact, that just makes things a little easier for Ned to turn into the villain he didn’t want to become. The comics depict a brainwashed Ned turning into Hobgoblin, so a similar storyline could pan out for Ned in the MCU.
Another scenario could be that perhaps Peter will find a new best friend, someone not as loyal and more easily swayed to the dark side. Either way, Holland’s Spider-Man is past due for his “best-friend-turned-villain” arc. Maguire and Garfield can’t be the only ones going through the heartache of having people they care about wanting them dead.
