Spider-Man: Far From Home: How Mysterio Entered Peter Parker's World
Excited for Spider-Man: Far From Home, but wondering how exactly Mysterio, a character never before revealed on the big screen, wound up in the same place as Peter Parker? You're not alone — and actor Jake Gyllenhaal as the answer to the big question.
Chatting with Flicks and the City, Gyllenhaal, who plays the Marvel Comics character also known as Quentin Beck in Far From Home, explained that Mysterio didn't stalk Tom Holland's Spider-Man like some kind of weirdo and track him down on his summer vacation across Europe. He didn't stay quiet in the shadows and pop up to pitch a partnership when an opportune moment arose, either. In actuality, Mysterio materialized on Peter's Earth by traveling through a rift in space.
Gyllenhaal detailed that Mysterio was chasing down an Elemental creature in his universe and wound up jumping through a hole that led to Spider-Man's world. Mysterio is bent on defeating the Elemental he was battling on his Earth, as well as the other monsters that keep popping up across Spidey's Earth, and soon partners with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Peter Parker to achieve that goal.
"I follow one of the Elemental creatures through a rift in space continuum and find myself on another Earth trying to fight this creature. And what I don't know is that they sort of are expanding into different areas all over this Earth as they did on my Earth — and I lost a lot on my Earth and sacrificed a lot fighting this one that led me to this Earth," said Gyllenhaal. "[I] find Nick Fury in the midst of battling this creature, and then we join up ... We have a somewhat similar group of people on my Earth but different in a lot of different ways. There are variations on things in this Earth. And I join up and I meet Spider-Man and we have to fight these creatures as they appear and re-appear."
These comments tease that Spider-Man: Far From Home will explore the multi-verse, which was hinted at in a past trailer for the flick. What's more interesting than that, though, is Gyllenhaal mentioning that Mysterio has a "somewhat similar group of people" on his Earth, just as Nick Fury has on his. This seems to suggest that there are Avengers-esque heroes in Mysterio's reality, and that there's a man or woman comparable in power to Fury leading the assemblage. It makes sense that Mysterio, who is positioned as a good guy and something of a mentor to Spider-Man in the film and not a villain as he has been in the comics, would want to work with Nick Fury to defeat the Elementals. Mysterio is probably familiar with the person overseeing the collection of heroes on his Earth and knows their match on this different Earth (read: Nick Fury) is who he should to run to in his time of trouble.
Mysterio hopping through a gap in space because he was so determined to vanquish the Elemental creature in front of him seems innocent enough. (Hey, we've all gotten tunnel-vision and completely forgot about the world around us when trying to get something done.) But many Marvel fans are convinced that Mysterio arriving on Peter Parker's Earth wasn't an honest accident. Popular arguments claim that the illusion expert and master magician-slash-hypnotist entered the portal with the intention of either destroying the Earth where Spider-Man and dozens of other powerful superheroes reside, or infiltrating the Avengers and potentially rising to take the place of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who died at the end of Avengers: Endgame. One theory-crafter even thinks that Mysterio murdered the Spider-Man on his Earth and wants to do the same to Peter Parker.
Given Mysterio was seen joining the Avengers in a recently released promo clip for Far From Home, and that he's canonically been an adversary of Spider-Man in the comics, it isn't out of the realm of reality to think that his new membership with Earth's Mightiest Heroes and his alliance with Nick Fury and Peter Parker are a lot more sinister than they seem.
Unravel the mystery of Mysterio when Spider-Man: Far From Home, also starring Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Ned, swings into theaters on July 2.