Characters / MCU: Mysterio

aka: MCU Mysterio Quentin Beck

Main Character Index > Villainous Individuals and Organizations > Other Supervillains > Emil Blonsky | Ultron | Darren Cross | Helmut Zemo | Erik Stevens | Mysterio

---

Spoilers for all works set prior to Spider-Man: No Way Home are unmarked.

Quentin Beck / Mysterio

"You'll see, Peter. People... Need to believe. And nowadays, they'll believe anything."

^{Click here to see him helmeted}
"I created Mysterio to give the world someone to believe in. I control the truth... Mysterio is the truth!"

^{Click here to see him in his mo-cap suit}
"It's easy to fool people when they're already fooling themselves."

Known Aliases: L'uomo Di Misterio, Mysterio

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Mysterio Crew

Portrayed By: Jake Gyllenhaal

Voiced By: Luis Daniel Ramírez (Latin American Spanish dub, Far From Home), Daniel del Roble (Latin American Spanish dub, No Way Home), Hiroki Takahashi (Japanese dub), Philippe Maia (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Saša Rašilov (Czech dub), Marius Clarén (German dub), Pablo Sevilla (European Spanish dub), Rémi Bichet (European French dub), Martin Watier (Canadian French dub), Dharmendra Gohil (Hindi dub), Stefano Crescentini (Italian dub), Kang Soo-jin (Korean dub), Mészáros Béla (Hungarian dub), Grzegorz Małecki (Polish dub), Mikhail Tikhonov (Russian dub), Karthik Kannan (Tamil dub), Özgür Özdural [theatrical and home video], Rıza Karaağaçlı [video-on-demand] (Turkish dub)

Appearances: Spider-Man: Far From Home | Spider-Man: No Way Home ^note  Video recording only

"These days, you can be the smartest guy in the room, the most qualified, and no one cares. Unless you're flying around with a cape, or shooting lasers with your hands, no one will even listen. Well, I've got a cape and lasers. With our technology, and with you, Mysterio will be the greatest hero on Earth! And then everyone will listen! Not to a boozy manchild! Not to a hormonal teenager! To me, and to my very wealthy crew!"

A mysterious man who is the last surviving superhero from the Alternate Universe of Earth-833. When his world was attacked by beings known as the Elementals — who murdered his family — he joined an alliance that held off their advances, but in the end they failed and his allies fell in battle. Thanks to repeated uses of the Infinity Gauntlet, a dimensional rift opened between his world and ours, bringing both him and the Elementals here. Vowing to stop the Elementals from destroying another planet, Mysterio teams up with Spider-Man and Nick Fury in order to become a new guardian to a world that has just lost one of its greatest.

... At least, that's the most convincing tragic backstory that his team could come up with. In truth, Quentin Beck is the narcissistic ringleader of a group of disgruntled former Stark Industries employees who came together after Tony Stark's death to steal the E.D.I.T.H. defense grid and take his place as Earth's most prominent superhero, as revenge for him not appreciating their work and stealing their thunder. Together, they take on the role of Mysterio and his supposed enemies the Elementals, which are elaborate holographic illusions brought to life by drones of their own.

