Spider-Man: Far From Home: Lego Sets Confirm Molten Man, Hydro-Man

Leave it to Lego to make with the spoilers.

As is their tendency, the famed toymaker has released a trio of new sets which appear to spoil the heck out of a forthcoming tentpole picture, in this case Marvel and Sony's Spider-Man: Far From Home. Just as we suspected, it appears that two of the "elemental monsters" Spidey will be doing battle with at the behest of Nick Fury are actually the MCU incarnations of two iconic nemeses of the wall-crawler: Molten Man and Hydro-Man. (via Collider)

First, a little context, and in case it's not already clear, we should note that potential spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home follow. Late last year, we reported that Jacob Batalon, who portrays Peter Parker's best buddy Ned, had let a few key plot details slip during an appearance at Brazil Comic Con. Aside from brazening out that Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio would be an ally rather than an enemy (which, with the trailer not having been released stateside yet, constituted a massive spoiler), he explained that the master of illusion would be teaming up with ol' webhead to take down the aforementioned elemental beasties, which many took as a reference to the Elementals of Marvel comics canon. These four ancient beings — Hellfire, Hydron, Magnum, and Zephyr — were interdimensional baddies with control over the elements of fire, water, earth, and air, respectively, and notably served as antagonists of Carol Danvers in her Ms. Marvel days.

However, once we got a look at the trailer, it was pointed out by many (including us) that the water-based creature featured in its closing moments bore more than a passing resemblance to Hydro-Man, a classic Spidey villain who made his debut in the pages of Marvel comics in 1981. A lowly worker on a cargo ship, the man formerly known as Morris Bench developed his grudge against Spider-Man when he was accidentally knocked overboard his vessel by the wall-crawler during the testing of an experimental energy conversion technology. He subsequently developed the ability to generate massive amounts of liquid and propel it with the force of a fire hose, and even convert his entire body into water, each droplet of which he can control mentally.

Adding to the speculation was a brief moment in the Far From Home trailer in which a boat seen in the background of one shot sports the name "ASM212" — an apparent reference to Amazing Spider-Man #212, which featured Hydro-Man's first appearance. The names of the forthcoming Lego sets were reported as rumor around that same time by the website We Got This Covered, but said rumors weren't confirmed until today; they are "Molten Man Attack," "Hydro-Man Attack," and "Stark Jet and the Drone Attack," and each of them offer up a wealth of potential spoilers beyond those names. Let's check them out one at a time, beginning with:

"Molten Man Attack" offers us a look at a villain which we have gotten nary a glimpse of before now, and even in Lego form, he looks pretty damn scary. His face has a distinct jack o' lantern motif; one of his hands is a huge mechanical claw, the other is a projectile launcher of some sort, and of course he appears to be spreading hot, hot fire in his wake. The action here is taking place in the middle of a city street, but interestingly, this set comes with a "Stealth Spidey" figure sporting his black suit, which means that Mr. Parker will apparently be in the midst of some kind of covert operation when all fiery hell breaks loose. Mysterio is also included with this set, as is a lone firefighter figure; presumably, this will be a character who has the most interesting, yet terrifying, day of his entire firefighting career. The set notably does not include a regular, human-sized figure for Molten Man, which brings us to:

Here is the scene we're familiar with from the trailer, in which Mysterio appears in a puff of smoke (telling Peter, "You don't want any part of this," like a total badass) to assist as a gargantuan water creature wreaks havoc on the canals of Venice, Italy. But there are a few telling details to note here, the most interesting of which is that this set does include a normal-sized, humanoid figure labeled "Hydro-Man," which sits atop what looks like some kind of mechanical, perhaps water-generating, device. Of course, Mysterio is also present here, as is Peter (who, as in the trailer, is in the process of either donning or removing his standard Spidey mask). Also, this set comes with a figure of MJ (Zendaya), who looks to be riding out the craziness aboard one of Venice's iconic gondolas, and is none too happy about it. In addition, the set suggests that Peter doesn't stay on the sidelines for this battle — his webbing is everywhere, with his figure actually in mid-web-sling. 

This is all very cool, but what of the third set? Its name alone is more than enough to raise our eyebrows all the way to the tops of our heads:

That's right, "Stark Jet and the Drone Attack" (which would make a fine band name, if you ask us) appears to tease a massive action setpiece that had previously gone distinctly un-teased. The presence of the Stark Industries craft is provocative enough, but check out those drones. Sure, they're Lego renditions, but we haven't seen anything like them in the MCU thus far, which presents an obvious question: who built them, and who is controlling them? Once again, here's Mysterio in the thick of the action, along with Nick Fury and Happy Hogan, as well as Spidey in his standard costume. There is one detail here, we would be remiss not to point out, which is glaring by its omission: this set does not include a figure for Tony Stark/Iron Man, despite the entire setpiece being centered on a big old jet-sized piece of Stark tech. We'll leave it up to you to speculate as to why that might be, because frankly, we don't want to think about it.

Also, does it seem just a touch suspicious that Mysterio is right there on the scene, whenever and wherever these attacks are taking place? While everybody involved with the film — up to and including Gyllenhaal himself — has gone out of their way to insist that the MCU iteration of the character is firmly on the side of the good guys, it would surprise us not at all of this turned out to be a not-so-subtle attempt at misdirection on Marvel's part. Mysterio's comics incarnation has a long history of cooking up elaborate illusions in order to divert attention from and/or assist in the execution of his criminal activities, and it doesn't seem terribly plausible that the MCU version would represent a complete reversal of his typical characterization.

Well, once again, thanks go to Lego for giving us all kinds of tantalizing stuff to chew on in the months leading up to Spider-Man: Far From Home's release. We'll all see just how hard they've spoiled the flick for us when it swings into theaters on July 5.