Spider-Man: Far From Home proved to be a nice little digestif after the three-course banquet of Avengers: Endgame. It dealt with the immediate consequences of the Blip (as it’s now known), gave some hints as to the future of the MCU and provided a smaller-scale, Peter Parker-focused story (smaller scale in comparison to Endgame, anyway). But there’s a really subtle thing that will have flown by most viewers that could be the very first fruit of the Disney/Fox merger.
Near the finale of the film, we find Spidey swinging around New York City, exuberantly showing off his newfound confidence and acrobatic skills. During this sequence, he lands in front of a building that should be very familiar to longtime Marvel fans, as a while ago, it was Stark Tower. Then, it became Avengers Tower. And now?
Well, it seems it’s being sold to new owners. They’ve teased this with a sign that says: “We can’t wait to show you what comes next.” As ComicBook.com notes, “the sentence was broken up with a “1,” a “2,” a “3,” and a “?” where the “4” would have been.” I don’t know about you, but there’s only one other superhero group I can think of who lives in a skyscraper in Manhattan and their rights have just been acquired by Disney. Yup, the Fantastic Four.
In fact, Kevin Feige was asked about the building’s new owners recently and he was typically tight-lipped:
“I didn’t see a sign there yet. I always think the speculation fuels it, whether that speculation is correct, as it sometimes is, or if that speculation is wrong, as it often is.”
I’ve long had a soft spot for the Fantastic Four, which has made their ill-treatment in film to date all the more painful. But I’m hopeful that they can be done right in the MCU, as so many characters before them have. Now we just have to work out how they’re going to be introduced to the universe.
Crashing through from a parallel dimension? Created in a space experiment to harness Kree interstellar travel? The sky’s the limit, but rest assured, they’re on the way, and Spider-Man: Far From Home may’ve just teased them.