---

Quentin Beck

A-E

• Abled in the Adaptation: This version does not suffer from lung or brain cancer like his comic counterpart, since he only worked with holograms instead of the chemicals that started them in the first place.
• Accidental Truth:
  • During the events of Far From Home, Mysterio was lying about coming from another world in the Multiverse and is really nothing more than a former Stark Industries employee. As it turns out, the Multiverse really is real and Peter ends in unwittingly opens it up with the help of Dr Strange, meaning Quentin foreshadowed it by accident. Taken even further after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where it's revealed that the main MCU timeline was dubbed by Earth-838 as Earth-616, something Mysterio also made up.
  • Adding onto the above, one of the monsters Mysterio and his team come up with is a being made entirely out of sand, a being he claims comes from another universe and is a big threat to the entire world. As Spider-Man: No Way Home reveals, there really is a being made of sand that poses a threat to Peter's universe. Specifically, Flint Marko from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy.
• Actually a Doombot: A lot of the time when Spider-Man attacks him, it will turn out to be a hologram.
• Adaptation Name Change: An Implied Trope. During Quentin's speech to his co-conspirators, he implies that "Quentin Beck" is a false name used to help shore up his fake backstory. However, he is never referred to by any other name, with his cronies only calling him "boss".
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Understandable, seeing as how his comics counterpart couldn't get a career because of his ugliness, but here he's played by known Mr. Fanservice Jake Gyllenhaal. It may have necessitated his Adaptational Job Change, as trying to play the angle of Beck being unable to get a career in Hollywood because he was ugly would be a rather awkward situation for the story to takeinvoked.
• Adaptational Badass: Mysterio in the comics is often presented as a Joke Character. The moment his illusions run out, he's done for and it's hard to imagine him as the Big Bad of a large-scale story. Here, Mysterio is a lot more threatening and acts on a much larger scale than he usually does. The final act, where he nearly destroys London and kills hundreds of people, is well above his comic counterpart in scope.
• Adaptational Heroism: Subverted. Originally a special effects wizard and actor turned supervillain, the Far From Home one comes up with a new backstory with him being the Sole Survivor of a destroyed world who seeks to save this one from the monsters that killed his family. Then it turns out that, while his former occupation is a little different, his backstory is pretty much the same as the comics version, and the monsters are illusions of his own creation meant to service a fictional backstory to give him sympathy.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In contrast to how he was built up as being a hero in this continuity by the marketing, this version of Mysterio is, if anything, worse than his classic portrayal. Normally, Mysterio is a villain more into stealing and causing trouble to get attention, but he's not nearly as dangerous to others. He is even wary about collateral damage and preventing too many people from getting in danger, and he's often Only in It for the Money (and, once he realized no one took him seriously, he just went on and rolled with it). This version, on the other hand, is fully willing to commit mass-murder both directly and indirectly, both to bask in his own glory and to take part in heroism addiction for fame and profit. He's also considerably pettier as well, attempting to murder Michelle, and then revealing Peter's secret identity to the world by leaking manipulated footage to The Daily Bugle.
• Adaptational Job Change: A tech genius who worked at Stark Industries, rather than a special effects artist and failed actor.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Subverted. At first, it seems like he's a genuine sorcerer (not a bad cover in a world with the Masters of the Mystic Arts in it), then it turns out his "magic" is him being the same Master of Illusion gadgeteer he is in the comics. So he really is a special effects wizard. To a degree, it's played straight in that this version exclusively relies on highly advanced Mocap-based hologram tech, as opposed to his comic counterpart mixing a regular hologram projector with hallucogenic gasses.
• Adaptation Distillation: Mysterio is a blend of a number of different versions:
  • His attempt to pass himself of as a hero, comes from his origins in ASM #13, as well as Stan Lee's Spider-Man Newspaper Strip which in The Oughties did a serial story of Mysterio as a hero (who actually convinced Spider-Man there unlike the original L-D story), and whose motivations and origins is a grudge he held at a hero ruining his civilian career.^note In the newspaper strip, this was Spider-Man who trashed the set of Beck's low-budget horror production thinking it was an actual production, and Spider-Man's attack wasn't covered in the production's insurance, sinking it, and Beck's career in the process.
  • His more murderous and vengeful approach, as well as his fondness for Mind Rape and Gaslighting while always present in a minor degree was ramped up considerably in Guardian Devil (where he went after Daredevil and caused Karen Page's death) as well as Old Man Logan (where he manipulated Wolverine into killing the X-Men).
  • This version of Mysterio claims to be a traveler from a parallel Earth. In Spider-Men, the Ultimate version of Mysterio was revealed to be an android controlled by the regular 616 vision of Mysterio who had traveled to a parallel Earth, albeit for far different motives- he didn't claim to be trying to save the world, and was just sick of losing to the mainstream Spider-Man so much that he tried to start his criminal career over in what he thought was a more vulnerable Earth.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Rather than a failed actor, this version of Mysterio is a former worker from Stark Industries who was fired due to unpredictability. He's also the one who created the B.A.R.F. device seen in Civil War, when we were all led to be believe it was Tony Stark, since Tony himself didn't give credit to anyone and merely said he sank a lot of money into the project.
• Adapted Out: In line with his Adaptational Job Change from a former special effects technician to a disgraced Stark Industries employee, this Mysterio lacks a lot of his comics counterpart's gadgets and abilities, namely his hallucinogenic fog^note notably one that could dull the Spider Sense, along with Mysterio's mastery of hand-to-hand combat from training as a stuntman.
• All for Nothing: Manages to make Mysterio a superhero name and seemingly be on top of the world for his Engineered Heroics scheme — only to screw up at the very end, get himself killed, and ultimately even his posthumorous attempt to frame Spider-Man for his death doesn't quite work out as intended. There are those that do believe Mysterio was a genuine hero, but Beck intended to bask in that glory and fame.
• Always Someone Better: For the Skrulls, who themselves are masters of shapeshifting and deception. In fact, Talos sheepishly admits that Beck's illusions had even him fooled.
• Ambiguous Situation: Because Beck is such an Unreliable Narrator, there's no way to actually prove whether or not his claims about Tony unjustly firing him are accurate. On the one hand, Tony's track record for dealing with his employees fairly isn't perfect, but on the other, Beck is clearly ridiculously unstable and several of the events we see from his perspective don't match how we've seen them before (specifically, he leaves out that Tony admitted that B.A.R.F. needed a better name, and he hears the audience laughing at something else when he thought they were laughing about the name); he could be either stretching the truth, outright lying about everything or was deluded due to his instability, thinking that it was more embarrassing than it really was.
• Ambition Is Evil: His ambition and desire for recognition turn him into a mass-murderer.
• Appropriated Appelation: He takes "Mysterio" from Peter telling him about that name while watching an Italian news report covering his defeat of Hydro-Man, which described him as l'uomo di misterio ^note the mystery man. He, and the people behind him, end up taking a liking to it, to the point where he actually demands to be called Mysterio at a meeting in Prague.
• Arch-Enemy: By far the most personal adversary Spider-Man has faced, at least up to that point. He betrayed his trust, psychologically tortured him, tried to kill him and his friends, and last but certainly not least, framed him as a criminal and exposed his identity to the entire world. The only villain that rivals him as Spider-Man's most hated enemy is the Green Goblin himself, and even he gets to ruin Peter's life only due to Mysterio's actions.
• As You Know: The Reveal of his true nature is fully explained to the audience with the congratulatory (and self-congratulatory) speech that Mysterio gives to his co-conspirators, detailing how they pulled off selling the deception — in spite of his co-conspirators being fully aware of most of, or even all of, that information. Justified, as he is toasting to everyone's accomplishments and how they got there, but the sheer level of detail is for our benefit. You can really tell Beck has a background in corporate.
• Attack Drone: Beck uses a couple of Stark attack drones equipped with holographic projectors in order to generate his massive CGI Elementals. The drones' weapons also cause the damage needed to sell the story. After Peter gives him E.D.I.T.H., he has access to hundreds of them.
• Attention Whore: Orchestrates fake magical threats on cities, killing hundreds in the process solely so he can play the hero and bask in glory.
• Ax-Crazy: He does a good job of hiding it, but he displays narcissistic (and borderline psychopathic) behavior throughout Far From Home, and doesn't hesitate to try murdering teenagers that know a little too much about his plans. Tony even fired Beck because he was unstable, which was clearly the right thing to do.
• Badass Cape: Invoked and deconstructed. Part of his Mysterio outfit is a cape that Beck has a designated underling, Janice, tasked with ironing to make it as presentable as possible. The deconstruction comes with the fact that said ironing process takes too long, which means Quentin doesn't have the cape ready to wear when he needs it, such as the climax in London.
• Bad Boss: Points a group of armed drones at his underlings when he discovers that one of the drone projectors has gone missing. Also has the tendency to fly off the handle, coming across as a temperamental director.
• The Bad Guy Wins: By the mid-credits, it appears as though Mysterio achieved his goal of being seen as a Fake Ultimate Hero after all, framing Spider-Man for his crimes and outing him as Peter Parker, all while tarnishing Iron Man's legacy in the process. He may be dead, but his legacy will live on and Spider-Man's reputation is destroyed. It takes Doctor Strange to cast a global memory wiping spell to undo the damage he did to Peter and his friends, at the cost of people no longer remembering who Peter was and several of his future prospects prior to having his identity revealed. However, as the spell only affects people's memory of Peter Parker and not of Spider-Man, Spider-Man is ultimately considered to be a divisive figure, a genuine hero to many and a menace to others.
• Bait the Dog: Just about everything he does in the first half of Spider-Man: Far From Home is done to garner sympathy from the characters (and the audience) to lead them to think that he's a good man and someone that a grieving Peter Parker can look up to. Not so – he's just in it for fame and fortune, and doesn't care how many people have to die to maintain the illusion that he's a superhero, and is perfectly willing to directly put Spider-Man in harm's way to do just that.
• Bash Brothers: With Spider-Man against Hydro-Man and Molten Man. It doesn't last after Spider-Man learns that Mysterio is a fraud.
• Beard of Evil: He sports a villainous goatee. He doesn't have it in his flashback, showing he got it after going into full villainy.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • He flip-flops from being resentful that people like the Avengers "wasted" so much technological breakthrough for superhero work and wanting to use that kind of technology to attain the glory of being the most prominent hero of the post Avengers world (even if he's faking a crisis to do it).
  • He seems to grow genuinely fond of Peter. While he's initially firmly Faux Affably Evil towards the boy, he claims he tried to urge Peter away from danger and to have a normal life, while he even angrily declares to one of his subordinates that Peter's "blood is on your hands". Although, given his overall personality, this could also be interpretated as Beck guilt-tripping the guy into full cooperation.
• Believing Their Own Lies: As befits such an epic narcissist, Beck is as good at deceiving himself as he is others. He seems to genuinely believe his actions are for some greater good rather than to feed his own colossal ego, that he was unfairly ousted by Tony Stark and that he isn't responsible for hurting Peter despite directly ordering it.
• Benevolent Boss: Subverted. After The Reveal that he was Evil All Along, Mysterio enthusiastically congratulates his henchmen for a job well done, taking time to praise their individual talents and contributions. Back at work minutes later, he flies off the handle and threatens to murder them all for something that wasn't their fault and blames them for it.
• Berserk Button: While pretty much anything sets him off, his technology failing or not doing what he wants is a major one as he threatens to murder one of his henchmen when glitches appear.
• Big Bad: He's the main villain of Far From Home. The Elementals are ultimately his creations and he's using them to stage heroics that threaten innocent people.
• Big Bad Friend: With Spider-Man, who treats him like a brother-in-arms over the course of dealing with the Elemental threat, unaware that Beck is the mastermind.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends to be a selfless, heroic Nice Guy and Cool Uncle figure to Peter but is really a psychopathic, selfish Jerkass who is willing to harm anyone to get what he wants.
• Broken Pedestal: Peter, who is still recovering from the grief he's experienced with the death of Iron Man, doesn't take learning the truth about Mysterio well.
• The Bully: At his core, Beck is just a schoolyard bully with the funding and technology of a supervillain as he belittles and threatens anyone who gets in his way, be it Peter, his classmates or Beck's own subordinates.
• Character Tics: When feeling paticularly angry or emotional, which is very often, veins in his face bulge.
• The Charmer: He's very charismatic and skilled at winning people over with fake charm.
• The Chessmaster: Evil to the over-the-top extreme, yes. But Beck is quite the planner, using his charm, fake heroism, and resources to get on top, and he has contingencies. Sure, he may have died in the end, but even then, he's still a hero and Spider-Man is a villain, as far as the public knows.
• Choice of Two Weapons: He uses drones for both his illusions and battle, and carries an ordinary semiautomatic pistol on his mocap suit.
• Cliché Storm: An In-Universe example. Mysterio's backstory is a cobbled together sob story of Sci-Fi and Fantasy cliches. In fact, what finally tips Fury off is when Mysterio tells one too many lies and the story becomes so cliched that it's unbelievable.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Mysterio's actual costume is where all of his powers come from. Interestingly, he uses projections of his costumed self, even if he's not actually wearing it, just as often.
• Collective Identity: While Quentin Beck is the "face" of Mysterio and the ringleader of the entire operation, he relies heavily on a sizable crew of artists, mechanics, and programmers to manufacture his illusions, all of whom consider themselves a part of the character they've created. Beck's defeat and eventual death doesn't stop the problem, as his team manages to pull a Thanatos Gambit with the footage on the bridge to frame Peter as the villain rather than them.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Carries a gun on him just to be on the safe side and almost manages to shoot Peter in the head with it while being distracted by an illusion of him if not for Peter's Spider-sense.
  • He also makes sure no other superhero who could be less easy to manipulate and gullible to his tricks shows up before he begins his faked attacks.
• Combo Platter Powers: Mysterio, as he's first presented, has a rather vaguely-defined power set. He can fly, generate mist, protect himself with energy shields, Thinking Up Portals, shoot Hand Blasts, seems to have a level of Super-Toughness, and can cause explosions. Justified, in that not only is this just an illusion, but it's likely that Beck cared little about making a consistent set of powers and just told the crew to make a hero that looks cool.
• Complexity Addiction
