We saw four movies and five TV shows from Marvel’s MCU Phase 4 last year, which turned out to be the busiest MCU year to date. We saw plenty of beloved Avengers back in action, and we got to meet some of the new additions to the roster of MCU heroes. Some of them will join the ranks of the Avengers soon, as Marvel is building towards the next massive Endgame-like crossover. But before we get there, we might see additional exciting superhero pair-ups in the coming years. That includes a potential crossover between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Florence Pugh’s new Black Widow. That is, if Holland and Pugh’s wish comes true.
Mind you, some spoilers from the first year of MCU Phase 4 stories will follow below.
Marvel superhero team-ups in MCU Phase 4
One prominent theme of Phase 4 is teamwork. Marvel is telling stories that involve at least a couple of heroes as protagonists. WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, What If…?, and Hawkeye all qualify when it comes to Disney Plus shows. The same goes for the first four movies: Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Spider-Man team up with the new Black Widow in the MCU sooner or later.
After all, the MCU’s Spider-Man movies gave Tom Holland’s Peter Parker various significant helpers along the way. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) showed up in Homecoming. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) might not be a superhero, but he helped Peter in Far From Home. Then we had Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) come to his rescue in No Way Home — as well as the Spider-Men that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield played in non-MCU movies.
As for Yelena Belova, we’ve seen this Black Widow work well with others. Florence Pugh is easily one of the highlights of Phase 4, receiving praises for her work playing Belova. We saw her team up with the original Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in Black Widow. And she was terrific next to Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) in Hawkeye.
That is a duo we can’t get enough of: The new Hawkeye and the new Black Widow.
Where Spider-Man and Black Widow are right now
No Way Home and Hawkeye happen around the same time in the MCU timeline. The Spider-Man movie ends before Hawkeye, as we already explained. That means Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) has already forgotten Peter Parker.
Yelena Belova found out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man from the news, if not from her sister in the years before the Blip. But she has forgotten him as well. The last time we saw the new Black Widow, she was in New York City, the home of Spider-Man. And she wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty, in addition to killing Barton, while in town. That’s where the No Way Home battle took place at some point in the preceding weeks.
In other words, Spider-Man and the new Black Widow interacting in a future MCU adventure would not be a crazy idea.
Another glorious purpose for Phase 4 is Marvel planting the seeds of new epic crossovers. Several superhero teams might be in the works. Whether or not Peter Parker and Yelena Belova appear in a Spider-Man or Black Widow movie together, we’ll likely see them both in future Avengers stories.
They could both join the primary Avengers team. Or they could be Young Avengers together. Let’s remember that Yelena is yet to be formally introduced to either of these teams. And Peter will have to rejoin the Avengers now that nobody remembers he used to be a part of the team.
Tom Holland’s crossover with Florence Pugh
Tom Holland is still dodging Spider-Man questions, as he’s probably negotiating the deal of a lifetime with Sony and Marvel. But we’ll see him in Spider-Man 4 as Peter Parker. That’s something Marvel and Sony already confirmed.
The movie will be a soft reboot for the character, but the next Spidey trilogy might be darker than the first. That’s according to current Spider-Man 4 chatter out there.
But we also know that Holland’s Spider-Man will appear in an MCU crossover soon. That project is yet to be revealed.
We have no idea whether Spider-Man will meet the new Black Widow in that project. But Holland does want to work with Florence Pugh in a crossover. He said as much on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show (via Comicbook):
[A Spider-Man and Black Widow II crossover] hasn’t been suggested to the big bosses yet, but Florence and I have definitely spoken about it, and hopefully one day we can make that happen. That would be very cool.
It would be very cool indeed. If it wasn’t clear already, Spider-Man and the new Black Widow are two of the big highlights of Phase 4. It might be just speculation at this point, but the two characters seem destined to meet sooner or later.
