Peter Parker and Tony Stark Didn’t Always Have Such a Touching Reunion in Avengers: Endgame

Marvel is known for a great many things, and the interpersonal relationships of their characters is one of them, including, of course, the relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker that has been a main fixture of the current Spider-Man movies.

In Avengers: Endgame, we saw the two reunited in a heartwarming way, because Peter felt as if he had only been gone briefly, though Tony Stark spent five years feeling as if he had failed the kid. The moment is brief but shows just how much Peter meant to Tony and how, throughout it all, Tony was always a father figure to Peter.

But that moment wasn’t always the reunion we were going to get.

Talking to Slashfilm about the oral history of the final battle, editor Jeff Ford talked about a different version of the scene:

The first time we shot it, Peter and Tony reunite and Pepper’s nearby, and Tony goes, ‘Uh, Peter, do you know Pepper?” “Nice to meet you! It’s one of those crazy meet-cutes in the middle of a fight. He hugs him and they have this thing, but it felt very incidental, like they ran into each other at an airport or something. We watched it, and they were both great in the scene, but it was like a comedy scene, so it had this schtick quality to it. By the way, we did not yet know how powerful Peter disappearing was [in Infinity War] when we shot that first version. We had shot it, I think, but we hadn’t tested it, we hadn’t lived with it and actually done the [effect] of [him] going away, so when the audience had that reaction, we’re like, this reunion is different now. It’s a different thing.

While fun and fine, it’s not what I wanted out of it. I’m glad this was cut for more than just the obvious reason. For many of us, the relationship between Tony and Peter was one that was built around the idea that the two were there for each other, in both scenes we’ve seen and in moments in Tony’s lab, or when Peter was out in the field.

A kind of father/son relationship, Peter Parker never had an Uncle Ben figure in the MCU—one that I was glad was left out and that I feel was replaced by Tony’s involvement in his storyline. Part fo the problem is that we got very little screentime between the two, and yet, that hasn’t stopped fans from loving their dynamic, especially after Spider-Man: Homecoming.

For me, their reunion was perfect because I always thought that there were moments when Tony and Peter would work side by side in his lab, meaning that Pepper had met Peter Parker and knew him well.

Throwing in a “meeting” between the two would feel like they wouldn’t continue their relationship after Tony’s death, and to be honest, I’m living in a world where I hope Peter Parker is a big brother to Morgan Stark, and I need to keep that dream going. I’m glad their reunion was more on par with what we got, the two just hugging and sharing a moment in the middle of chaos to be together, paying off Homecoming’s joke about the two hugging, and I wish we could have seen more of Peter Parker and Tony Stark overall.

(via Slashfilm, image: Marvel Entertainment)

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