  • He easily could have said that the Elementals were beings from another dimension and he had the power to stop them and call it a day. Instead, he came up with an elaborate backstory about how they destroyed his world and killed his family in order to present himself as being more sympathetic to the public eye, and to make himself appear more heroic. His overly elaborate backstory and the ridiculous scripts given by his team end up leading to those he's talking to realize that his over-the-top comments are repeating themselves and figuring out that he is lying.
  • Psychologically-manipulating Peter Parker while assaulting him with a series of illusions was unnecessarily dramatic and cruel, especially when he could have simply shot him with drones for a quick and merciful death. It also comes back to bite him since Peter managed to survive getting hit by the train and figure out a way to counter his illusions.
• Composite Character:
  • Invoked by Beck. His costume looks like a combination of the high-tech and otherworldly costumes of Iron Man and Thor, he "uses" "magic" like Doctor Strange, and he claims to have a military background like Captain America. Given how everything about Mysterio was created with the purpose of gaining the trust and sympathy of others, it makes sense to blatantly copy the Avengers. Additionally, while he never shows it to the general public, his illusions require the use of cloaking devices, giving him a variant of Black Widow's invisibility as well.
  • He also takes a good bit from the Green Goblin; using his knowledge of Peter's identity to harm his loved ones, accidentally killing himself, and casting a large shadow over Peter's life after his death. His Mind Rape of Peter even has a bit where he drops MJ over the Eiffel Tower, alluding to The Night Gwen Stacy Died.
• Consummate Liar: Lying is like breathing to him, and he manages to successfully fool not only Peter Parker but also the Skrulls, shapeshifters disguised as Nick Fury and Maria Hill who are good liars themselves. He even manages to convince himself that Tony's audience was laughing at his invention.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • To the Vulture. Both are technology-based and have their descent to villainy tied to Tony Stark. However, Vulture is an Affably Evil Punch-Clock Villain who just tries to make a living, prefers to stay under the radar, derides using codenames, maintains a sense of honor, and is a Benevolent Boss whose presence is always treated seriously. He is an older man with a family whose company was indirectly ruined by Stark, and initially became a villain to ensure the financial well-being of his employees (before his personal greed overtook his sense of responsibility), is initially divorced from Peter's personal life but then forms a grudging respect for him, and refuses to give away his Secret Identity, since he saved his daughter's life as well as his own and accepts his defeat and arrest quite well. Mysterio is a Faux Affably Evil Smug Snake driven by his own ego, a Glory Hound who poses as a superhero out in the open, embraces his codename, has absolutely no honor, is a Bad Boss and is Laughably Evil. He is young, handsome and single, is a former employee of Stark's before being fired by him, and initially acts as Peter's mentor and friend. Then they come to hate each other, and this ends up being instrumental in Mysterio's decision to reveal Peter's identity to the world solely out of spite. Similarly, while both the audience and Peter know Vulture is the bad guy from the start, Peter becomes close to Mysterio and the reveal of his true nature is a shock for both him and the audience. And while Vulture was a working class guy who turned to villainy after his company went under due to factors outside his control, a fact for which he is justifiably angry, Mysterio was a tech genius who was fired due to his own instability, a fact which he's in complete denial over. And while Vulture was a sympathetic vllain who had numerous redeeming features such as his code of honor, his genuine love for his family, his loyalty to his men and sense of loyalty and gratitude, Mysterio is just a petty narcissist with no redeeming traits of any kind.
  • To most other Phase 3 villains who had strong convictions or traumatic pasts that led to their villainy. Mysterio has none of that, merely pretending to be something meaningful and grandiose when in reality he's just a petty narcissist with too much power and whose motive for villainy is him massively overreacting to perceived mistreatment.
• Cool Uncle: Mysterio goes out of his way to develop an easy going familial-type relationship with Peter in order to gain Peter's trust. According to the director:
  Jon Watts: If Tony Stark was sort of the mentor in the previous films, we thought it would be interesting to play Mysterio as almost like the cool uncle.
• Crazy-Prepared: When he says that he has multiple contingencies, he's not kidding. His illusions are elaborate enough to take full advantage of the environments they're placed over, as demonstrated during his torment of Peter in Berlin. They are even so flexible that they easily adjust to whatever their marks do should they go off-script. Even when Peter personally confronts him, he's crafty enough with his illusions and manipulations to pull a quick gun draw when Peter's not looking. And then there's his doctored footage of the event he has sent to the Daily Bugle after he dies.
• Create Your Own Villain: Much like Aldrich Killian, Baron Zemo, and the Vulture before him, Mysterio was yet another man who got screwed over by Tony Stark along the way and then was Driven to Villainy as a result. In Mysterio's case he was a Stark Industries employee who has his tech taken and given a mocking name by Tony, before he was then fired for being unstable.
• Creative Sterility: Technological know-how aside, Beck has an astonishing lack of imagination. He relies on his team to come up with his backstory and costume, and even his Mysterio persona is a crude composite of the Avengers (a man in Powered Armor like Iron Man, a veteran like Captain America, a being from another world like Thor, and a sorcerer like Doctor Strange).
• Crusading Widower: He pretended to be one, saying his family was killed when the Elementals destroyed his Earth. Peter sees him fiddle with a wedding ring when he explains this. It’s a sob story meant to be viewed sympathetically.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: After Spider-Man finally masters his powers, Beck goes down in an almost comically one-sided battle and ends up shot by his own drones.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Beck and his cohorts have the means to invent groundbreaking effects technology and illusions that can be weaponized, and yet they use it to take part in a Monster Protection Racket. Had they not been evil, they might have seen they could've started a business with this and became as rich as Stark was legitimately, or even genuinely become the kind of hero Quentin pretends to be.
• Dead Man's Switch: Of a sort. Upon his death, he has his team release a video of him outing Peter Parker's secret identity to the world.
• Death Equals Redemption: As he dies, he admits Stark was right to choose Peter as his successor and goes to hand him the E.D.I.T.H. glasses. Turns out this is a hologram to trick Spider-Man so the real Mysterio can shoot him.
• Decomposite Character: Due to the nature of Mysterio being reimagined as a Collective Identity. There's not a single Mysterio, but rather there's a group of people that make up Mysterio, while Quentin Beck is The Face of the operation.
• Decoy Backstory: When Peter first meets Quentin Beck, he tells him how he's from an Alternate Universe and had come to this Earth in pursuit of the elemental creatures that had killed his family. After a number of shared battles, Peter trusts Beck enough to give him the E.D.I.T.H. glasses he'd received from the late Tony Stark, thus giving him access to Stark information and technology. Once he has it, Beck is revealed to in actuality be a disgruntled Stark employee who gathered up others like him to create the illusion of a tragic warrior from another universe in an effort to gain Peter's trust.
• Diabolical Mastermind: Most of his powers come from his crew of special effects artists and abilities as a planner.
• Didn't Think This Through: Compared to his plans, which he was extraordinarily meticulous about, everything Beck cooks up on the fly tends to fall apart in some way or another. Tries to kill Spider-Man with a train, and yet he doesn't even check if it worked. The instant his London attack is interrupted by Spider-Man, he throws the entire plan out the window to kill the web-slinger, a random excuse he cooked up on the go was so bad that even Talos-as-Fury could see through it, and he unwittingly gets himself killed by his own droid defenses.
  • There's also the fact that his Thanatos Gambit of framing Peter for his death persisted on the idea that people would buy it wholesale, expecting a reckoning for Spidey. Matt Murdock quickly proves in No Way Home that while Peter has to worry about the court of public opinion which by itself was split down the middle, Beck's claims fell apart in the court of law almost effortlessly. Considering Quentin Beck didn't even create an alias for himself despite being a former Stark Industries employee who hijacked Stark tech, and the hodge-podge editing of the doctored footage from an "anonymous source" that wouldn't be legally admissible in court, it's not exactly a wonder why this failed.
• Dies Wide Open: That is, if he's actually dead. His eyes in his final moments resemble the eye sigils on his costume.
• Dimensional Traveler: Mysterio claims that he comes from an alternate Earth that became connected with the main reality of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a result of Thanos's use of the Infinity Gauntlet. He actually isn't.
• Dirty Coward: Prefers to hide behind his hacked drones and illusions when fighting Spider-Man, even trying to get one last cheap shot at him from behind before succumbing to his bullet wounds.
• Disney Death: He stages his defeat of Molten Man as a Heroic RRoD-type Heroic Sacrifice that conveniently doesn't kill him, and waits for Peter to have a Please Wake Up moment before revealing his survival. He may have pulled another off on London Bridge at the end of Far From Home, but that's not clear.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While Tony was being dickish to him by passing his creation off as his own and giving it an insulting name right in front of him, that's not sufficient to justify his vendetta against the man, or the lengths he's willing to go to in order to get what he wants.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • He lambastes Stark for firing him because he was "unstable", as if he doesn't get why anyone could possibly think that of him. Beck, being a mass-murdering psychopath and a self-centered Smug Snake who's fully willing to murder teenagers and let countless innocents die so that he could be a "hero", seriously is oblivious to anyone believing he's insane. As it turns out, Stark likely had a very good reason to keep Beck away from his technology.
  • On a lighter note, to sell his Dimensional Traveler story, he reacts to Peter's Sarcasm-Blind moment by asking if this version of Earth has sarcasm. Because he's not actually a Dimensional Traveler, he's unaware that the MCU, Earth-199999, is the biggest World of Snark in the Marvel Multiverse.
  • His claim to be from another universe was made up, yes, but it turns out that there is a Multiverse similar to what he described. For added irony, the Multiverse was put in jeopardy when trying to erase one of his actions.
• Emerald Power: He is a Master of Illusion and the fake "spells" he casts appear to be green.
• Establishing Character Moment: The first time we see him outside of his "superhero" character, he's cracking jokes about the disasters he just pulled off with his minions like the cast party after finishing a big blockbuster.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Parodied. He only lets the underage Peter have lemonade instead of giving him alcohol.
  • While it's less about morality and more about his frustration with incompetence, he's genuinely angered that William so carelessly allowed a broken drone to go unchecked despite the very obvious security risk it posed, which of course led Peter and MJ to its discovery and the jeopardy of the entire operation. Quentin even furiously berates William for his stupidity and the fact that he's now forced to target Peter (it's heavily implied he was willing to let him go in peace so long as he never found out) because he knows the truth now, simply because of William's glaring oversight. This actually pops up again in the climax, when William dismisses a disturbance with the drones as a flock of birds hitting them. Beck, no longer trusting William's judgement, looks for himself. Guess what the disturbance is.
• Evil All Along: Surprising few who are familiar with the storyline from Mysterio's debut in the comics, he's not the hero he presents himself as being at all. He's a bad guy playing the part of a hero to reap the perks.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Even after Tony sacrifices himself to save the universe, Beck doesn't understand why everyone sees Stark as a hero. Mysterio also thinks that putting people in danger just so he can rescue them makes him a good person, and that killing innocents to maintain his facade is totally justified. Furthermore, while he praises Peter's virtuous qualities in his last moments, he then proceeds to mock them as a sign of naivety and weakness.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Iron Man:
    • The abilities he presents mirror that of Tony, having a Powered Armor capable of flight, projecting Hand Blasts, and a retractable helmet, even though it's all revealed to be an illusion. He also represents Tony's opportunistic nature and desire to make weapons, things he mostly lost after escaping his capture by the Ten Rings.
    • His relationship with Peter also parallels Tony's. Tony while starting out as a highly flawed mentor ultimately wants to help and protect Peter, eventually growing into a replacement father figure and caring enough to risk and sacrifice his life for his protege. Mysterio starts off as a kind and encouraging mentor who gives good advice but is revealed to only be using Peter and willing to kill him when he's no longer necessary. Peter realizes how evil Mysterio is and loses faith in him whereas he understands that Tony might be flawed but is still a hero.
  • To Spider-Man. Mysterio has a lot in common with him, if Spidey took a wrong path.
    • Both are connected to Stark and were employed by him to do great things, and both were fired from him at various points when they failed to meet his expectations. For Spidey, this was his origin to becoming his own superhero. For Mysterio, this was his origin to becoming a supervillain.
    • Furthermore, while Spidey initially wants the fame and glory that comes with being an Avenger, he rediscovers what it means to be a hero when all is done, whereas Mysterio is only in it to get recognized for his actions despite how illegitimate and dangerous to others it is.
    • While Peter is haunted by the legacy of Stark following his death, he eventually grows stronger and becomes a true successor of his own. Contrast that to Beck, who personally sought to spite Tony Stark's memory following his death by becoming his supposed "replacement".
    • Peter is one of the biggest Nice Guys of the MCU, while Beck himself is "nice" too, but only as a front to accomplish his goals, and if he sees no reason to be nice to someone, he drops the act immediately.
    • While Spider-Man is defined by his responsibilities, and steps up to the plate to save the day outside of his comfort zone in spite of initial hesitation, Mysterio refuses to take responsibility for anything and outright threatens his own allies. He outright states that he sees Peter's good-hearted nature as a weakness.
• Evil Genius: He’s incredibly cunning and is revealed to be the true inventor of B.A.R.F.
• Evil Is Petty: Beck takes everything way too personally and overreacts to every slight, real or imagined. While he may have a legitimate grievance against Tony Stark, who allegedly took credit for one of Beck's inventions and fired him for being unstable, it doesn't remotely justify countless atrocities like killing innocent civilians in elaborate illusions to supplant Tony Stark's place as the world's most beloved superhero to satisfy his vendetta. Even after he dies, he manages to manipulate events to ruin Peter's life from beyond the grave just to ensure that his unwarranted fame outlives him.
• Evil Plan: He creates the "Mysterio" identity as a means to steal E.D.I.T.H. and convince everyone he is Iron Man's replacement, all so he can steal thunder from Tony Stark, whom he has a grudge against.
• Expy: He's essentially a live-action version of Syndrome from The Incredibles: Both are genius inventors with a backstory of feeling jilted by a superhero that they previously looked up to who use their tech for Engineered Heroics in a vain, petty attempt to surpass said hero's reputation, willingly putting hundreds of innocent lives in danger to achieve their goals. And both wound up defeated when they were too careless and got in the crosshairs of their own evil plans.

