Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Peter Parker erased from the memories of everybody on 616 Earth, or so it seemed. Episode 6 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe show VisionQuest, titled “Deadlock”, heavily hinted otherwise, with fans hopping on X to suggest that E.D.I.T.H., along with Vision, Ultron, and the other AIs, must remember Peter Parker.
“Deadlock” featured tons of flirting, which nauseated Vision and Tommy, between Jocasta and Ultron as Jocasta took steps towards achieving her final endgame. Having learned from Ultron’s approach, Jocasta doesn’t want to kill humanity. No, she wants to control it. In her view, humanizing machinery was never going to work, but adding the machine to the human will. Using a nanobot — what seems to be the comic book adaptation method of choice between this and Clayface — Jocasta takes control of Lisa.
Fans of VisionQuest have watched Lisa and Tommy’s friendship recently veer into romance, with the two sharing a kiss in “Deadlock”, mere minutes prior to her terrifying transformation. Under Jocasta’s control, Lisa becomes visibly more robotic in her face and mannerisms and lights up red, similar to Ultron and Jocasta. Thankfully, Tommy is able to use his powers and phase the bot out of her, allowing Lisa to just barely survive.
At one point in the episode, Vision vents his frustrations about navigating teenagers, and E.D.I.T.H. emphatically relates. She jokes that he should tell her about it. After all, her first boss was a junior in high school.
Given the music cue that comes after the line, fans assume she’s referring to Peter Parker and their interactions during Spider-Man: Far From Home. Moreover, the choice to have E.D.I.T.H. operate drones during the big fight with Jocasta in the episode, once again evoking Far From Home, further cements that E.D.I.T.H.’s line is likely about Peter Parker.
If true, this changes Peter Parker’s status quo quite a bit. It’s curious whether E.D.I.T.H. has always remembered, or if Parker’s decision to have an AI that assists him inadvertently leaked his identity to AIs across the board. Spider-Man: Brand New Day makes no suggestion about how secure E.V. is, and given that MJ finds out about Peter’s identity through the coffee cup note he leaves lying around, it’s not hard to believe that Peter could get lazy and let something slip through the cracks.
If AIs do remember Peter Parker and by proxy his secret identity, does he just rank too low for them to concern themselves with it? A big running joke of Spider-Man: Brand New Day was the notion of small potatoes versus big potatoes, and it’s possible that none of the AIs in Vision-Quest necessarily see outing Peter Parker as having any tactical advantage. Spider-Man only entered the MCU in Captain America 3: Civil War, which followed Avengers: Age of Ultron and thus Ultron’s death. Ultron has no emotional tie to Peter Parker and no reason to go after him. E.D.I.T.H. may remember bits and pieces of working for Peter, but it doesn’t mean that she knows where he is or wants to help him.
Does AI knowing Peter Parker’s identity as Spider-Man change things, or is it just small potatoes compared to everything else going on in Vision-Quest? We’d like to hear from you in the comments!
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