“Madame Web,” in case the film’s unending avalanche of unsubtle “Look, don’t you remember this pop culture reference from 2003???” gags didn’t give it away, takes place primarily in the year 2003. Dakota Johnson’s Cassandra Webb (yes, her last name is actually Webb) is mostly an awkward loner who hangs out with best bud and paramedic co-worker Ben Parker (Adam Scott), the first and most blatant of the film’s many allusions to Spider-Man. The period setting detail is important because we’re subsequently introduced to Ben’s sister Mary (Emma Roberts), who is pregnant with her first child. Though the script plays coy with us about what she’ll name her son before ultimately never actually paying that off, it’s heavily implied that this is, in fact, Peter Parker who we see born at the very end of the movie.
But hang on! Peter being born in 2003 means this can’t possibly by the same Peter played by Tom Holland in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to say nothing of either Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield’s older versions of the superhero. So did “Madame Web” just introduce a wholly separate, alternate-universe version of Spidey that we haven’t even met yet? Well, technically no, since one can all but see the fingerprints left by studio notes that, in all likelihood, excised any direct mention of Peter Parker in the final film. I suppose a hypothetical sequel could walk this back entirely by revealing a different name altogether (Peter Parker’s clone/”brother” Ben Reilly, perhaps?) or, daringly enough, double down on this. But that’s precisely the point here. “Madame Web” holds back from actually committing one way or another, easily making this mystery baby the biggest — and most bizarre — of the film’s connections to Spider-Man.