F-L

• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: In contrast to the comics, this Mysterio has Jake Gyllenhaal's good looks, and was probably chosen to play Mysterio in an attempt to invoke Beauty Equals Goodness. He's actually an unstable narcissist willing to let the world burn as long as he looks good in the process.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: He wants to be the next Iron Man by fooling people with illusions made by drones that make him look like a superpowered hero from another dimension fighting monsters. He could have been a legitimate hero with this type of technology but he's too much of a pompous, petty asshole to give it a try.
• Faux Affably Evil: Initially appears to be a compassionate and sympathetic mentor to Spider-Man, but this is revealed to be a ploy in order to gain his trust and trick him into surrendering control of E.D.I.T.H. to further his own efforts. He acts nice to his employees for successfully stealing E.D.I.T.H., but he turns around and threatens them if they don't go along with his plan to kill a group of minors who know his secret. While he later claims to have a fondness for Peter, this doesn't stop him from mind raping and coldly attempting to murder him, and later ruining his life out of spite.
• Fishbowl Helmet: This is part of his standard super guise, though it can be retracted to converse. Interestingly, he has one in both his Mysterio persona and the motion-capture suit he wears to match the illusions he creates. In this incarnation, it seems to serve a purpose as a Heads-Up Display.
• Foreshadowing:
  • For those versed with the comics' terminology, him referring to the MCU as Earth-616 should be the first tip that something about him is off about his Dimensional Traveler status. The MCU does have an official designation, but it's Earth-199999, and Earth-616 is the official name of the mainstream comics universe.
  • In-universe, he gives a speech to Peter about how sometimes, heroes and the people close to them die when he's feeling insecure about his role as an Avenger. This speech conveniently comes before Mysterio fakes nearly dying to stop Molten Man in front of Peter, only to survive, which subsequently leads Peter to put more trust in Mysterio's apparent abilities to protect the world before handing control over E.D.I.T.H. to him.
• For the Evulz: Beck is often unnecessarily cruel and petty. There was no need to Mind Rape a teenager when he could have simply shot him, taunt Peter with his friend's death or ruin Peter's life posthumously. It comes across as him enjoying being evil simply for the sake of being evil.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From a disgruntled ex-Stark Industries employee to a megalomaniac supervillain on the same threat the likes of HYDRA, who managed to successfully ruin Peter Parker's life, something than no other previous Spider-Man villain in the live-action movies has ever done before.
• Glass Cannon: Beck can inflict tremendously serious damage with his drones, but his physical constitution is that of an average human being.
• Glory Hound: His whole motivation is getting recognized by others, even if that means endangering the innocent to do so.
• Graceful Loser: Subverted. After he's defeated, he offers Peter the E.D.I.T.H. glasses, saying that he really does deserve them. Except that was an illusion to distract him while the real Beck tries to shoot him in the head.
• Grayscale of Evil: His mocap suit is gray and white with a black backpack and gun holster.
• Green and Mean: His fake magic manifests as green mist. And his Mysterio outfit is primarily green in color.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He explodes in anger with minimal provocation, usually at (perceived) petty slights.
• Hate Sink: No matter how much charisma he exudes, Beck is still a petty, unstable maniac who will never admit to any fault. He Mind Rapes Peter by piling on his guilt and inadequacy with his illusions and threatens to execute his entire staff, the same people he celebrated with just the day before, for a simple mistake he was also responsible for.
• He Knows Too Much: Part of his reason for wanting to kill Michelle, Peter, Ned, and Betty, once his projector is discovered. The rest was revenge.
• Hero of Another Story: His cover story was that he was a part of the last battalion of super soldiers who failed to stop the Elementals from destroying his Earth. It's a lie.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When the Fire Elemental becomes too powerful to combat, he flies into it and explodes it from the inside. Subverted when he survives this... and further subverted when it's revealed everything was an illusion to begin with.
• Heroic Wannabe: He wants to be a hero, in part to spite the memory of Tony Stark, and in part because he wants recognition for his fake acts of heroism. The drive is entirely based around narcissism and using his position as a place to become famous, rather than out of a genuine desire to do good.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: He gives the go-ahead for E.D.I.T.H. drones to open fire despite him being in the danger zone of being right down a hall from Spider-Man. This lack of safety protocol results in one of them getting him with several rounds when Spidey knocks the drones about, leading to bleeding out in short order.
• Hijacked by Ganon: The main villains of Far From Home are presented as the Elementals, but those are revealed to just be a cover for the most obvious villain: Mysterio.
• Holographic Disguise: A lot of the time, his costume is just projected on.
• Humble Hero: His hero persona is very definitely this. In reality, he's the exact opposite on both counts.
• Hypocrite:
  • He criticizes Tony Stark for wasting his technology on, as he puts it, "a therapy session." While there were better applications for it than that, therapy is quite a lot better than Mysterio using it for an Engineered Heroics scheme that deceives the public and causes mass death and destruction.
  • While he has a legitimate grievance against Tony for giving his life's work a silly name and all but claiming it as his own creation (assuming that he is presenting an accurate retelling of events; given that it's Beck, he may have taken great creative liberties with the story or just straight-up be as full of shit as he is in every other context), once Beck gets his hands on the E.D.I.T.H. controls, he starts doing the very thing he lambasted Tony for, claiming credit for coming up with the idea of "Mysterio" when it was a literal group effort in the first place. He even claims credit for the name Mysterio, when it was actually suggested to him by Peter (who at least credited his classmates for the shorthand).
  • It's pretty rich for Beck to call Tony a Manchild considering how he basically acts like a petulant child once the mask comes off. He's constantly hogging the spotlight, throwing angry tantrums, blaming others for his own mistakes and uses his technology for petty revenge schemes and tormenting a teenager. At least Tony grew out of his immaturity.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Beck has bright blue eyes and is a sociopath who has no qualms killing innocent people as part of his plan to be the greatest superhero on Earth.
• I Resemble That Remark!: He was sacked for being unstable and untrustworthy, traits his subsequent revenge scheme show he possesses in abundance. The irony of such behavior seems completely lost on him.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: His notorious fishbowl helmet costume is something called-out by him in-universe; he only wears it for formal occasions precisely because it gets in the way, most of the time it's actually a hologram overlaid a far more streamlined and practical mo-cap suit.
• Instant Death Bullet: Defied. He takes a few bullets to the gut, but still musters up enough strength to try to shoot Peter.
• Irony: He claims that Nick Fury is "the most paranoid man in the world." He may not have even gotten as far as he did had it not been for the fact that "Nick" was just Talos, a shape-shifting alien.
  • The goal of Quentin Beck's scheme was to become the most famous hero in the world, even if he had to kill millions and make himself a hero on top of their suffering to do it. Not only does he get himself killed underestimating Spider-Man, but his post-mortem Frame-Up to make it look like Peter Parker was Ax-Crazy only splits the public opinion in half rather than convict him — and it makes Parker the most famous person in the world in response, for better or worse. Then subverted, the consequences of both Peter and Mysterio's actions result in Peter's existence wiped out from the universe (as in they only remember Spider-Man 'murdering' Mysterio), and thus he still managed to ruin the boy's life in a roundabout way.
• It's All About Me: He's a glory-seeking psychopath, who'll do anything for his plans to look like a hero to be a success, even if it means killing those who know the truth about his illusions.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • As much as a selfish sociopath as he is, Beck's grievances are entirely sympathetic — Tony claimed credit for his life's work that had the potential for amazing practical applications, gave it an absurd name, and used it for a "personal therapy" session, then fired him. And as the size of the crew behind Mysterio shows (not to mention the history of the MCU), he's far from the only person who has been screwed over by Tony or his company.
  • He declares to his crew "these days you can be the smartest guy in the room, the most qualified, and no one cares. Unless you're flying around in a cape, or shooting lasers from your hands, no one will even listen." Within the MCU superheroes get tons of respect and admiration from the public regardless of their personal flaws and shortcomings while the hard-working people who support them behind the scenes are nobodies, to say nothing of how applicable Beck's sentiment is to the real world.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: After his true colors are revealed, his only bright spot is that he seems to see Peter as a genuine friend and someone admirable in spite of deceiving him. That's out the window when he decides that Peter knows too much and tries to kill him on multiple occasions, and even more so when he frames Spider-Man for the attack on London to cover his own ass. At the end of the day, he's nothing but a petty, vindictive, self-absorbed asshole who has no qualms about harming others for his own benefit, or just because he feels like it.
• Karmic Death: He gets shot in the abdomen by his own drones while attempting to have them shoot Peter. Fittingly enough, E.D.I.T.H. warned Mysterio he was in the range of the bullets, but he was too impatient to listen.
• Kick the Dog:
  • The first illusion he puts Spidey through is needlessly cruel and he repeatedly taunts him while torturing him psychologically. After spending most of Far From Home acting like he was Peter's friend, his absolute viciousness toward the kid is utterly despicable.
    Beck: If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive.
  • While one could Hand Wave the other attacks of the Elementals that he staged as not actually getting anyone hurt, or at least not to an excess, he wants his finale in London to be violent and amps up the firepower of his drones.
    Beck: More casualties, more damage. I gotta cut through the static. London is a beautiful city and it will suffer but they can rebuild.
  • Getting his employees to send J. Jonah Jameson the edited video and audio making Spider-Man out to be a villain and revealing his identity removes that last remaining sympathetic element to the character.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • He cares nothing for the potential lives that could be lost because of his machinations. On the contrary; he thinks their deaths will attract more coverage. His sole regret to destroying London is that the architecture is rather nice.
  • This trait is one of the reasons Tony fired him. He dismissively mocked Tony's use of his hologram tech for his therapy session, implying he doesn't think too highly of that field. He also doesn't seem to care that Tony was pretty much baring his heart there and then about his personal trauma regarding his parents.
• Large Ham: He can get theatrical when gloating about how everything is coming together. Rather fitting, given Mysterio's comic book origin.
• Laughably Evil: He's just so goddamn petty and such an unrepentant asshole, so fully willing to commit mass murder and destruction just to pretend to be a hero, and so uncaring that what he's doing is wrong, and still maintains Gyllenhaal's charisma combined with Large Ham tendencies, to point where he is still entertaining in his atrocities.
• Leitmotif: Mysterio is one of the few characters in the MCU to have their own theme music, playing multiple times throughout Far From Home. It's a piece well-suited for an ass-kicking savior, but it's also backed by a sinister electric guitar, hinting at his true nature.
• Logical Weakness:
  • His illusions rely on deprivation and manipulation of one's normal senses. It works just fine for the most part, unless he's fighting a Spider-Man who's just mastered his Spider-Sense. In that case, creating a shroud of darkness to blind him against gunfire doesn't even hinder the wall-crawler. It ends up turning Spidey into a Man of Kryptonite, by extension.
  • A far more blatant example is what leads to his downfall. Beck is not a supervillain because of his power or scope; he's an exceptionally intelligent, resourceful man who can create and utilise technology far more advanced than most scientists in the MCU have yet to scratch the surface with and he has a group of morally bankrupt scientists to assist him with it, but he himself is just a man. He has no special powers, inhuman abilities or superhuman enhancements, nor does he even wear body armour or protective gear of any kind. As such, Peter lampshades that the challenge is getting to him because of his resources, but once he does get to him, taking him down will be as easy as swatting a fly away. And it is.

