If he's not a sidekick, then he's pretty close. He certainly isn't treated as a standalone hero the way Tony/Cap/Thor/Hulk/T'Challa/Strange/Carol were in their first films.
- Homecoming is the only MCU solo film where they brought in a hero from another MCU series to act as a mentor.
- It's also the only MCU film where the hero never wins a fight without help. Instead, Peter frequently needs rescuing (Iron Man swoops in to save him twice, Ned saves him from Shocker)
- Peter spends most of the film with "prove myself to Tony so I can join the Avengers" as his main motive (growing out of this is a big part of his character arc).
- Peter relies heavily on the Stark suit Tony built for him (the AI tells him what to do at the Washington monument, the parachute saves his life) and he convinces himself "I'm nothing without this suit" (again, growing out of this is part of his arc)
Meanwhile traditional Spidey character traits (spider-sense, the great power/responsibility motive) never get a mention and Peter is portrayed as such a rookie that he struggles to get over his fear of heights and can't keep his identity a secret.
Well ,I agree with you in the sense that he isn't the Spiderman' who's basically learning this stuff on his own and a more complete hero skill-wise as we've seen in the Maguire and Gafield versions.
On the other hand, I was fine with how they handled it since , imo, it makes sense for
this version of Spiderman/Peter Parker in
this version of the Marvel Universe.
Had it been Maguire or Garfield's Peter's ,then it'd be alot harder for me to buy. But for Holland's Peter , in the context of the MCU,, it makes sense . Holland's Peter is portrayed as like a 14 or 15 year old growing up in a world of gods, aliens, beings etc, looking up to Cap, Iron Man, Thor etc. To me, it makes sense that he would be the green, kid brother type character who wants to hang with the older kids, and who really isn't ready to take on the type of responsibilities that Cap and Ironman do. As a consequence he would screw up, want to be an Avenger, and want to be treated like an adult while seeing the world the way a kid would.
Maguire and Garfield played teens, but they really were grown young men and were basically written as such. They were basically the fully formed Spiderman, while I think the goal of Feige was to show how Peter becomes the Spiderman that we know. We're seeing the growing pains slowly to be sure, while in the other films ,they were brief montages or scenes in the origin films.
At the same time, this Peter isn't a loner like Maguire or Garfield, and he lives in a social media age in which the idea of kids keeping secrets today without drawing suspicion from their peers is a bit harder to believe. At the same time , The MCU hasn't been super big on the idea of secret identities in general.
Now, I will say it was always part of the Disney and Sony deal that one of the MCU characters would appear in a Sony produced Spiderman film , hence why Iron Man was there in SMHC . So that's gonna happen no matter what, which is why Fury is in FFH ,and they'll probably be another MCU hero in 3.
Now whether Marvel should have approached Spiderman this way I guess depends on whether someone like's the end results. I did, though I can see why there are Spiderman fans who don't like how its been done.
