Worldwide web: Tom Holland as Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man.

TOM HOLLAND REMEMBERS THE FIRST TIME HE ENCOUNTERED ALFRED MOLINA’S DOCTOR OCTOPUS.

It was 2004, and, aged just eight, Holland went along to his local cinema to watch Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which pitted Tobey Maguire’s webslinger against Doc Ock, a noble scientist turned into a monster thanks to the addition of four malevolent, murderous, mechanical arms. “I was obsessed with Raimi’s movies,” says Holland. (We assume he’s referring just to the Spider-Man movies; eight years old is perhaps a tad too young to be introduced to the Evil Dead trilogy.) “And I remember seeing Alfred in his costume for the first time, and he had the glasses on, and he was wearing his belt, which is what the legs were attached to. And I remember, as a kid, being terrified of him.”

Holland also remembers the second time he encountered Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus. Mainly because it wasn’t that long ago, on the Atlanta set of Spider-Man: No Way Home, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry to star Holland as your friendly neighbourhood youknow-what. And there, larger than life, was Molina, back in costume as Doc Ock for the first time in nearly two decades.

It must have been an intimidating sight. Holland could have been forgiven for flinching as the actor who struck the fear of God into him all those years ago approached him. What happened next, though, was decidedly un-Doc- Ock-like.

“He was like, ‘Hello, mate! How are you, pal?

How’s it going?’” laughs Holland. “He was lovely. He’s a proper geezer. We had so much fun working together.”

You will, no doubt, have questions. Questions like, ‘Huh?’ and, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And, perhaps, more considered queries such as, ‘How can a Tobey Maguire supervillain be facing off against Tom Holland’s Spider-Man?’, ‘Isn’t he brown bread?’ and one more time, just for good measure, ‘What the hell is going on?’

Empire hopes to provide you with answers, or at the very least, some educated guesses and the odd bit of idle, possibly ill-informed, speculation. Because if we’re right about what’s happening, the return of Doc Ock is just the tip of the iceberg. And quite possibly the most significant development for the MCU and beyond since Thanos snapped his fingers. The Multiverse is finally here.

THE MULTIVERSE IS A CONCEPT in which there are, essentially, an infinite number of parallel universes stacked either side of our own. Some of those universes are like ours, save for an infinitesimal difference. Others deviate in remarkable ways. In one of these parallel universes, Loki is an alligator. In another, an infinite bunch of monkeys have actually managed to write Hamlet on an infinite number of typewriters. And in yet another, Everton have won the Premier League. Nothing is off the table, however ludicrous.