EYE 2 EYE: Who is the better Spider-Man: Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland?

… for those who have already ruled Toby Maguire out

Porter+Nicoll+%2F+Talon

Porter Nicoll / Talon

Andrew Garfield 

By: Olivia Papanicolaou

Andrew Garfield is clearly the superior Spider-Man. In the Andrew Garfield set of movies, he plays Spider-Man, and his love interest, Gwen Stacy, is played by Emma Stone. According to The U.S Sun, in 2011, during the making of Spider-Man, Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield were in a romantic relationship. This allowed the actors to give their characters, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, true chemistry on screen.

The numbers show that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies generated a lot more revenue for his movies compared to The Amazing Spider-Man movies.  Andrew Garfield’s movies  were not considered part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Being a part of The Marvel Universe brings in a ton of fans and revenue. Andrew Garfield was not given this equal chance which you can certainly tell by the box office numbers. The most recent Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home, made the greatest amount of money compared to the other movies at 1.5 billion dollars, which featured Andrew Garfield’s comeback.

Andrew Garfield beautifly plays Peter Parker, a nerdy and innocent boy who wants to know what happened to his father. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Parker is given the ability to transform into Spider-Man, a hero that fights off dangerous villains and saves all. Andrew Garfield is a talented actor who can be both  humorous and serious when needed. In the most recent movie, Spider-Man No Way Home, we see all three Spider-Man’s side-by-side: Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and then Andrew Garfield. Garfield brings in many jokes to the scenes and allows the audience to reminisce on his previous movies. He is a very comedic hero and the delivery of his jokes always makes the audience laugh. 

As well as his humorous personality, Garfield appears to be a more mature hero while Holland is very childish and sometimes ignorant. All three Spider-Men have had their share of villains to defeat but Garfield’s Spider-Man is recognized for using his intelligence to defeat villains. According to Sportskeeda, Garfield uses his brains in The Amazing Spider-Man to create a serum to cure Dr. Connors before he could turn the entire population of New York City into lizards. It is made clear that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is academically intelligent but Garfield’s use of his spider-like smarts is more apparent during his fights than Holland’s Spider-Man. Along with his comedic presence and intelligence, we also get the back story of Andrew Garfield Peter Parker’s parents and Uncle Ben. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 really dives into why Peter’s parents left him and who his dad really was. We also get to see how Uncle Ben was a strong father figure to Peter when his dad left. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is without  the presence of the rest of his family besides his Aunt May, lacking the same on-screen depth of character we see with Garfield.

Andrew Garfield is and always will be the greatest Spider-Man because of his goofy and intelligent Peter Parker and his strong, witty and heroic Spider-Man.

Tom Holland

By: Sydney Herstein

It is blatantly obvious that Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man. There are many attributes of Holland that make him the most suitable option to play the role of Peter Parker. According to Vox Cinemas, Tom Holland was only 19 at the time when he played the role of Peter Parker, which is much closer to the age of a high schooler than the ages of 27 and 29 that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were when their Spider-Man movies first debuted. As a result of this, Tom Holland appears to be around the age of a high school student, making this part of his performance entirely believable. Additionally, Tom’s acting is unparalleled as he seems like he becomes Peter Parker, who is simply an average high schooler with a secret superhero side to him. 

Even Stan Lee himself believed Tom Holland was the perfect Spider-Man as he said at Denver Comic-Con: “It’s as if we created a living being to be Spider-Man, and it turned out to be Tom.” Peter Parker is an intellectual high school student who is also the superhero, Spider-Man, meaning a certain type of actor is needed to fill the role. Tom Holland exhibits qualities of both the innocence of a high school student and the courage of a superhero while he is acting as Peter Parker, making him the best Spider-Man.

Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire each acted as Spider-Man in multiple films, however, Tom Holland is the only actor of Spider-Man to be a member of the Avengers. Additionally, all Spider-Man movies have extremely similar characters, but different actors, plots and events. In all of the Spider-Man movies, there is a love interest for Peter Parker. In the Spider-Man movies that Tom has acted in, Zendaya plays the role of MJ. In real-life, Tom Holland and Zendaya are in a relationship with each other, which carries over into their relationship on the screen as Peter and MJ, making the performance even more emotional and realistic.

According to Screen Rant, Spider-Man: No Way Home has produced over 1.2 billion dollars in revenue. This is the most recent Spider-Man movie, which stars none other than Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. In addition to this, Spider-Man: Far From Home, which also starred Holland, produced over 1.1 billion dollars in revenue. Both of these films produced the most money out of all of the Spider-Man movies while Andrew Garfield films’ did not come close to producing this amount.

Overall, Tom Holland is undeniably the best Spider-Man as he portrays both the character of Peter Parker and Spider-Man in a compelling fashion.