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In Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Peter Parker

steals a relic containing a botched spell from Stephen Strange.

However, when Strange confronts him,

Strange pushes Parker's astral form out of his body.

Strange then attempts to take back the relic, but

Peter somehow avoids it while not possessing his body.


(Jump to 00:35)

animated GIF of scene

How is he able to do this? Is it his Spidey-Sense? (There were suspicious lines wiggling away from his astral form's head during the moment, something I noticed during my rewatch.)

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    It's because of the Peter tingle, I'm sure
    – Valorum
    Commented Dec 23, 2021 at 8:45
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    Can't answer this with canonical evidence, but in the comics, Peter's spider-sense allows him to react to threats on instinct alone, i.e. his body can move to avoid something like a bullet, without him consciously choosing to do so. Even with Peter's conscious mind expelled from his body, it presumably retained its ability to function autonomously on some level. For example, I assume his body was still breathing and circulating blood. If that's true, then perhaps it was also capable of a degree of autonomous movement to avoid threats, when prompted by his spider-sense.
    – LogicDictates
    Commented Dec 23, 2021 at 12:51
  • Sounds reasonable. I could probably accept that with some evidence as an answer
    – Peter Nielsen
    Commented Dec 23, 2021 at 17:37
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    Per the screenplay; [But Spider-Man’s Physical Body moves The Box away. Somehow Astral Peter is controlling Spider-Man’s Physical Body!] - DR. STRANGE How are you doing that? PETER (ASTRAL BODY) I have no idea...
    – Valorum
    Commented Jan 28, 2022 at 22:34
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    @SatelliteofSin - "Somehow" isn't an answer
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 18, 2022 at 1:24

1 Answer 1

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There isn't any clear explanation for this within the movie itself, nor am I aware of any official word on this anywhere else.

In the comics though, Peter's spider-sense is said to trigger an instinctive response from his body, allowing him to avoid danger without making any conscious decisions.

Spider-Man's spider-sense is an instinctive response to danger which always triggers his amazing spider-like reflexes in plenty of time to avoid injury! He moves so fast that he can usually dodge a blow... before it is thrown... which explains why it is so rare for anyone to ever hit him!

In fact, directed solely by his spider-sense and without making any conscious decisions, our hero has been known to avoid prolonged bursts of machine-gun fire... and computerized, rapidly-fired, random discharges from the Hobgoblin's finger-blaster!

Of course, since his spider-sense is an instinctive reaction, Spider-Man can disregard it... but that takes a lot of effort, a conscious decision, and a heck of a good reason!

Amazing Spider-Man Annual Vol. 1 #23 (September, 1989)

enter image description here

As you mentioned, there were transparent, wavy lines around the head of Peter's astral form, in the relevant scene from Spider-Man: No Way Home, suggesting that his spider-sense was a factor there.

Also, when Doctor Strange's astral form left his body during his fight with Lucian Aster in Doctor Strange (2016), a heart rate monitor indicated that his heart was still beating, despite his physical form and astral form being separate. His heart rate did flatline at one point, due to a stab wound in the chest he'd received during the fight, but Christine was able to use a defibrillator to get it beating again, before his astral form re-entered his body.

This suggests that a person's physical form retains some degree of autonomous function in the MCU, even when separated from their astral form.

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