Alternative path for Spider-Man in the MCU

Since the new Spider-Man movie came out recently, I sat down to re-watch all the Spider-Man movies and I couldn't help but think a lot about the way that Far From Home centers the Avengers in a certain way. It's mostly Iron Man but there are parts of the music of that movie that seem like a version of the Avengers theme, that epic-Avengers music and it also plays in the end-credit scene. It bothers me a lot that the follow-up to that post-credit scene was the load of brainrot called Secret Invasion but I also feel equally curious about what could have been an alternative to what we've had lately, with Spider-Man in the MCU.

I kind of like the thing that creates it a must for one major MCU character to be included in the MCU Spider-Man movies (Iron Man, Nick Fury, Dr. Strange, Punisher, Hulk) because it feels like lately the Spider-Man movies have been some of the only movies which have made things feel interconnected because it's been kind of sad that things don't feel like part of the same universe anymore in the same way. They surely did with The New Avengers and that's a big reason I love that movie.

I read that the reason things with Spidey in the MCU are the way they are is 'lawyers are contracts' in a nutshell which makes a lot of sense to me and I also remember the time in 2019 where Sony decided to not have Spidey in the MCU anymore but then there was a 25%-75% production agreement between the two companies.

I also see how that creates constraints for Marvel like not wanting to use Spidey too much as in the sense of him being a proper member of a team and all that. But I still wonder.

I still wonder, especially after re-watching Spider-Man: Far From Home and that Avengers music, if that deal hadn't happened and Marvel's approach towards the character had not changed, what would Spider-Man's future in the MCU have looked like, what would have been some great ways he could have been used? I'd love to know what you think.