Marvel’s latest TV show secretly rewrote Spider-Man: No Way Home in the best possible way. Introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming, the “Department of Damage Control” has become a mainstay in the MCU. The organization was originally established by Tony Stark in the aftermath of The Avengers to clean up after superhero battles, but it’s clear Damage Control has become far more important than that. Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Wonder Man also featured Supermax prisons run by Damage Control, confirming that they now police the US’ superhuman population.
On the face of it, this explains their interest in Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Spider-Man is the ultimate superhuman, an ordinary kid who gained the power to fight alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and he possessed the kind of Stark technology that should not be in the public domain. But a fascinating detail in Wonder Man, Marvel’s latest TV show, suggests there was much more to it than just that.
Damage Control Isn’t Just Responsible for Policing Superhumans
Image Courtesy of Marvel studios
Damage Control served an adversarial role in Wonder Man, essentially trying to force Simon Williams to confirm his powers so they’d have an excuse to arrest him. The Sokovia Accords seem to have been retracted after Avengers: Endgame, but Simon’s Hollywood career meant he was in breach of the Doorman Clause, and that would make him a high-profile catch as Damage Control fought to retain funding. But the final episode turned things upside down in a fascinating way, revealing there’s another side to Damage Control.
Wonder Man‘s ending saw agent Cleary finally figure out how Simon’s powers worked – albeit a few minutes too late, because Simon had actually engineered a breakout from the Supermax prison. Strikingly, though, Cleary was interested in these ionic powers because Simon would either be a dangerous threat or a tremendous “asset.” This throwaway comment confirms that Damage Control don’t just police superhumans, they also coordinate their operations. Cleary presumably hoped to use the Doorman Clause to force Simon to work for them.
Damage Control is Collecting Superhumans for a Reason
Image Courtesy of Marvel Studios
It’s a fantastic twist, confirming that Damage Control has evolved now it’s no longer under Tony Stark’s leadership. Ms. Marvel had already confirmed that Damage Control used the Stark drones taken from Spider-Man (they’re literally used against Kamala Khan). But we’d never before gotten a hint that Damage Control’s prisoners are seen as potential assets too, presumably used in government black ops or to help take down other superhumans. The MCU has lowkey set up its own Suicide Squad.
No wonder Damage Control wanted to take Spider-Man down. It wasn’t just a commitment to justice, and it wasn’t simply because Mysterio’s lies were believed. No, Damage Control had a major incentive to believe Mysterio’s claims about Spider-Man, simply because it gave them a chance to force an Avenger to work for them. Spider-Man had proved himself powerful enough to stand alongside the Avengers in the final battle against Thanos, and he’d just become a potential asset if they were only able to acquire him. Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s Damage Control plot suddenly has a lot more meaning.
Matt Murdock Was Protecting Spider-Man From Damage Control
Image courtesy of Marvel Studios
Oddly enough, this also has the effect of rewriting both Matt Murdock’s No Way Home story and the one told in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. It may be less exciting and explosive than most superhero action, but there’s actually a legal war taking place between Damage Control and the lawyers striving to protect enhanced individuals from becoming victims of injustice because their powers are desirable. To continue with the Suicide Squad analogy, attorneys like Matt Murdock and Jennifer Walters are on the front lines fighting against this approach.
Daredevil’s focus has shifted, of course; Matt stepped down as an attorney for a time, and he’s now focused on a very different (and more violent) shadow war against Kingpin. But the battle against Damage Control is guaranteed to escalate as the years pass, especially because these ideas seem like deliberate setup for the MCU’s Mutant Saga – given this is exactly the kind of plot we’ve seen in X-Men comics so many times. When that story comes, it will be the perfect continuation of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
