Why are there only five main villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home?

*WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME. SHOULD YOU WANT TO REMAIN SPOILER FREE, THEN DO NOT READ THIS POST.*

If you think about all the villains in Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery, you think of characters such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, and possibly even Electro. Then as you let your mind wander, you start to think beyond the individual adversaries, and start to think about the villains collectively.

And where does this lead you? Usually toward the Sinister Six – a collection of six villains who regularly team-up to fight Spider-Man.

These guys have been popping up in comics for years, and in 2021 they came very close to appearing on the big screen too, via the big budget MCU film, Spider-Man: No Way Home. But they didn’t quite make it, because Spider-Man: No Way Home didn’t include a team of six villains – only a team of five: Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Electro, The Lizard, and the Sandman.

But why was that? Why would a Spider-Man movie that contains a team of multiple villains stop at five, rather than six?

Could it be, that a clue is in the movie itself? And could the number ‘5’ be related to a specific story beat in the film?

Think back to the spell that was cast by Doctor Strange. The spell was designed to make the world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.

But that spell didn’t go very well, and that was because Peter kept making adjustments to it. Initially the spell was straight forward, and would stop every person from remembering Peter’s alter-ego, but then it got more complicated.

Peter began adding wrinkles to the spell, by requesting that his friends and family be immune to its effects. He specifically wanted MJ, Ned, Aunt May, and Happy Hogan to be exempt from any magical intervention.

By making these requests, he adjusted the spell four times. But in total, that spell went through five phases: the initial spell, the version to make MJ exempt, the version to make Ned exempt, the version to make Aunt May exempt, and of course, the version to make Happy exempt.

Five versions in total. Could it be that each version of the spell was responsible for bringing one villain across the multiverse?

Magic often has some kind of a pay-off, to balance the good with the bad. You take something from here and you have to counterbalance it with something from there.

Had the spell been cast without any intervention, then maybe only one villain would have breached through the barrier, perhaps Doctor Octopus or maybe just the Green Goblin? But because Peter made four amendments to the spell, four additional villains also came through.

So, why are there five villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home? Maybe it’s because Peter Parker meddled with the spell multiple times, resulting in five spells being cast.

Of course, the spell also brought two extra Peters, as well as Eddie Brock… but let’s just call this a bonus, shall we?

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