M-S

• Mad Artist: He's a psychotic mass murderer who takes great pride in his illusionary skills and plans the Elemental attacks with his cohorts like he's directing a film.
• Manipulative Bastard: Beck is an expert at playing to Spider-Man's insecurities and character flaws, as shown when he assaults the hero with a series of illusions in Berlin.
• Manipulative Editing: This is how he secures his victory over Peter even after he dies: He has displayed in the New York widescreen footage of his battle with Spider Man in London with Peter's quotes selectively chosen to make it appear that he is trying to murder Beck. He also uses this video to out Peter's secret identity as Spider Man to the world.
• Mask of Sanity: As part of being a Master Actor, Beck is very good at giving a facade of being a genuinely well-intentioned hero, being so effective that Talos, a Skrull shapeshifter, is convinced. Unfortunately, he is actually an Ax-Crazy Psychopathic Manchild who is most definitely The Sociopath.
• Master Actor: While he may not be a professional actor like his comics counterpart, Mysterio still manages to flawlessly fool Peter and Nick Fury. The latter is notable because Fury was really Talos, a Skrull whose race's signature trait is deception through shapeshifting. In one scene, his henchman is secretly advising him on how to reply to the heroes and Mysterio declaims the scripted lines he's just been fed as if he is an actor on a stage.
• Master of Illusion: Much like his comics counterpart, he's an illusion specialist who masterminded the Elementals to try and take control of E.D.I.T.H., and all his magic is smoke and mirrors. He's so brilliant at this that he fooled the Skrulls, alien shapeshifters, and Talos and Soren in the post-credits are sheepish about admitting to Fury that they fell for them, noting that his illusions, his craftsmanship, and overall talent was too much even for them.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Subverted. While Beck's plan to frame Peter for his death is foiled in No Way Home, there are still people out there who think Spider-Man is a murderer, and his framing of Peter indirectly led to events that ruined Peter's life even more so.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He is an older, more experienced superhero who supports and encourages Peter and sacrifices himself to destroy the fire elemental. This is subverted as seconds later he turns out to be alive and some more time later, he turns out to be a sociopathic Fake Ultimate Hero.
• Meta Guy: He comes across as someone who clearly done the research on how superhero movies work, albeit with much more sociopathic intent than most characters associated with this trope. This is only accentuated by his dress rehearsal for the London attack (which resembles an actor practicing for a CGI-heavy action sequence) and the fact that he spends the entirety of the climax of Far From Home in mo-cap gear (like how Mark Ruffalo is seen as the Hulk on set photos).
• Military Superhero: Claims to have fought in a war against the Elementals in his homeworld, and was part of a battalion of superpowered soldiers. Peter even lists Mysterio's military service as a reason why he's a good candidate for E.D.I.T.H.. Of course, the war never happened in the first place, and Mysterio is really a technician with no actual combat experience or professional training at all.
• A Million Is a Statistic: The value of life means nothing to him. Thousands of people will die from the Elemental attack in London? Good, it adds more weight to his "heroic" rescue. If you're not there to praise him, you're there to be his martyr.
• Mind Rape: Traps Peter in a nightmarish illusion that attacks all of his personal fears when he tries to inform Fury about his lies. It doesn't work the second time he tries it, given that Peter's Spider-Sense is hitting in full force.
• Mister Exposition: He explains his origins and the Elementals to Peter the night after the battle in Venice, and after his true colors are revealed, he begins a five-minute speech to his minions that explains who they all are and what they plan on doing.
• Monster Protection Racket: What his Evil Plan boils down to this: create the Elementals, fight the Elementals by Peter's side, earn his trust to get control of E.D.I.T.H., and gain instant fame and reward.
• Mood-Swinger: He throws a fit when he learns that Peter discovered his projector, and angrily yelled at his employees by saying how much he hates having to kill him for it because he says he likes Peter. Yet, he is all too happy to Mind Rape and then "kill" Spider-Man by leading him to a train, and when he came back, Mysterio wanted nothing more than to see him dead. Considering he's Ax-Crazy and a Sociopath, one must wonder just how much he "liked" Peter to begin with or how quickly he got over it. Given his track record, he probably just liked the ego boost that Peter provided him with.
• Mythology Gag:
  • He claims to be from Earth-833. This is a dimension that exists in the comics; it's home to Spider-UK.
  • Also, his whole Dimensional Traveler act is a thing in the comics. He was actually displaced in the Ultimate Marvel universe for a while, and only returned to the mainstream universe via a wormhole. Him being one here, even if untrue, does sound rather familiar.
  • While he doesn't keep his background in the film industry, the scenes of him working on his plans with his crew are decidedly reminiscent of film or theatrical production.
  • All of Beck's outfits draw from different eras of the comics. His primary suit gives the appearance of Powered Armor and is most reminiscent of his modern look, the green chainmail suit he wears just after The Reveal is a nod to his classic first appearance (sans fishbowl helmet and cape), and his final stylized mocap suit is dark with the prominent "eyeball" symbols embroided all over it and his face is visible within his helmet, which makes him a dead ringer for his Ultimate Marvel incarnation (minus the flames that particular version possessed).
• Narcissist: Tony Stark may have been accused of narcissism, but Quentin Beck is the real deal. Mysterio is an incorrigible glory whore whose view of other people can be boiled down to a simple dichotomy: either they shower him with praise and adulation and feed his gargantuan ego, or they get to be martyrs and sacrificial lambs to feed his own magnificence. Beck is a grandstanding charlatan who has no line that he won't cross in the name of his own ego and public image. His explosive rage when faced with anything even remotely perceivable as a petty slight and scorched-earth approach to getting the last laugh when bested by Peter are also very telling.
• Never My Fault: The man is incapable of accepting responsibility for anything at all, in contrast to Peter's belief of always holding responsibility.
  • He never considers that Tony may have had a good reason to fire him, what with the immaturity, narcissism, and general instability that makes him the last person to trust with potential weapons of mass destruction. Nor does he ever think that his whole rampage might be exactly what Tony was worrying about.
  • He blames his henchmen for allowing Peter to find out their secret, even though it was really his own fault for not being more careful.
  • He declares that Peter Parker's blood is on his henchman William's hands, despite Beck making the decision to kill the boy himself once he realizes Peter had figured out his lies. All the while, Mysterio is acting like he has no choice in the matter when he clearly does.
• No Name Given: Possibly. It's suggested that "Quentin Beck" may not be his real name (since he dismisses Nick Fury for falling for a story about a dimensional traveler named Quentin), but part of the identity he came up with with his teammates. However, the film never fully extrapolates on the details, with his co-conspirators only referring to him as "boss".
• Non-Action Big Bad: Quentin Beck is many things, most of them dangerous, but fighter he isn't. His illusions can torture his enemies, his drones give him strength in numbers, he's a charming bastard who can get himself into power, and he becomes a threat to the world once he gets E.D.I.T.H. — yet, at the moment he's cornered, without all of his tricks and tools, Beck has nothing he can do, and Peter just grabs the E.D.I.T.H. glasses off his face once he gets close.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Beck is ultimately a con man looking to capitalize on a world without the Avengers or Tony Stark, and the main reason he's a threat at all is because he's going up against a naive teenager and the big time superheroes are either dead or too preoccupied.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He talks a big game about giving people heroes to believe in but it's clear Beck's sole concern is feeding his own gargantuan ego.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mysterio was able to defeat both Cyclone and Sandman on his own. Ultimately subverted and played with; since those creatures were his illusions, he was never in any real danger.
• Oh, Crap!: While making preparations for the final phase of his plan vis a vis London, Quentin is in the midst of a big grandiose speech when he notices the projection desynchronizing with his arm. William nonchalantly points out that one of the drones came back missing its projector.
  Quentin: And you're just telling me this now?
• Opportunistic Bastard: He takes advantage of the world's grief over the deaths of several superheroes and the disbanding of the Avengers to pretend to be a superhero himself for his own benefit, all while his creations cause tons of collateral damage and kill innocents to make the "threat" he's facing seem more believable.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Invoked by his hero persona who claims to have lost his family due to the Elementals, with the heavy implication that he had children who died as a result. In reality, Beck is childless.
• Pet the Dog: Subverted twice.
  • A genuine act of kindness that he offers is toasting to his crew for their hard work on bringing the Elementals and Mysterio to life, even going as far as giving credit to individual members instead of taking all of it to himself. However, this is cancelled out shortly afterward, as his gesture of kindness doesn't prevent him from threatening to use lethal force on them when they screw up, and given who he is, it's probably all just hollow grandstanding to begin with.
  • He seemed willing to let Peter live and have a normal life after he hands him the E.D.I.T.H. glasses, expressing some sadness that he had to dupe the kid into falling for his plan. It's only after he discovers that Peter knows his secret that he decides to kill him, and failing that, revealing his secret to the world.
• Phony Veteran: He claims that, in his universe, he was a Military Superhero in a battalion of Super Soldiers of whom he was the Sole Survivor in a Great Offscreen War against the Elementals. This was all a calculated lie to make himself look better to the public, and he's never served a day in uniform in his life.
• Post-Final Boss: In a way, he is this for the MCU's Phase 3, as Far from Home is the last movie of that phase, and he's obviously small potatoes compared to Thanos. There's a reason the only superhero he fights is the naive teenager.
• Posthumous Villain Victory: In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter manages to stop Quentin "Mysterio" Beck's plot. In the process, Beck is shot by one of his own killer drones and expires — but Mysterio still gets the last laugh. The post-credits scene of that film shows an underling of Mysterio anonymously post a video Mysterio recorded before Peter killed him, where the former frames the latter for the elementals' damage and claims he's gone rogue. Spider-Man: No Way Home winds up downplaying this to a degree, as Matt Murdock is able to get the legal charges dropped, but Peter winds up being hounded in his social and personal life to the point MIT won't accept him or his friends due to his controversial image. All of this leads Peter to having Doctor Strange cast a spell to erase all knowledge of his identity from the public, but poor communication between both men causes the deceased villains of Sam Raimi and Marc Webb's series to be brought back and wreak havoc in the MCU. This also becomes a Double Subversion by the end, where Peter asks Strange to remove everyone's memories of Peter Parker, which proves successful at the cost of all his friendships. Nobody knows that Peter is Spider-Man anymore, but Mysterio still managed to ruin his life by not only leaving him completely broke and living in an empty apartment in search of a GED, but also, despite no longer revealing Peter's real identity, Mysterio still managed to turn Spider-Man into a controversial figure, ruin the name of Stark Industries, and be seen as a Fake Ultimate Hero like he dreamed of.
• Prima Donna Director: His real personality is that of a drama queen who treats his schemes like a big movie he's the director and star of, and he gets murderously critical of his crew when things go wrong.
• Properly Paranoid: Beck never overlooks any glitch, and it always turns out to be a good thing for him that he doesn't. In Prague, he notices a drone malfunctioning and questions why, and when one of his team says it lost a projector he traces its location in case someone found it, allowing him to see that Peter has learned about the truth. He also calls out his teammate that dismisses the loss of the projector, because if somehow Nick Fury gets any sniff of what they're pulling, he'll find out everything, because Fury is the most paranoid man on the planet. During the climax, the drones get bumped by Spider-Man and no one thinks much of it but Beck, who investigates and sees Spider-Man is here.
• Psychopathic Manchild: While Beck comes across as a mature and sagely hero that could very well be the next Iron Man, when he takes off the metaphorical mask he is shown to be quite immature, often shouting and screaming when things don't go his way. Even his backstory just illustrates how petty he is; his hologram tech was given a silly name by Tony ("B.A.R.F.") and he was fired due to his mental instability, so he decides to stage various monster attacks that he could look like a hero, not caring how many innocent civilians died in the process. He is also pathologically incapable of recognizing fault or taking responsibility, and given his steady track record as an inveterate liar, it is quite likely that he is either lying about how Tony treated him or greatly whitewashing his own role in it, which would make him come off as even more of a spiteful, vindictive little shit who is way too old to be acting this way.
• Purple Is Powerful: The color of his cape is purple and his greatest desire is to become the mightiest superhero after the death of Iron Man.
• Pyrrhic Victory: By the end, it appears Beck indeed achieved his goal of being known as a big hero while tarnishing the legacy of Tony Stark through defaming Spider-Man, while revealing his identity to the world for all to see. The only catch being that it appears that this was done posthumously, and even if he's not dead, Spider-Man can still expose him. Somewhat mitigated by how, dead or otherwise, he goes out smug and satisfied that his backup plan will come to pass, which it does.
• Refuge in Audacity: The only reason that anyone believes his bonkers backstory, and the threat of the Elementals, was because the Earth — and the entire universe — was just devastated by a giant purple Galactic Conquerer-turned Reality Warper that killed half of everything with a Badass Fingersnap. Furthermore, with the real Nick Fury not actually being on Earth, it's not difficult to see why Mysterio's plan wasn't outed from the start. It's best summed up in a line that Quentin Beck tells one of his cohorts during a toast:
  Mysterio: The story you created, of a soldier from another Earth named Quentin fighting space monsters in Europe is... Totally ridiculous, and apparently exactly the kind of thing people will believe right now. I mean, everyone bought it!
• Reimagining the Artifact: Mysterio was a villain widely thought to be too cheesy and gimmicky to be in the MCU beforehand (especially with the Fishbowl Helmet), much less as a Big Bad. They pulled it off by changing his background to someone who could more believably pull off the schemes he does while staying true to the core concepts of the character. Instead of being a failed actor who primarily relies on stage magic and trickery, he's a former Stark employee who designed cutting-edge holographic technology that he now utilizes to create his illusions. In order to help sell his cover story and get people to buy into his illusions (which already look very realistic), Beck is much more charismatic and manipulative, which also plays into his philosophy that it's easier to fool people who are already fooling themselves. His outfit, fishbowl helmet and all, is lampshaded by Beck himself as being ridiculous, but it looks appropriate as a costume that's intentionally aping the look of other superheroes (Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, etc), and the helmet covers the headsets Beck uses to communicate with his team and control his drones, keeping them from being seen or getting damaged when he's in-costume. Finally, because it takes a lot more effort than one man could put in to make his illusory performances so complex, Mysterio is reimagined as a Collective Identity for a full crew of special effects technicians, and Beck is just the one in the mo-cap suit that acts as the face of the team.
• Remember the New Guy?: A flashback shows he was standing offstage when Stark was demonstrating the B.A.R.F. technology back in Captain America: Civil War. The fact that nobody ever knew who he is is actually essential to his character.
• Sadist: Downplayed, but it's there. Read For the Evulz up above.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: His Mysterio outfit is green and purple. Plus, he's the Big Bad of Far From Home.
• Self-Deprecation: Even he thinks his primary suit is kind of "stupid".
• Self-Disposing Villain: If he did end up dying, then it was his order to have the drones keep firing that did him in.
• Self-Serving Memory: Beck's recollection of Tony's presentation of his B.A.R.F. technology from Captain America: Civil War lines up with what happened in the film proper, but in his flashback, it suspiciously skips the part where Tony mentions he needed to come up with a better acronym, and has people laughing at the acronym. The fact that Beck framed the events this way shows how much of a vindictive jerk he is, trying to paint himself as if Tony intentionally mistreated him.
• Serkis Folk: A rare In-Universe example! As part of his deception, a number of his actions are actually taken with a photorealistic double that he's able to control while wearing a mocap suit. This double conveniently never takes the fishbowl helmet off, which is actually a piece of the motion capture rig in-universe. Interestingly, the mocap appearance is itself revealed to be mocapped when an invisible Mysterio tries to shoot Spider-Man in the head.
• Smug Snake: Mysterio is incredibly self-centered, arrogant, and mean. He looks out only for himself, thinks he's the smartest man out there, and believes the world revolves around him. He refuses to forgive any slight against him, doesn't own up to any of his own failures, and wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who crosses him. Yet, he sees himself as the noble hero he deceives the public into thinking. All of this leads to his own undoing and demise.
• The Sociopath: He always looks out for himself, never forgives any slight against him, does everything he does because he constantly wants to be seen as a beloved hero, doesn't care about the collateral damage of his plans, and doesn't mind killing people who he'd been nothing but friendly towards if they learn too much. He also takes lying to a completely unnecessary level by claiming to be from a different part of The Multiverse playing up a tragic backstory for himself (written by his team).
• Sole Survivor: Subverted Trope. He is the last survivor from an Earth that was destroyed by the Elementals… according to a cooked up backstory by his employees.
• Sore Loser: He makes arrangements for Peter's identity to be revealed to the world upon his death, solely out of spite.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Tony Stark dying to save the universe did nothing to change Beck's opinion of him. After all, Tony took away his life's work from him.
• Stage Magician: He's what happens when a gadget-reliant illusionist decides to fake being an actual wizard.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: As part of his fake backstory of being a multiversal traveler, he tells the other characters that their universe is called Earth-616. The Illuminati of Earth-838 designated the Sacred Timeline Earth-616. It was also designated Earth-616 by the TVA after the multiverse was restored.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: Invoked and deconstructed. He wears a cape that looks similar to Thor's, but it needs to be ironed which means that at times he doesn't have it ready when he needs it.
• Super-Soldier: He claims that in his world, he was one, and there were enough around to form a battalion, and an entire army that was destroyed by the Elementals. But Mysterio really is a civilian who's never seen a day of military service in his life, and the war he supposedly fought in never happened.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In one last desperate attempt at victory when cornered, he has E.D.I.T.H. fire all machine guns at Spider-Man even when he's in range. Naturally, he gets shot.
  • As Beck is the "face" of the Mysterio identity rather than the entire persona, stopping him doesn't stop the greater threat of Mysterio's Collective Identity, as Beck's team is able to doctor the drone footage on the bridge to paint Peter as the villain and shuffle the blame away from themselves.
  • When the drones are introduced, it's made clear they are meant for assassinations and aren't especially durable. As a result, Beck has a lot of trouble using them as a big obvious army. Soldiers with rifles easily destroy one of them and damage another, which MJ deals another critical blow to with a mace.
  • His attempt at framing Peter as the villain doesn't last long in the court of criminal law, as not only is the sole bit of "conclusive" evidence a doctored video, Matt Murdock investigated Beck's claims and traced his true identity as a disgraced Stark Industries employee, which causes the legal charges against Peter to be dropped. Unfortunately for Peter, this does little to deter the court of public opinion.

T-Y

• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's played by Jake Gyllenhaal after all. It helps sell his facade of a perfect superhero.
• Tautological Templar: Beck is under the delusion that every horrible thing he does is justified because he's a self-proclaimed "hero". That said, he later says to Peter that being a good person is "such a weakness", meaning that Beck is well aware that what he's doing is wrong and doesn't care.
• Thanatos Gambit: While it probably wasn't his goal to get himself killed, he still takes advantage of his own demise by framing Spider-Man for murdering him and outing him to the public.
• Therapy Is for the Weak: Implied. Beck didn't think too highly of the hologram tech as being used for therapy, especially when he wanted it to be weaponized instead.
• Too Dumb to Live: By listening to EDITH, he could've used the drones to sneak attack Peter when he had the chance... instead of that, he wouldn't listen to the warning that he was standing too close. This results in him getting caught in the crossfire and shot by his own drones.
• Tragic Keepsake: Peter notices him fiddling with his wedding ring when mentioning his family's death at the hands of the Elementals. Subverted when this turns out to be a cover story Beck made up for his Mysterio persona.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: He becomes Peter's most personal enemy yet by pretending to be a hero and trying to kill him and his friends when they discover his true colors.
• Uncertain Doom: It appears that he dies in the crossfire of the final battle, but it might have been an illusion that was able to fool E.D.I.T.H. into thinking that he was really dead, since he was able to reasonably fake being killed by Nick Fury earlier. It's ambiguous enough to allow an easy backdoor for Mysterio to return later, since faking his death is just what Mysterio does. Worth noting is that the Quentin Beck on the bridge that was shot ends up being an illusion, and the Beck who tries to shoot Peter doesn't appear to have the same injuries as he dies.
• Unreliable Expositor: He is notorious for his tricks and much of his claims are false. Thus, given his long and consistent record as a pathological liar, his account of how Tony screwed him over is of questionable-at-best veracity. If you take Tony's own spotty track record of how he treated Stark Industries innovations that weren't his into consideration, he may have not gotten the best deal, but it is extremely likely that Beck took great liberties with his account of his time there and his experiences with Tony, especially because his memories of the event don't match how we've seen them before.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His plan to dox Peter in order to spite him leads to the universe being put in threat as Strange tries to wipe the public's memory of Peter being Spider-Man.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Considering how Far From Home is the first movie set after Endgame, it is still quite lighthearted and is generally a coming-of-age tale much like its predecessor. Unlike Vulture (who was a decent, honest man given a raw deal who just wanted to give his family a comfortable lifestyle and ensure that his employees could do the same for their own, who, at worst, lost his way), however, Mysterio is a disgusting human being who is all too willing to commit mass murder and wide-scale destruction just to satisfy a ridiculously petty personal grudge and shit all over Tony Stark's legacy, all while being completely and utterly unrepentant.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Throughout the movie, Mysterio is in full control of the situation, able to Mind Rape Peter to live out his nightmares before leading him straight into a train, right after he acquired the advanced weaponry of E.D.I.T.H.. However, once Spider-Man is back, having fully mastered his abilities and made his new Upgraded suit, Mysterio can only watch as his plans fall apart. First, Spider-Man goes through his drones all by himself. Then, Mysterio tries to cast an illusion to blind him, only for Spidey to reveal he's so in-sync with his Spider-Sense that he can dodge every attack. Finally, Spidey takes him out in a single hit, and when Mysterio tries to make one last desperate attempt at victory by ordering E.D.I.T.H. to fire with him in range, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • He's very much correct that no matter how talented or gifted people are with legitimately impressive qualities like being very intelligent, some people choose to overlook them in favor of superpowered and extraordinary beings instead.
  • Beck's Post-Mortem "The Reason You Suck" Speech about Tony Stark is filled with a number of legitimate critiques of the way Tony treated his employees and carried out his heroics, right down to bequeathing such a dangerous item as E.D.I.T.H. to Peter with no failsafe. However, some of his critiques don't hold much weight, such as Tony calling his life's work "B.A.R.F." as if Tony insulted him when Tony clearly indicated he was going to work on that acronym, and William Riva's mistreatment was wrongfully placed on Tony when it was really from Obadiah Stane.
  • Tony appears to have not taken the use of the B.A.R.F. device further. Beck's anger at Tony's hoarding of tech that could change the world for the better is given a nod here.
  • When Beck discovers one of the drones has a missing projector, his crew tells him not to worry, angering him; he is the only one who recognizes the missing drone could pose a threat to his operation, which is proven when Peter discovers the drone and uncovers all of Beck's lies.
  • He is also right that people are willing to believe anything they see, so long as it gives them peace of mind. This allows him to fool everyone after his death by having the rest of his crew make it seem like he defeated the Elementals and was killed by Peter, even though in broad daylight it was shown to be a hologram made up of bots. He also successfully makes it look like Peter was the one who ordered the drones to attack everyone, giving himself the impression of a hero while ruining Spider-Man's name.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Thanks to the help of some Manipulative Editing from his team, it appears to the general public that Spider-Man was using the Stark drones to attack London Bridge, while Mysterio was the hero who stopped him from killing hundreds of people. It helps that the world appears to be in the dark about what Mysterio was really up to.
• Villainous Breakdown: As the climax of the film comes and Peter begins to foil his plans, he starts increasingly raising his voice. This culminates in him ordering E.D.I.T.H. to fire the drones when he is in range. This leads to him getting shot.
  Beck: No, FIRE. ALL. THE DRONES. NOWWWWWWW!
• Villainous Legacy: Beck posthumously outing Peter's identity and framing him for the drone attacks. He technically gets the last laugh, but Beck's petty spite also ends up kicking off the chain of events that unleashes the multiversal catastrophe of No Way Home.
• Virtue Is Weakness: His lack of moral qualms is due to seeing them as "such a weakness", being determined to get what he wants by any means with absolutely no concern over anything else.
• Walking Spoiler: Although it's not difficult to see coming if you're familiar with the character's role in the comics, he's this for Far From Home, given that the entire plot of the film hinges on him lying about who he is and that he's responsible for the Elementals. And then there's the matter of the video he recorded for The Daily Bugle...
• Weak, but Skilled: He's basically a normal human fighting a Super. His illusion skills, and drone control, however, makes him dangerous despite that.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: While tormenting Spider-Man with his illusions, he laments how Peter's "making" him do it.
• Worthy Opponent: Played with. While Mysterio candidly admits that he likes Peter Parker (and is even somewhat sad that he "has to" kill him) because he has a "good heart", he doesn't respect him because he follows the admission by scoffing that it is "such a weakness."
• Would Hit a Girl: Has no problem going after MJ when she learns of his secret, as well as Betty just to be absolutely sure that he didn't leave anyone who may have heard the truth.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: The mid-credits of Far From Home has him send out a doctored video of him being "murdered" by Spider-Man and framing the latter for the drones.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: As it turns out, the Elemental attack on London Bridge was a no-lose scenario for Mysterio. When Spider-Man thwarted his initial plan, he was able to present himself in a sympathetic light and eventually out Spider-Man's secret identity while making Peter out to be the menace, and Mysterio the hero who was able to stop him.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: The alias "Mysterio" is technically this, given that in-universe, the name is derived from the Italian word misterio.
• You Killed My Father: In his — entirely fictional — backstory, the Elementals killed his family, which he takes personally. He has his wedding ring as a Tragic Keepsake.
• You Will Be Spared: Subverted. He was initially going to let Peter go after killing Fury, if only to keep his assistance and recommendation. He immediately tries to kill him when he finds out too much.

Mysterio's Team

In General

• Beneath Suspicion: They all look like regular people and have no distinguishing features that would make them stand out. Notably, Peter, Ned, and MJ never find out who they are and thus never confront them, which makes it really easy for them to out Peter's identity as Spider-Man and get away with it scot free.
• Canon Foreigner: William and Gutes are MCU original characters, while Victoria and Janice are, respectively, the ex girlfriend of Whiplash (Marco Scarlotti) and the daughter of Tombstone and third Beetle in the Marvel Comics universe.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: They don't appear in the Spider-Man: No Way Home, even though they had a big part in revealing Spider-Man's true identity.
• Collective Identity: While Beck might be the face of the character, they all have a hand at creating the Mysterio character. In fact, after they take a liking to the Mysterio name, they seem to call the group "Mysterio".
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Unlike the Vulture's gang, who were made up of former salvage workers who figured out how to use alien tech to design their own weapons after they lost employment due to Stark creating Damage Control, Mysterio's team is made up of former Stark Industries employees who all have some sort of grudge against Stark. It's implied by the amount of resources the team has that some or most of the members are wealthy and their actions prove they are far more petty than the members of the Vulture's gang, who largely treated what they were doing as a business and wanting to avoid drawing unwanted attention to themselves.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Some of the members appear much earlier in the movie before The Reveal and even in prior movies (See They Look Just Like Everyone Else! for details).
• Entitled Bastard: Beck describes his crew as very wealthy. Considering the scale of their con, it's reasonable to assume all have vast sums of money already and are behaving like predatory vultures trying to snap up the remainders of Tony's legacy. It's implied their reasons for helping Beck are due to feeling scorned by Tony's admittedly numerous mistakes, with handing over the world's most advanced security network to a teenager being the last straw.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The team includes women and people of color in it.
• Evil Is Petty: Cheer on Beck for insulting Tony and Peter in his lengthy As You Know speech which amounts to a big circle jerk for them all.
• Karma Houdini: None of them get arrested at the end of the movie.
• Master of Disguise: They're good at blending in using disguises to pose as whoever they need to pose as such as tourists, bus drivers, bicyclists, and many more to keep tabs on Peter and his other classmates.
• Rich Jerk: Beck describes them as his very wealthy crew and they're a bunch of petty assholes who are willing to cause massive amounts of death and destruction to become more popular and successful.
• Stalker without a Crush: Many of them, including Quentin Beck himself, can be seen in the background of most of Peter's scenes in Italy dressed up as tourists keeping tabs on him if you rewatch the movie.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: With the exception of Quentin Beck, all the members of Team Mysterio look ridiculously average and unnoticeable, which they exploit. One of them was even a bit part of one of the previous MCU movies, and it's unlikely that the viewer will notice until it's pointed out.
• Walking Spoiler: Considering they're all close to Mysterio, and don't get revealed until his true colors are exposed, everyone becomes this by default.

William Ginter Riva

William Ginter Riva

"Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Mysterio Crew

Portrayed By: Peter Billingsley

Appearances: Iron Man | Spider-Man: Far From Home

"The integration of my illusion tech with your weaponized drones was brilliant. Powerful illusions, and your damage, worked like a charm. And this is just the beginning."

— Quentin Beck

A Stark Industries scientist working under Obadiah Stane to recreate Tony's arc reactor technology. Years later, he finds himself working under Quentin Beck as the chief programmer for the Mysterio Crew.

---

• Ascended Extra: Has only a minor role in a single scene in Iron Man, but becomes Quentin Beck's Evil Genius in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
• Beleaguered Assistant: He used to be one when he was working for Obadiah Stane. He was the recipient of Stane's infamous "... in A CAVE! With a BOX OF SCRAPS!" rant.
• The Bus Came Back: The guy first appeared as a minor character in just one scene in the movie that began the MCU. Then, 11 years and 22 movies later, he appears as an actual antagonist who has a huge role in the plot as one of Quentin Beck's men.
• Butt-Monkey: He gets angrily berated and threatened by both Obadiah Stane and Quentin Beck for his shortcomings.
• Canon Foreigner: He does not have a direct counterpart in the comics.
• Celebrity Paradox: During Iron Man 3, Tony tells a little boy who resembles Ralphie from A Christmas Story that he loved him in the movie. Riva was played by the real Billingsley.
• Collective Identity: Quentin Beck may be the "face" of the group, but William is the chief programmer, ensuring all of their piecemeal tech comes together to form the Mysterio persona.
• The Dragon: He fills this role to Beck as the one controlling the drones that are the basis of his plan.
• Evil Genius: His role in both Iron Man and Spider-Man: Far From Home is working as the head of the technology branch for the bad guys. It's downplayed in Iron Man as he admits to Stane that he's not as good as Tony Stark and thus wouldn't be able to recreate his arc reactor technology, but he has far better success working as part of the Mysterio Crew under Quentin Beck, serving as their chief programmer. He may not be able to replicate Tony's more esoteric tech (like the Arc Reactor), but his skills piece together Beck's B.A.R.F. holograms with the E.D.I.T.H. network to form a deadly combination.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From a disgruntled ex-Stark Industries employee being looked down upon by his boss to the second-in-command of one of Spider-Man's most threatening enemies. And it may have began as early as when he basically stood up to his boss yelling in his face by simply replying how he's not Tony Stark.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and has no problem helping engage in mass-murder and killing children who might expose their secret.
• Icy Blue Eyes: He has bright blue eyes and is an Evil Genius who has no qualms killing loads of civillians, including underage children, for more fame and success.
• Idiot Ball: He does this twice in Far From Home. First, he neglects to do anything about the missing projector (despite knowing full well its discovery would jeopardize everything, with his only concern being whether or not the holograms would still work with one missing projector) and doesn't bother to inform Beck until way after the fact. This comes back to bite them in the ass HARD when MJ discovers the projector and informs Peter of it. Secondly, after a disturbance of the drones during the climax, William once again dismisses it as nothing but a "flock of birds", but Beck by this point doesn't trust William's judgement as far as he can throw him and checks anyway. It wasn't a flock of birds. If Beck had listened to William, the movie would have ended VERY differently. You kind of have to wonder how someone so smart can be so dumb.
• Lack of Empathy: Given that he's completely willing to go along with Quentin Beck's plan, which involves mass-murder, he and the other people going along with Mysterio's act are just as complicit as he is.
• Long Bus Trip: One of eleven long years; he appears only in the first and last films of the Infinity Saga. He beats the previous record-holder Mr. Harrington at nine years (from 2008's The Incredible Hulk to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming).
• Misplaced Retribution: It's implied that he joined Mysterio's crew because he wanted to take revenge on Tony Stark and his legacy, but it was Obadiah Stane who made his life hell. Granted, Obadiah did treat him badly for not being as smart as Tony Stark, but still, the man himself didn't do anything to wrong him, yet he still chose to go along with Quentin Beck and other disgruntled ex-Stark Industries employees in their petty revenge scheme anyway.^note Though Tony is responsible for the company's sudden shift from weapons development to arc reactor technology and other projects, a field that Riva may have had less experience with (thus leading to the confrontation with Obadiah) and certainly a heavy burden to place on employees hired presumably due to their experience with weapons development.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Mysterio and the rest of the crew mainly consist of disgruntled former Stark Industries employees, so it's not hard to swallow from his last appearance that he at least got fed up with how Obadiah Stane treated him.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: By the time he appears in the MCU again, after last being seen in Iron Man 11 years ago, he is anything but harmless.
• Punch-Clock Villain: In Iron Man. Conversely, Far From Home has him being actively malicious instead of just working for an evil boss.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The last we've seen of him in Far From Home is him escaping with Beck's computer files. It's implied that he's the one who sends Beck's edited footage to J. Jonah Jameson at Daily Bugle, outing Peter Parker as Spider-Man.

Gutes Guterman

Gutes Guterman

Species: Human

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Mysterio Crew

Portrayed By: Nicholas Gleaves

Appearances: Spider-Man: Far From Home

A member of Mysterio's crew who came up with the idea and story behind the character of Quentin Beck.

---

• Alliterative Name: Gutes Guterman.
• Cliché Storm: In-universe his ideas and stories are this, containing lots of sci-fi cliches.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Beck credits his story of "a soldier named Quentin from another dimension" as being "exactly the kind of thing people will believe right now".
• Evil Brit: A plot-relevant fact, as it allows him to impersonate the tour bus driver when Peter's classmates arrive in London.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His increasingly cliche stories and explanations make Talos (who is posing as Nick Fury) realize that Beck is a complete fraud.
• Repetitive Name: The first four letters of his forename and surname start with the same letters.
• Stylistic Suck: He is the one writing all of Beck's backstory and dialogue, which is filled with sci-fi cliches and narmy lines that he has to come up on the fly as Beck makes his performances. Eventually, his whole narrative gets so over the top that a Nick Fury-disguised Talos sees through it.
  Talos: Now that is some bullshit.

Victoria Snow

Victoria Snow

Species: Human

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Mysterio Crew

Portrayed By: Clare Dunne

Appearances: Spider-Man: Far From Home

A member of Mysterio's crew, who devised the idea of using localized EMPs to fool Nick Fury’s satellites into confirming Mysterio's story.

---

• Adaptational Dye-Job: She's auburn-haired in the comics, whereas MCU Victoria has brown hair.
• Flat Character: Gets the fewest lines and least development of any named member of "Team Mysterio".

Janice Lincoln

Janice Lincoln

Species: Human

Affiliation(s): Stark Industries (formerly), Mysterio Crew

Portrayed By: Claire Rushbrook

Appearances: Spider-Man: Far From Home

A member of Mysterio's crew, who discovered that the E.D.I.T.H. glasses were being handed over to Peter Parker.

---

• Adaptational Wimp: In the comics, she the third Beetle and a member of the Sinister Six. In the MCU she's a disgruntled former employee of Stark Industries and a member of the Mysterio Crew.
• In Name Only: Outside of being an enemy of Spider-Man, she bears no resemblance to her comic book counterpart.
• The Mole: In order to discover that control over E.D.I.T.H. was being given to Peter Parker, she had to have been working for Stark Industries until almost before the events of the film, feeding the others inside information.
• Race Lift: The character she shares a name with is an Afro-Latina, but she's white.
• Skewed Priorities: During the final battle, whenever an obstacle to Mysterio's plan comes up, Janice asks Beck whether he still needs his cape ironed, much to his frustration.
• Two First Names: Both "Janice" and "Lincoln" can be applied as first names.

Mysterio's Creations

The Elementals

The Elementals (Sandman / Magnum, Hydro-Man / Hydron, Molten Man / Hellfire, Cyclone / Zephyr, and the Elemental Fusion)

Species: Holographic projections

Portrayed By: N/A

Appearances: Spider-Man: Far From Home

"They were born in stable orbits. Within the black holes, creatures formed from the primary elements. Air, Water, Fire, Earth. The science division had a technical name. We just called them Elementals."

— Quentin Beck / Mysterio, Spider-Man: Far From Home

A group of elemental giants that attack various cities throughout Europe during Peter Parker’s supposedly quiet vacation. Their arrival leads to Spider-Man and Mysterio teaming up.

---

• Adaptation Name Change: The Elementals of the film — Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man, and Cyclone — were respectively called Magnum, Hydron, Hellfire, and Zephyr in the comics. This trope is at least partially averted if you see them as adaptations of the Elementals of Doom, which were called the Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind Elementals — which is how they're referred to in-movie, but not in the marketing, which uses the Spider-Man villain names instead.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • The Elementals are either extradimensional Human Aliens or magical beings in the comics. Here, they're holographic projections set up by Mysterio.
  • This also applies to Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man, and Cyclone, being enhanced humans in the source.
• Advertised Extra: Sandman appears prominently in the trailers despite only having one scene and never being encountered by Peter.
• All There in the Manual: The names of each of the individual Elementals are not spoken in the film, but were confirmed via merchandise and interviews with the cast and crew.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Elemental that attacks Tower Bridge is actually all four of them merged together.
• Arch-Enemy: To Mysterio for killing his fellow super-soldiers, murdering his family and burning his world to cinders. Subverted in that they're actually holographic props he created to pretend to be a superhero.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: For Spider-Man: Far From Home. Or so it would seem, at first. Technically, none of the "Elementals" even exist.
• Blow You Away: The wind Elemental, Cyclone.
• The Cameo: Sandman is only seen for a brief shot at the beginning of the film. Cyclone is accidentally discovered by MJ and Peter when they unwittingly activate one of Mysterio's drones.
• Composite Character:
  • Though collectively known as the Elementals, they are much more closely based on some classic and lesser-known Spider-Man villains: Sandman (who previously appeared in Spider-Man 3), Hydro-Man, Molten Man, and Cyclone.
  • In addition, the characters also bear much more resemblance to the lesser-known Fantastic Four villains the Elementals of Doom, being element-based monsters that are summoned by another villain (Diablo instead of Mysterio, in this case) rather than Human Aliens from another dimension (as the regular Elementals are in the comics). The fact that they sort of merge together to form an even bigger threat has precedence in the comics as well, with their combined form being known as the Elematrix instead of being a nameless monster. Given that the Disney-Fox deal didn't complete until after the movie had wrapped production, their presence can be considered a clever case of Writing Around Trademarks — and with a third party (Sony) involved, no less.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Shortly after Molten Man is defeated, the Elementals are revealed to be little more than illusions of the movie's true villain: Mysterio.
• Dishing Out Dirt: The earth Elemental, Sandman.
• The Dreaded: The fire Elemental is built up as the most powerful of the four, with the capacity of destroying the entire planet.
• Elemental Embodiment: They are each the embodiment of fire, water, wind, and earth.
• Elemental Powers: Naturally, given the previous trope. They each command their respective elements in combat.
• Engineered Heroics: They're all tech-based illusions created by Mysterio to allow him to pretend to be a hero, causing very real collateral damage in the process.
• Expy Coexistence: One of the Elementals is based on and named after the classic Spider-Man foe Sandman. Said foe would enter the MCU in No Way Home as a displaced version of the Sandman from Spider-Man 3.
• Fusion Dance: Near the climax of the film, Mysterio dumps them all together into one gigantic hybrid, declaring them to be an "Avengers-level threat" to tear up London.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: None of them have a clear personality beyond wanting to destroy the world. This trope ends up being justified in that their backstories are left deliberately vague because they were completely made up by Mysterio's crew, who spent more time coming up with a sympathetic backstory for him instead.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Set up as the main antagonists of Far From Home, they're actually the handiwork of the true Big Bad, Mysterio.
• Holograms: What they actually are.
• Magma Man: The fire Elemental, Molten Man.
• Making a Splash: The water Elemental, Hydro-Man.
• Monumental Damage: They tear up various well-known locations across the world, with the final Elemental's assault on Tower Bridge being the most infamous. Turns out it's actually drones causing the damage in step with the movements of intricate holograms.
• No Name Given: The final Elemental, which attacks Tower Bridge, does not have a listed name, unlike the others.
• Odd Name Out: Sandman, Hydro-Man, Molten Man... and Cyclone. Interestingly, there's no consistency with the naming of all the "-Man" villains, either, like in the comics.^note Sandman is just one word, Hydro-Man is two words that are hyphenated, and Molten Man is two words without a hyphen.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Mysterio takes down Cyclone entirely offscreen, and managed to beat Sandman in front of Nick Fury and Maria Hill (a fight that the audience only sees the beginning of). After the reveal that they're illusions, that makes Beck's smoke and mirrors display considerably less awesome.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: No version of the Elementals are Spider-Man villains, which fits the major plot of Spider-Man: Far From Home taking Peter Parker out of his typical sphere. Of course, they do resemble some classic Spider-rogues, as shown in Composite Character. Except they're actually Mysterio's creations.
• A Storm Is Coming: Ned, MJ, Betty, Flash, Mr. Harrington, Mr. Dell, and the rest of Peter's classmates are the first to sense a change in the weather pattern before the fifth and final elemental, one that resembles a giant tornado emerges and towers over Tower Bridge. This isn't its only appearance in the film as it previously appeared as a hologram projection Beck was fighting. This realization is soon lampshaded by Peter after he gets his first look at the wind elemental and it's then and there that MJ and Peter agree that Mysterio is not what he seems which is what prompts him to move forward with the next phase of his plan and summon the Elemental Fusion.
• Villain Decay: They're stated to have destroyed Mysterio’s Earth and Beck says he and the last battalion on his Earth only delayed them. When they come to the MCU-Earth, Mysterio manages to destroy all but one of them all on his own... Which is the first hint that the situation isn't quite as he alleges it to be. It turns out Mysterio actually deliberately engineered them to evoke this trope for the sake of creating a reputation for himself as a powerful hero.
• The Worf Effect: A hero-on-villain example is invoked by Mysterio. The Elementals are played up as supposedly destroying an alternate Earth, yet they get vanquished by Mysterio, mostly single-handedly, to play up his strength so he appears to be a worthy addition to The Avengers.

---

"I’ve managed to send the Elemental back through the dimensional rift, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it off this bridge alive. Spider-Man attacked me for some reason. He has an army of weaponized drones, Stark technology. He’s saying he’s the only one who’s gonna be the new Iron Man, no one else. [...] Spider-Man’s real...Spider-Man’s real name is P-...Spider-Man’s name is Peter Parker!"

---