WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home, in theaters now.
Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home proves to be one of Peter Parker's most cerebral foes to date. He tricks the wall-crawler into thinking he's an ally, all part of a very intricate scheme which allows him weasel his way into ownership of a dangerous artificial intelligence program called EDITH that Iron Man left for Peter.
However, the film ends with Mysterio's death due to his own carelessness in the heat of battle against Spider-Man. But while Quentin Beck is no more, in principle Mysterio isn't really dead, as the symbol lives on through his villainous organization.
After Beck obtains EDITH from Peter in the form of a pair of sunglasses, he has a meeting with everyone who helps him put on his productions. It's a shocking reveal, as we see a bunch of scientists who are angry after having worked for Tony Stark. We have Peter Billingsley as chief of technology William, who worked under Obadiah Stane in Iron Man, as well as Victoria (Clare Dunne), Guterman (Nicholas Gleaves) and Janice (Claire Rushbrook), all former Stark employees who were mistreated, unrecognized or fired, or else believed Tony Stark stole and repurposed their technology. In fact, the latter is why Beck hates Stark, who used Beck's work to perfect his B.A.R.F. tech revealed in Captain America: Civil War.
It's not a mere handful of disgruntled ex-employees. We see more than 20 scientists, who even took part in the charade at a bar to lure Peter into thinking Beck deserves the sunglasses. When the mission is successful and Beck pops cork on the champagne, he makes it clear this cadre is a bigger deal than outcast nerds, angry ex-employees or revenge-seekers.
Beck deems them to be heroes and freedom fighters, and as he laughs at the moniker of Mysterio -- the name the Italian media, and Peter's classmates, call him in Venice -- he's straightforward when he says it's not a man; it's an ideal. That leads to his crowning statement that each and every one of his allies in that room is Mysterio.
Coupled with his workers' belief in this doctrine, it's obvious that, despite Beck's death, Mysterio still lives. We see this at the end as William steals EDITH's drone tech following Beck's defeat, making it safe to assume it's he who uploads the fake footage to the Daily Bugle to frame Spider-Man for the death of Mysterio. In that mid-credits sequence, Spider-Man is also accused of carrying out the drone attacks, meaning William is most likely the one who doctored the footage and set it loose into the world. That's just one agent, however,, and seeing as neither Peter nor Nick Fury knew about Mysterio's cohorts, the dream lives on. They're roaming free, and the kicker is, they all know Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
It may not be valuable information any longer, as the Daily Bugle clip also depicted Mysterio outing Peter, but even if Spider-Man somehow debunks that footage, Mysterio's scientists still know the truth at the end of the day, and have a clear-cut picture which of Peter's friends they should go after. Before the finale, after all, Guterman pretended to be a bus driver and left Peter's friends on a bridge to be attacked by the London drones, so nothing is stopping him and his associates from continuing the crusade.
Seeing as they have the tech and orchestrated Beck's performances, they can even turn someone else into the next Mysterio, or simply generate a fake Mysterio for the future. Either way, seeing as they're experts in A.I. and robotics and, and now possess EDITH, the legion of Mysterio is poised to become as deadly as ever, especially as Beck's emotional and impulsive ways have been taken off the table. He might have started the Mysterio movement with his vision, but Beck's death may be what allows William & Co. to take it to the next level.
Now in theaters, director Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Far From Home stars Tom Holland, Samuel L. Jackson, Zendaya, Cobie Smulders, Jon Favreau, JB Smoove, Jacob Batalon and Martin Starr, with Marisa Tomei and Jake Gyllenhaal.