'Captain America Civil War:' Tony Stark sees Spider-Man as the greatest living non-lethal weapon, reveals director

The root conflict in Marvel's upcoming film "Captain America: Civil War" will be the superheroes fighting among themselves without really wanting to hurt each other, as this time it's not some power-hungry villain, alien monster or a killer robot that they are fighting, they're going up against friends. And that's also one of the main reasons behind Tony Stark aka Iron Man recruiting a very young Spider-Man for this battle.

Tony's need to hold back a little is ultimately what leads him to seek out one of the most powerful superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, according to co-director Joe Russo. Speaking at the U.K. press conference for "Captain America: Civil War," Russo explained why Stark seeks out Spider-Man and his particular skills to help in the fight against Captain America's team.

"Look, there's a certain narcissism to the character and Tony doesn't want to lose this fight, and at the same time I think he also sees Spider-Man as the greatest living non-lethal weapon. If you're going out to capture a bunch of people who you don't necessarily want to hurt, you couldn't ask for a better character than Spider-Man to take with you," said the co-director, according to ScreenRant.

Russo added, "He does show up and illustrate that Spider-Man, he knows how powerful he is. In a video we see Spider-Man stopping a car moving 40 miles an hour, where he catches it and puts it back on the ground, so I think he believes that he's taking with him perhaps one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe, and I think he feels like the kid will be well-protected under his tutelage. You also find out in that sequence, when things go wrong the kid says, 'What do I do?' and Tony says, 'Keep your distance, web 'em up.' So he's obviously mentored the kid for what's about to go down."

Fans will definitely get to see more of this student-mentor relationship in Spidey's upcoming solo film titled "Spider-Man: Homecoming," which, as recently announced, will also feature Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. The film is slated to release in July 2017, while "Civil War" opens in theatres on May 6, 2016.