Comedy, Diversity Make ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ the Best Comic Book Movie of the Year

This was a journey. Not the journey that takes place in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but our journey as movie goers and fans who have watched the evolution in the backdrop of our lives: Spider-Man and how his story is told. Spider-Man the property. Fans of the character, both new and old, are at a groundswell of excitement for this, the sixth Spider-Man movie in recent history and third reboot of the franchise, and that, regardless the fame of a character, is sort of a miraculous feat. I am excited to write this. Spider-Man has had a hero’s journey, off the screen as much as on, so amazing that the answer to the question is one of triumph itself: How did we get here? When the third Spider-Man recast was announced back in 2015, it was met with the understandable skepticism of fans who had seen it all before. Hollywood had already given five recent Spidey films and two Peter Parkers, and the promise of another superhero origin story and the third death of Uncle Ben brought even the biggest fans a twinge of cynicism at the reboot. Remember that feeling, when it was announced Peter Parker would be played by then 15-year old Tom Holland? I wrote about the news and subsequent grumbling from fans – in what I called the Ja Rule problem – and who could blame them? Spider-Man had, after all, been featured in 5 solo films since 2002, so a return to Marvel studios could not possibly replace the spark of emotion we had lost in our gained comfort with seeing web-slinging on the big screen. Coul…