It’s ironic that while Tom Holland’s Peter Parker continues to swing around the Marvel Cinematic Universe and will next be seen in the 2026 movie release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, one place you’ll rarely find him is in the comics. The only times this has ever happened is with printed page adaptations of Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War, as the complicated Spidey media rights shared between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios mean strict rules on his usage. However, Dan Slott, who’s been writing Spider-Man stories since 2007, shared the sneaky, yet clever way he once included Holland’s Peter in the comics.
Among his long list of Spider-Man-related accomplishments, Dan Slott wrote the original Spider-Verse event from 2014, which inspired those animated Spider-Man movies, and its 2022-2023 follow-up, End of the Spider-Verse. However, writing these stories came with certain guidelines he had to follow, with Slott sharing on Threads:
I couldn't use the Sony movie Spideys in my 1st Spider-Verse story, or its follow up, End of the Spider-Verse. However, we came up w/ a work around for 1 of them, because we did get permission to use Spidey from the Web-Slingers Ride at Disney's Avengers Campus. And technically he's a Tom Holland Spidey.
Talk about a workaround! Having already been prevented from using the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of Spider-Man in the first Spider-Verse, Tom Holland’s iteration was added to the list when Dan Slott returned to the Spidey fold for End of the Spider-Verse (Spider-Geddon, written by Christos Gage, was sandwiched between them in 2018). Or at least, the film version of Holland’s Peter was banned. That wasn’t the case for the Spider-Man who one can see at Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure when visiting Avengers Campus at Disneyland, as the continuity of that themed area takes place in a reality parallel to the MCU. So there’s that connective thread, plus the fact that Holland reprised the role for this attraction, too.
I commend Dan Slott for coming up with this especially nerdy loophole. However, using this Holland variant came with its own stipulation, and his editors at Marvel nixed his idea for a tipping of the hat to the actor himself. The writer continued:
But we did NOT have permission to take off his mask and show a face with Tom Holland's likeness. So in an early draft I wrote a sequence where *that* Spider-Man would be saving people near the entrance to The Holland Tunnel. And you'd get a panel where you'd cut to a close up of Spidey with the sign right behind him, but cropped so that it read "Holland T" with Spider-Man's head blocking the letters in "unnel". And Marvel Editorial quickly let me know that there was no way in Hell that I could do that. Ever. And I was like... Fine. :-P
I’m not surprised we couldn’t see this Peter Parker unmasked, as using Tom Holland’s likeness comes with its own set of complications. Neither is it shocking that Holland’s name couldn’t be indirectly referred to, even though I’m sure the actor himself wouldn’t have any issue with that. After all, in the first Spider-Verse, Slott only got away with referencing Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield by having some Spideys calling the former “the guy from Seabiscuit” and the latter “the guy from The Social Network.”
So clearly we shouldn’t expect Tom Holland’s Peter Parker or any of his older counterparts to ever be comic book stars in their own right, unlike what’s been done with Michael Keaton’s Batman and Christopher Reeve’s Superman over at DC Comics in recent years. What is expected is that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will be back on the big screen for Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 31, 2026. You can also follow along with a different variant of the MCU Peter in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which expected to premiere its second season sometime on the 2026 TV schedule.
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