What Does The MCU’s Sinister Six Look Like Now? (**CONTAINS SPOILERS**)

Assessing the impact of Far from Home on Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery.

From the cover of volume 5 of the trade paperbacks compiling Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man (“The Ultimate Six”). Credit: Marvel Comics.

While the Sinister Six may be among the most classic examples of a super-villain team-up, few people realize that they assembled relatively infrequently in the first 40 years of Marvel Comics continuity. Introduced in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 in 1964, a group consisting of Doctor Octopus, Electro, The Vulture, Kraven the Hunter, Sandman and Mysterio put the wall-crawler through a deadly gauntlet to save the lives of Daily Bugle co-worker (and then love interest) Betty Brant and his Aunt May. But this was treated as a special event by the publishers — one that, for as memorable as it was, wouldn’t be repeated for almost thirty years. However, that hasn’t prevented the team from capturing the imagination of fans of both the comics and the other media they’ve inspired. So it’s really less a question of whether they’ll appear in film than how and when.

Each of Spider-Man’s cinematic adventures has expanded his rogues gallery and therefore the odds of various scenarios playing out — and Spider-Man: Far from Home is no exception. Here are some observations regarding how this latest movie may or may not facilitate different incarnations of the villain team. As noted in the title of the article, detailed spoilers from Far from Home are discussed below; if you haven’t seen the film, you might want to read this after you’re caught up.

A Sinister Six That Includes Mysterio Is Now Much Less Likely — and Not for the Reason You’d Think

If you’re reading this, then you’ve presumably seen the movie and know that Quentin Beck appears to perish at the end of the film. Given that this is a character who leans heavily on deception, that doesn’t preclude his reappearance in any one of a variety of ways — he could have faked his death, the mantle could be assumed by someone else, etc. But what makes me think that his inclusion in the Sinister Six is now less likely has more to do with the character’s MCU origins and nature.

Rather than Mysterio simply being a special effects wizard with an ax to grind, I think of the MCU Mysterio as a troupe rather than an individual. Simply put, the MCU Mysterio is the combination of Count Olaf and his band of actors from A Series of Unfortunate Events — only on a grander scale. While we’re introduced to a handful of his accomplices, we really have no idea as to how many former Stark Industries employees have supported this cause — and it really comes across as a cause, the usurpation of Tony Stark’s legacy.

As a result, Beck is essentially a megalomaniacal director in the movie’s third act. And I don’t see either the leaderless troupe or this directorial portrayal of Beck jibing with the version of Mysterio who would join a group like the Sinister Six.

I Also Believe That A Variant of The Sinister Six That Includes The Vulture Is Now Less Likely

This opinion is largely based on the implications of the movie’s mid-credit scene — perhaps the most impactful mid-credit scene we’ve seen in the MCU to date. While you can debate Adrian Toomes’s motivations for not spilling Peter’s secret identity at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming, you can’t deny that the villain is observing his own complicated moral code and that he isn’t hell bent on Peter’s destruction — something he could have easily facilitated. Now that the hero’s secret identity has been exposed and he’s going to be on the run from various law enforcement agencies, I’d find it hard to picture Toomes joining the hunt. In the end, The Vulture is still a villain and will still want to face off with Spider-Man — so I don’t see this as part of some redemption arc where he’d join the Sinister Six to sabotage them. But if/when they do cross each other’s paths, I’d see it happening on Toomes’s terms and not as part of a massive manhunt.

I Think It’s Also Becoming Increasingly Unlikely That The Sinister Six Will Be an All-Star Team

The comics have a huge advantage over cinema when it comes to team-ups because of simple math. Movie series need to summarize, in perhaps a dozen hours of run time or less, character introductions that could span literally thousands of pages of story arcs in the source comic material. Even with contract extensions, Tom Holland’s tenure as Spider-Man is going to be finite. And the fact that he has appeared in five MCU movies with minimal foundation for an ongoing rogue’s gallery doesn’t hold a lot of promise for an all-star roster for the Sinister Six.

As the original Batman movie series demonstrated, it can be tricky to feature more than one major villain in a film. In villain duos, it’s not uncommon for one to represent the brains and the other to represent the brawn — often to the detriment of the establishment of one or both characters. So the chances that Marvel Studios could slip 5 or 6 major Spider-Man villains into its next few films — while doing them any justice — seem unlikely. This is especially true when you consider that, where the Sinister Six are concerned, this would require the reintroduction of powerhouse fan-favorites Doctor Octopus and/or the Green Goblin (if the MCU chose to interpret the “Ultimate Spider-Man” version of the team).

One alternative would be to revisit an idea that Sony had been considering prior to its collaboration with Disney — and that’s to develop the roster of the Sinister Six in a stand-alone movie, an Ocean’s Eleven with super-villains as it were. This idea has a lot of merit given that it would allow the filmmakers to devote 100% of the allotted screen time to development of these rogues prior to their first encounter with the webslinger. But the same partnership that has made Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far from Home possible would also create logistical issues for such an approach. For example, would this movie be an MCU movie or an MCU-adjacent Sony movie? And would any of these characters be hinted at or shown in other MCU movies first? Because otherwise, why would they have any specific rivalry with Spider-Man if most of them wouldn’t have encountered him previously?

None of the above considerations would need to be blockers, however I think that there might be a more practical — if perhaps less satisfying — way that Marvel could subvert expectations while introducing a Sinister Six into the MCU.

The Best Chance for Seeing a Sinister Six May Now Lie with a More Modern Roster

If you read a recent Marvel comic including the Sinister Six, you’re not going to see the classic roster. Several years ago, that team disbanded following the apparent death of their nominal leader Otto Octavius. And while Octavius’s demise was short-lived, it was still long enough for the moniker to be picked up by a group of B-list villains that had previously called themselves “The Sinister Syndicate.”

While the members of the Sinister Syndicate are also classic villains including the likes of Boomerang, Rhino, and the Beetle, they definitely represent a second tier of characters that might not require the same level of character development that would be expected for Doctor Octopus, Kraven or Electro. And that could offer a loophole — a cheat — that Marvel and Sony could exploit. Because no one ever said that the Sinister Six need to be the primary villains in the story where they’re introduced. They could essentially serve as shock troops in the employ of a master villain who could even join them in battle to flesh out their ranks.

This approach might not be the most satisfying for fans, but it seems like the shortest path available given the current status quo in the MCU. As it is, it seems like Marvel and Sony are currently leaning towards opposing Spider-Man with humans leveraging technology rather than super-powered individuals. So a group of technology-enabled, animal-themed mercenaries would match this aesthetic while also paying off on a concept first introduced in the now out-of-continuity Amazing Spider-Man 2. And it would give them the flexibility to continue inserting their more major villains selectively and on their own timeline.

One Thing Is Certain — The Clock Is Ticking

For my part, I really liked Far from Home. However, it did help to remind me that the clock is ultimately ticking where this incarnation of Spider-Man is concerned. Every Tom Holland movie appearance that doesn’t help to set up the Sinister Six removes a chunk of runway from any future attempt to leverage the concept. What remains to be seen is whether Marvel is doing this because they’re playing the long game — holding onto this card for Holland’s eventual swan song and a handing of the mantle to a Miles Morales Spider-Man — or if they’re simply not as invested in the group as many fans are.

Mac Gargan’s heavy hint from Homecoming’s mid-credit scene, that he’s got “friends” who’d like to demolish the wall-crawler, would seem to suggest it’s not the latter — and would also align with my belief that The Six might fall somewhere on the continuum between henchmen and minor villains when they do make their MCU debut. Given that Spider-Man will be a hunted man when we next see him, having a group of augmented mercenaries tracking him down would make a lot of sense. So I think that the simplest solution remains the most likely — even if it won’t necessarily be the most satisfying for every fan.