The Spider-Man: No Way Home Teaser Moment That Has Fans Looking Twice
The release of the "Spider-Man: No Way Home" teaser in August was preceded by lots of drama and intrigue. First, an unfinished version seemed to leak. Then, we all lost our collective minds when familiar "Spider-Man" villains, including Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), made their triumphant return to the film franchise. Now, fans are rewinding a specific scene to try and see what else might be hiding beneath the surface.
"Spider-Man: No Way Home" comes out on December 17. It's the first movie to really get into the opening of the multiverse, an event that's set to connect the Sony Pictures Spider-verse with the MCU and dominate Marvel's Phase 4. First teased in the Season 1 finale of "Loki," the multiverse will figure into both "No Way Home" and "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," the latter of which is expected to be multiverse-heavy, given the title. It's also entirely possible the MCU movies beyond the "Doctor Strange" sequel will begin to incorporate different universes into what we're seeing.
We already know that villains from past Sony "Spider-Man" movies are going to appear in "No Way Home." Similarly, the post-credits sequence for "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" teases the possibility of Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock crossing paths with Tom Holland's Peter Parker. But fans have also gone frame-by-frame through the first teaser trailer to figure if another multiversal variant is coming to play in "No Way Home."
Is the teaser hiding ... Alligator Loki?
In an August post shared to the subreddit r/marvelstudios, user u/HudBlanco pointed out that actor Paula Newsome appears to be superimposed over someone else in the "Spider-Man: No Way Home" teaser (via YouTube). "Did somebody else noticed [sic] how this woman is just superimposed over someone that is inside the car to not spoil the scene?" they wrote. "Who do you think really is in the car?" Redditor u/bloodhound90 had a theory that is an eyebrow-raiser: "It's defo Alligator Loki."
Alligator Loki is first introduced on the Disney+ show "Loki." He and other Loki variants are hiding in The Void, aka the cosmic junkyard where everything pruned by the TVA goes to die, in Episode 5, "Journey Into Mystery" (via IMDb). He is last seen with Kid Loki (Jack Veal) in The Void, which may now be more easily escaped after Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie (Sophie Di Martino) do so with some clever trickery. Although the Alligator Loki we meet in "Journey Into Mystery" dies at the hand of another Loki Variant (also played by Hiddleston), it's possible the same character could have been pulled from its own universe into Peter Parker's when Doctor Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) spell goes awry. It's a bit of a leap, but never say never, folks.
Other Reddit users agreed with this admittedly bizarre fan theory. "[Y]ou can actually kinda see the alligator tail by the headrest in one of the frames," wrote u/nyctanassa. But it's also possible the person in the car is just Newsome in her currently unlisted "No Way Home" role. We'll find out for sure on December 17.