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There's an argument to be made that 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home is an allegory about the plight of VFX workers, laboring for hours and crunch time to bring to life the cinematic Marvel imagination, only to be under-appreciated while the movie star - Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in this case - gets the glory.

For those who haven't seen the movie, here's a brief synopsis: Motivated by disgruntlement against his former employer Tony Stark, Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio sets out to make a name for himself as a superhero using stolen and repurposed technology and faked threats... and, in the process, becomes one such symbol of the under-appreciated worker plight I mentioned above. His villainous folly, though, is that the dramatic Mysterio also replicates and reinforces the kind of oppression he despises, exasperating the subordinates he claims he’s saving, while weaponizing deepfakes for nefarious means.

When Ryan Meinerding, Marvel Studios’ Head of Visual Development talked about his Mysterio design during his New York Comic Con 2024 spotlight panel, he reinforced this interpretation - and revealed a secret design hack that underscored the character's own lack of originality.

Meinerding mentioned that he purposefully designed Mysterio’s wardrobe to be a rip-off composite of several Marvel heroes, like Thor, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange. "Maybe you don't see that as an audience member [at first],” Meinerding explained, “until you figure out that he's a fraud and be like ‘Aw man, he just copied Vision's cape and Iron Man's chest piece.’”

On multiple levels, then, Mysterio was intentionally a derivative fraud. And the clues were right there in front of us the entire time.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Which Secret Wars comic the Russos are basing Avengers 6 off of
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Marvel's accidental closure on the Kang storyline
• Robert Downey Jr. is entering his villain era
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• For Marvel actors, the MCU also stands for the Marvel Commercials Universe
• The Fantastic 4: First Steps offers Marvel a visual makeover, courtesy of a classic movie designer
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga