Superhero movies by their nature tend to be at least lightly ethically engaged: If nothing else, when you figure out you have powers or the means to build them, you have to choose whether you’re going to be a hero or a villain. Both the DC and Marvel universes have tended to situate the moral development of their characters in the context of larger conflicts.

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The DC universe is concerned with what happens when humans receive definitive proof that God, or at least godlike figures, are real. For Superman (Henry Cavill), emerging as a demigod requires him to discern the right path: Can he kill? Is it more appropriate to sacrifice? Batman (Ben Affleck) attempts to reassert human influence and the primacy of human morality in the universe by ensuring that supremely powerful beings can’t run roughshod over ordinary people without consequences. Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is driven mad by his sense of what is coming.

Though the Marvel Cinematic Universe also includes actual gods from Norse mythology, most prominently Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), its ethical conflicts have tended to play out on the more quotidian level of regulation. For Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the question has often been to what extent he can regulate himself, his companies and the world at large, and at what point government regulation becomes necessary. (“Spider-Man: Homecoming” sharpens, but does not resolve, the long-lingering question of how much Tony’s efforts are driven by genuine decency versus the profits he gains from new lines of technology and disaster clean-up.) Captain America (Chris Evans), by contrast, is driven by a strong internal moral compass from an earlier age and a suspicion that government can regulate morality with nuance and discernment.

What DC’s excellent “Wonder Woman” and “Spider-Man: Homecoming” have in common is that they zoom in more closely on the moral development of individuals during important inflection points in their lives. Outside forces matter, of course, though the scenarios are a little different: “Wonder Woman” is set during Diana’s (Gal Gadot) first foray into the outside world, decades before the events that will introduce her to Bruce Wayne. And “Spider-Man: Homecoming” focuses on a teenage hero (Tom Holland) who is auditioning to become an Avenger, and sees new super-suits and brawls at the Berlin airport as opportunities for unboxing videos and life-casting.

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Neither movie advocates a withdrawal from worldly concerns in pursuit of private moral purity; in fact, “Wonder Woman” suggests that Wonder Woman’s seclusion is a heartbroken response to horror that is itself a kind of tragedy. But both suggest that it’s worth taking a pause to examine what great events do to our small, solitary selves. World-scale problems deserve considered responses. We shouldn’t lose track of our own quests for goodness in the process.

What makes Adrian Toomes, who becomes Spider-Man’s most significant antagonist in “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the Vulture, such a compelling villain isn’t simply a crackling performance by Michael Keaton. Rather, it’s that the Vulture’s clear-sighted analysis of the world Tony Stark and the other Avengers have created leads him to a morally destructive conclusion with devastating consequences for the people he wants to protect and for the world at large.

The Vulture’s anxieties, to use the parlance of contemporary politics, are both cultural and economic.

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“Things are never going to be the same now,” he muses after the events of “The Avengers,” which end with Loki’s rampage through New York. “When I was a kid, I used to draw cowboys and Indians.” Though a member of his demolition crew points out that the preferred term is Native Americans, the Vulture-to-be is referring more to the scale of the conflict than to its racial dynamics, and in that, he is entirely correct. His resentment sharpens when he learns that the disaster cleanup has been federalized, and that Tony, the man who helped make this mess possible, is going to get the contracts to do the work that others were counting on for their livelihoods. For all the parallels Marvel movies have drawn to other conflicts, the Vulture’s acid breakdown of the situation is one of the sharper critiques the franchise has ever offered of Tony’s brand of newly benevolent capitalism.

If the Vulture is the character in “Spider-Man” who sees the larger picture most clearly, his response to it is the petty and sad self-justification of any mobster who has vowed that he is simply buying his family a better life. He stays in the salvage business, turning alien technology into weaponry for sale to criminals who want to pull off increasingly daring heists. It’s a business that makes him wealthy: The Vulture and his family retreat to quasi-suburban splendor, even as the weapons the Vulture puts on the streets tend to escalate crime dramatically. Suddenly, an ATM robbery can blow up an entire bodega. “I just need something to stick up somebody, not send them back in time,” small-time crook Aaron Davis (Donald Glover) observes, unnerved. The Vulture diagnosed Tony and then became him on a smaller scale. He holds off his family’s financial ruin but ends up exposing them to greater ruination and shame when his criminal enterprises are exposed and he is apprehended.

The Vulture’s ultimate demise doesn’t necessarily prove his analysis wrong: Tony’s vastly greater wealth and the way he has made himself integral to global security infrastructure protect him from being held personally accountable for the far larger damage he has been a part of. But the Vulture’s morally degraded response to an ethically complex situation does prevent him from securing long-term happiness for his family or a fairer system for him and for everyone else.

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If the Vulture rages against the corruption of big men, Peter Parker spends much of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” longing to become one. His response is a natural one: After being called up to the big leagues for the airport throw-down in “Captain America: Civil War,” taken on his first private jet ride and treated like a probationary adult, he’s sent back to Queens* to await further instructions. If Peter isn’t content to be a “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” giving directions and foiling petty crimes, it’s because his supposed mentors don’t exactly teach him to value being a hometown superhero. These lesser gigs are what keep Peter busy and out of their hair, rather than being part of a larger idea about the protection that civilians deserve all the time.

The older men in Peter’s life, who ought to recognize what they’ve gotten themselves into, blow off Peter’s calls and then get angry when he winds up in over his head. When Peter explains, “I just wanted to be like you!” and Tony snaps back at him, “And I wanted you to be better,” it’s doubly unfair. Not only is Tony older, richer and more experienced, he also has placed the freight of those expectations on Peter without taking the time or initiative to lay out a different vision of superheroics or to talk to Peter about the lessons the younger man might learn from Tony’s myriad mistakes. In a world where Captain America stars in educational videos and teenage girls debate which superhero they’d rather marry, there aren’t exactly other role models for the kind of superheroism Tony would like Peter to occupy.

The most striking thing about the end of “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is the way it shows that Peter has discovered a better way all on his own. When Tony offers Peter a spot on the Avengers, he’s giving Peter what Peter wanted, rather than what was good for him. Peter’s decision to opt out, stay in high school and make his own way is the realization that Tony wanted him to have all along, reached with little help or guidance from the adults in his life. Better, it turns out, doesn’t always mean bigger or flashier or more violent. Sometimes it means recognizing that what’s right for you — what matches your physical capacity and ethical ideals — might also be best for your family, your neighborhood and your city.