Spider-Man: No Way Home: Which Characters Returned?

Spider-Man: No Way Home is already a reality . Recently released in theaters, this new film, directed by Jon Watts, has an ambitious proposal: to bring together different emblematic characters from the different spiderman movies. 

Although the film has a great solid base on the characters of the "Home" saga, starring Tom Holland, it is also true that there is a great "nostalgic" force in relation to the characters that have appeared in the superhero adaptations of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire .

If you want to know how the return of all of them came about, here we will tell you. Warning: there are spoilers.

Daredevil

Well, the first to appear in this new film, to the surprise of many, is the character of Daredevil. In this case, he did not appear in his superhero version, but emerged as the lawyer who advises Peter Parker after his problems after Mysterio's death.

Played again by Charlie Cox, Matt Murdock had his own series, which ran on Netflix between 2015 and 2018 , becoming a fan favorite. His return had been rumored a few months ago, along with a possible continuation of his series. What remains to be seen is whether he is still a regular MCU character.

Tobey Maguire Villains

In this case, we are referring to the three main villains who were in Spider-Man 1 (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), all directed by Sam Raimi.  They are the Green Goblin (William Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) .

For the Green Goblin there was no official confirmation until the trailer, when William Dafoe admitted that he was returning to the franchise. He was the "main" villain of this new installment, who could be seen with a more aged appearance. The funny thing is that he put a condition to return to the role: he was the one who recorded his action scenes. He did it at 66!

In the case of Doctor Octopus, he was one of the first to be confirmed a couple of months ago. He had even officially appeared in the first teaser. The actor confirmed that they used facial rejuvenation technology to make his appearance younger. 

Finally, Sandman also appeared in this installment, something that could be confirmed in the trailer, after several speculations. What was not known is if it would be in charge of the same actor who gave life to him at the time, Thomas Haden Church . Although in most of the film he is shown in his “sandy” version, at the end he becomes more human and we confirm that he is the one who appears, also with rejuvenation technology.

Read also: Could You Become a Spider-Man Villain With Current Technology?

Andrew Garfield Villains

They are two villains, corresponding to The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro (2014). They were part of the old reboot of the saga, by director Marc Webb. The characters in question are the villains Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Electro (Jamie Foxx).

As for Lizard he was not confirmed at first. It was known that his character would appear from the final trailer, but it was not known if the original actor would reprise the role, since Rhys Ifans never gave a definite statement.  

Electro was another of the initial confirmations, along with that of Octopus. The funny thing is that the actor had announced the appearance of the three Spider-Man on Instagram, although he later deleted the image.

Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield

The great surprises of this tape. Both actors played Spider-Man again, after dozens of theories and rumors about their appearances. Well, here was the biggest "secret" of the film, since Andrew Garfield was in charge of emphatically denying that it would appear in the tape , while Tobey Maguire hardly gave any statements on the matter.

Venom

Lastly, in the post-credits scene you can see that Tom Hardy's character is also part of the MCU . He comes from the homonymous film (2018) and the recent Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), which had a post-credits scene that revealed his relationshi with the character of Tom Holland.