What’s Up With the New Spider-Man Suit in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’?

Joseph Wilbur
Movies Marvel
Movies Marvel

Details about Spider-Man: Homecoming are pouring in on everything from interesting cameos to the possibility of the Daily Bugle making an appearance. But, by far, the most interesting of these tidbits is our closest look yet at the new Spider-Man suit.

“Tony Stark built it,” director Jon Watts told the LA Times. “So it has lots of bells and whistles.” We’ll break down each and every one of the “bells and whistles” we know of below, with some cool gifs showing them in action.

The Bells and Whistles

With nearly ever nook and cranny of Spidey’s suit loaded with gadgets, the new high-tech enhancements include web wings, a GPS tracking device, an auto-fit feature, a tiny spider drone, and (of course) the classic web shooters. However, knowing Sony, there are probably some gadgets that we haven’t seen yet.

And devout Spider-Man readers should recognize at least some of these gizmos, considering that “there’s actually a precedent for a lot of these ideas in these comics,” according to movie director Watts.

The Recon Drone

Most superheroes have some sort of logo on their chest. But that’s just a waste of space. As director Watts said, “We made a list of all the neat things that Tony would put in there for Peter to discover or keep him safe. At one point, we just realized, ‘what if that little spider could crawl out and move around and do surveillance?’”

And now that “little spider” does crawl out. Tony Stark transformed it into a “recon drone” that can detach and scout out situations for Spidey, and then send the data back to the suit.

Tom Holland also discussed the new gizmo with the LA Times, saying, “Our little drone has 10,000 things it could do. I think we found its proper use in the movie. It’s funny—he has a little relationship with the drone, like a little sidekick.”

We’ll just have to wait and see what these “10,000 things” are. However, Watts may have given us a hint; “I think it’s all supposed to be strictly for crime fighting. But I don’t think ‘droney’ would be opposed to picking up some take-out if that’s what Peter needed for his mission.”

GPS tracking system

A step-up from a normal teen's GPS app

Spider-Man has used trackers on screen before: just look at the animated series. However, it’s pretty clear that Tony Stark’s upgrade is one more suited for the 21st Century. The new system features a GPS tracking system with a nifty holographic display.

Definitely not his most intelligent design choice...

If there’s any advantage to Tony Stark’s upgrade, at least villains won’t find the tracker and wonder who could possibly be tracking them with a conspicuously spider-shaped object. Personally, it was never Spider-Man’s cleverest gadget.

New Web-Shooters

No Spider-Man is complete without his web-shooters. But Tony Stark took them a step farther, and now they feature a variety of webbing types and a laser-targeting system. Director Watts says about the development of this upgrade: “In the very first issue of Spider-Man, there was one page dedicated to all the different things that Spider-Man can do with his webs. We would always joke about that because there’s web skis, and a web boat, and a web shield.” However, even though some of these alternate uses for his webs may sound rather ridiculous, they inspired some more useful settings that we will hopefully get to see more of in the movie.

We’ve already gotten a glimpse at one of these new settings. Spidey can now fire explosive web snares that will automatically deploy upon approaching targets. And according to Peter’s on-board AI, he has 576 possible web-shooter combinations!

If you stuck around till the end of Civil War, you may have also gotten a glimpse at the stinger that gave us a bit more of a look into how these new settings work. Producer Eric Carroll explained it this way to Peter Sciretta: “He can adjust the spray, and he can even scroll through different web settings, like spinning web, web ball, ricochet web… you know, all of the stuff we can see him do in the comics, Tony has built into this.”

Apparently, it’s also controlled through a hologram interface, which is how he scrolls through the different settings. Carroll explained it a bit further; “It’s kind of like a DSLR camera. He can shoot without it, or he can hold that thing a second, get his aiming right, and really choose a web to shoot.” It all seems rather complicated, so hopefully Spidey understands it better than us.

Web Wings

A flying spider

If you’ve ever seen the original Spider-Man from way back in 1962, he looked a bit different than the version you are familiar with. In fact, he was quite thin, and a bit more wirey – a bit more like a spider. But the most noticeable difference between then and now has to be his “web-wings.” While Steve Ditko originally designed them as a decorative feature, writers used them to make Spidey glide on occasion over the years.

However, this design feature has been noticeably absent in recent years, especially in film. But no longer will Spidey be constricted to swinging between buildings. Now he can “fly.”

If you’re wondering just how the physics of this works, don’t worry; somebody already did the work for you.

Expressive Eyes

Ever since we saw these eyes in Civil War, fans have been complaining about them. “They are too cartoonish. They don’t make a lot of sense” However, knowing Tony Stark, there may be more to this upgrade than meets the eye.

There are plenty of things Iron Man could have built into these lenses to up their functionality. For one, they could be simple cameras, engineered to capture images of the Avengers in action for Peter Parker (he did have a belt-camera in the comics). Another possibility could be they act as telescopes, zooming in on far away targets.

Auto-Fitting Suit

It’s always been a mystery how superheroes get such custom fitted suits, but Tony Stark changed that with a feature that allows the Spidey suit to conform to the user’s body. It’s not quite certain exactly how this works, but when the suit does it’s thing, it does look pretty cool.

However, not just anybody can pick up the suit and wear it properly. It’s adaptable “within reason,” director Jon Watts warns. We guess we will just have to wait and see how small a size it can shrink to.

If all these upgrades sound pretty cool, don’t get used to seeing them on the big screen for too long. If you saw the most recent trailer for the upcoming movie, it seems one conflict in the film will revolve around Tony Stark taking his suit back, leaving Peter to go back to fighting crime in his red and blue gym clothes.

You’ll get a chance to see all these upgrades on the big screen, regardless of for how long, when Spider-Man Homecoming hits theaters on July 5.

Joseph Wilbur
Joseph Wilbur was a former writer for Fandom for over 2 years. He primarily wrote about the Arrowverse shows, or the DC and Marvel universes. He is a Star Wars fanatic, and has read every book in the 'Star Wars Legends' Universe (most of them at least twice).