There are plenty of ‘what ifs?’ in the MCU, but you rarely get to catch a glimpse of what could have been. Thank Thor, then, for the wave of Marvel concept artists who have shared some of their used (and unused) artwork in recent months, with the latest being a tweaked take on an iconic Spider-Man villain.
Ryan Meinerding, head of visual development at Marvel Studios, has taken to Instagram to reveal the scrapped design for Vulture, as played by Michael Keaton in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The obvious change – and honestly, we almost prefer this design – comes with the wings. The ones that made it into Homecoming had a far greater span and were far more jumbled together, hinting at Adrian Toomes side-hustle as a tech scavenger.
The slimmer, streamlined look also extends (quite literally) to the tail of the mechanism, with a pair of claw-like arms that would’ve probably been a bit more effective at swatting Spidey to one side in their climactic mid-air battle.
While Vulture may have been captured in Homecoming, he’s making his Marvel return in 2021’s Morbius. Is it officially part of the MCU? That’s a web we’ll have to untangle next year.
Elsewhere, artist Andy Park also recently posted a look at Kate Bishop’s conceptual design for the upcoming Hawkeye Disney Plus series. Both he and Mienerding also have several pieces of Marvel artwork up on their Instagram account for those looking for more hidden MCU gems that often didn’t make the leap from sketches to the screen.
