Where Will Spider-Man Appear Next?

This will be the next question on everyone's mind after the report of a collaboration between Sony and Marvel to release the next Spider-Man movie, but not before having the friendly neighbourhood superhero appear in one of the current Marvel titles.

It's really hard to say now as to what is going to happen next. Maybe even the architects of this deal, Amy Pascal from Sony and Kevin Feige of Marvel, may not have the full answers yet.

The future of Spider-Man's involvement with the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be determined by who has the stronger say in the story. And let's not forget, Marvel is now acting like a consultant to Sony, who still owns complete creative control over the franchise.

Since Spider-Man's next solo outing is now confirmed to be 28 July 2017, there aren't a lot of other Marvel titles that Spider-Man could appear in before his own movie. The only titles available are Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange and Guardians Of The Galaxy 2.

Could Spider-Man appear in Captain America: Civil War, taking his rightful place in this story since he played a huge part in the comic books? Fans would love to see this.

But Civil War is set to release on 6 May 2016. There's barely enough time to do rewrites to include Spider-Man into that storyline now. Also, the third installment of Captain America has not been scheduled for a delay, so my guess will have to be no at this point.

That leaves us with Doctor Strange and Guardians 2. Since Guardians will more than likely take place away from Earth, that means the only other available title for Spider-Man to make a quick appearance would be Doctor Strange.

This also makes sense because Doctor Strange is a new character in the MCU. Having Spider-Man, one of the most recognisable faces in cinematic history, appear here will only help the movie - not that Marvel needs any help at this point. But it certainly makes sense since both characters have crossed paths plenty of times in the comic books.

I would also speculate that, since Sony still has full creative control over how Spider-Man will appear in the MCU; the character's involvement could only be a cameo so that he will play a less significant role in the overall plot of that particular movie. Reason is because a Marvel movie is still a Marvel movie, not Sony. Sony has no right to change the storyboard of that movie and may not agree with how Marvel will write Spider-Man in.

But then again, Feige and Marvel will now have creative input in the future of Spider-Man titles. And since Sony has now created this quicksand of a situation with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, they could give Marvel more freehand to the future of the franchise. Now this could then become very interesting because the door will then be opened for Spider-Man to appear in Avengers: Infinity War.

And I'm going to guess that it will be in the Infinity War before we see Spider-Man teaming up with other big names like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor.