Spider-Man: HomecomingSave

We open in 2012, after the Battle of New York. Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) — a salvage contractor — has been clearing Chitauri wreckage from the Manhattan streets. His crew has been quietly stockpiling the alien tech for years. Then a federal agency seizes the entire operation, leaving Toomes bankrupt. He keeps a few Chitauri artifacts and goes underground, slowly building weapons from the alien tech and selling them on the criminal market.

Cut to: 2017. Peter Parker is a 15-year-old high school sophomore in Queens, fresh from his cameo in Civil War (2016). Tony Stark has given him a tech-upgraded Spider-Man suit, designated him an Avengers prospect, and then promptly left him to handle 'friendly neighborhood' street crime. Peter has been waiting weeks for Tony to call. He spends his nights stopping bike thieves and pulling cats out of trees. He hates it.

Peter encounters Toomes — the Vulture — during a routine ATM robbery. The Vulture uses Chitauri-tech wings to fly off with the cash. Peter follows. The chase ends with Peter dropped into the Hudson River, saved only by Tony's surveillance system that activates the suit's autopilot. Tony calls Peter the next day. Bricks of advice. 'If you're nothing without this suit, then you shouldn't have it.' Tony confiscates the suit.

Peter, without the high-tech suit, returns to his homemade Spider-Man costume — the one with the awkward sweatshirt and hand-drawn web pattern. The film's second-act setpiece is on the Washington Monument: Peter's school is on a field trip there when Toomes's broken Chitauri-core detonates in an elevator shaft. Peter, in the homemade suit, saves his classmates. He learns he doesn't need Tony's suit to be Spider-Man.

The film's emotional climax is the parent-of-girlfriend twist that has become one of the most-discussed character reveals of the MCU. Peter has been dating Liz Toomes (Laura Harrier). He arrives at her house to pick her up for the Homecoming dance. He meets her father. The father is Adrian Toomes — the Vulture. The two of them look at each other in the doorway. Toomes recognizes Peter. Peter recognizes Toomes. Both pretend not to.

Toomes attempts to murder Peter on the drive to the dance, then attacks Peter at the warehouse, gives him a beating, and steals the new Stark plane he's been planning to rob. Peter, recovered, intercepts the plane mid-air over Coney Island. The plane crashes onto the beach. Peter pulls Toomes from the wreckage and webs him to the boardwalk for the police. Toomes survives. Peter walks away. Liz, upon learning her father has been arrested, transfers schools.

The film closes with Tony offering Peter membership in the Avengers — a public ceremony at the new upstate compound, complete with a press conference. Peter, finally adult enough to value his current life over the larger team, declines. 'I think I'm better off here. As a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.' Tony, surprisingly proud, calls Pepper Potts for a wedding ring he had been carrying. Spider-Man: Homecoming grossed $880 million globally — a strong Spider-Man franchise revival and the establishment of Tom Holland's MCU tenure.