Spider-Man: No Way Home Unfortunately Has a Huge Plot Hole!

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Electro is one of many villains crossing multiverses, but he shouldn’t have been affected by Doctor Strange’s spell.

There are a number of major spoilers in the following for the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is now in theaters.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home arrives after a long wait and countless fan theories, pitting the wall-crawler against a host of villains from across the universe. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man faces off against Tobey Maguire’s and Andrew Garfield’s versions of the webhead in the movie. It has been known since the first trailer dropped that these villains would be brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe due to a spell that went bad, cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in order to restore Spider-Man’s secret identity. The film’s explanation of why the spell went awry casts a question mark over one of the returning villains.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

In 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Jamie Foxx starred as Max Dillon, better known as Electro, opposite Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. Dillon, a social outcast, became obsessed with Spider-Man after the superhero saved his life. Several of Spider-Man’s cinematic foes have been connected to Peter Parker personally, but Max is one of the few who has a closer relationship with the web-slinger than the man under the mask. This is a different dynamic for a Spider-Man villain, but it presents a problem for No Way Home.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man’s first encounter with Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) in the MCU has Doctor Strange explaining that instead of disguising Peter Parker’s identity, the spell has summoned people from other worlds who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Strange was able to shut it down before the MCU’s Earth was inundated by visitors from countless realities, but he tells Peter that a few still made it through. The arrival of Doc Ock, the Goblin, Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and the Lizard (Rhys Ifans), all of whom learned Peter was Spider-Man in their original appearances, does not explain Electro’s appearance.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

Electro should not have been affected by Doctor Strange’s spell since he did not learn Spider-Man’s true identity in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Only after Max was killed by Spider-Man did Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) discover Peter’s secret. Of course, this discrepancy could have easily been explained — perhaps Electro really survived his apparent death and learned who Spider-Man was. No Way Home dismisses this idea, only to clarify later that Electro has never seen beneath Spidey’s mask.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

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The villains discuss their journeys through the multiverse while imprisoned in the undercroft of Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum. Electric recalls his final moments in his own universe, in which he was about to take control of the New York power grid. The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s climactic moments suggest Electro was summoned to the MCU seconds before he died, without a chance to learn Spider-Man’s true identity. Electro may be referring to another similar battle that will occur sometime after the first, giving him time to determine who Spider-Man is. After No Way Home’s final battle, the villain reveals it’s his first time seeing Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

A dramatic showdown between all three Spider-Men and the villains concludes No Way Home. After Electro has been defeated, with all of his abilities drained, Garfield’s version of the wall-crawler rushes over to him unmasked. Electro remarks that he had assumed Spider-Man would be black. It is a funny moment (followed by a reference to Miles Morales’ existence somewhere in the multiverse) but it confirms that Electro couldn’t have known Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

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It seems odd that the filmmakers would not only overlook this discrepancy, but would reinforce it with Electro’s final lines. Electro may have learned Spider-Man’s real name after the events of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but he appears to never have seen his face in the film. It’s an odd inconsistency. Despite this plot hole, Jamie Foxx’s much deserved second outing as Electro raises the stakes and greatly enhances No Way Home.

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