While every character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a few wardrobe changes, Peter Parker has had almost as many suits as he has MCU appearances. While he used his own homemade costume before fans got to see him in Captain America: Civil War, Tom Holland's first full appearance as Spider-Man was in the suit created for him by Tony Stark in a sharp departure for the hero who traditionally creates his own suits.
Even though Peter created his own spin on a Spider-Man suit in Spider-Man: Far From Home. But even with Peter's improvements, the costume was still based on his original Spider-Man: Homecoming Stark suit. Now, CBR is going to take a deep dive today into the Homecoming Spider-Man costume to find out what made it tick and how it introduced elements that are seemingly a core part of Spider-Man's MCU arsenal.
KAREN
Much like Tony Stark's Iron Man armor, Spider-Man's Homecoming suit comes equipped with an artificial intelligence system to run the suit's systems. While that seems less important in Spidey's costume than it does with Tony's armors, the A.I. still played an important role in Peter Parker's evolution into the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Peter names his A.I. "Karen" and quickly begins discussing his personal life with his new friend. "She" is instrumental in teaching Peter about the various capabilities of his costume, and even comes equipped in his Iron Spider suit as well. Karen was voiced by Marvel movie veteran Jennifer Connelly, who was Hulk's Betty Ross in 2003.
WEB-SHOOTERS
As he did in the Marvel Universe, Peter Parker created his own web-shooters, which impressed Tony Stark on their first meeting. This presumably inspired Tony to improve upon Peter's invention with an upgraded web-shooter, which is revealed by Karen to have hundreds of different web combinations.
These web options include the typical swinging line and different spray settings that Peter can activate with a flick of his wrist, but also includes other offensive options like impact webbing, web-bombs, ricochet webbing, and even taser-webs. Peter has yet to really explore all of the different web-combinations that the suit offers, which presumably carried over into his new FFH suit.
WEB-WINGS
When Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in Amazing Fantasy #15, his costume featured "web-wings" under his arms. While these haven't been a consistent part of Spider-Man's costume over the years, several artists have included them as an occasional feature.
Homecoming brought the web-wings to the big screen, though they act more like retractable wing-suit gliders and don't really resemble the webbing as we've seen it in the comics. Regardless, the web-wings add a nice touch to the costume, homage the original design, and were improved for the FFH costume to provide practical gliding benefits.
SPIDER-DRONE
The Spider-Drone that first appears during Spider-Man's rescue of his classmates at the Washington Monument may feel like it was created specifically for the movie, Spidey has previously used similar drones throughout his comic book history.
However, the Homecoming costume's drone is smaller and fits right on to his costume as his chest spider-emblem and is controlled by Karen, making it a much more effective tool in his arsenal than the comic version. As of now, it's unclear if the Spider-Drone is still part of Spider-Man's FFH costume.
INSTANT KILL MODE
The Homecoming suit, like Spider-Man's even more advanced Iron Spider suit, also feature another mode that is controlled entirely by Karen known as the "Instant Kill Mode." Peter discovers this mode after learning about the Surveillance Mode but quickly shuts down the "Instant Kill" option, since that's a bit excessive for most of Spider-Man's situations.
However, fans got to see the Instant Kill Mode in full effect when he was wearing the Iron Spider suit during Avengers: Endgame. Even though the Homecoming costume doesn't have the same capabilities as the Iron Spider suit, we can imagine the Homecoming suit's Instant Kill mode to be just as effective.
Peter Parker may have moved past the Homecoming suit when he constructed his Far From Home costume, but the main design features that made the Stark suit such an effective crime-fighting tool presumably live on in his new costume. Given the frequency that Spider-Man changes his costume, it's likely we'll be seeing elements of the Homecoming suit make their way into any future costumes we might see make their way into the MCU in the next few phases.