Spider-Man: Brand New Day ends with a promise: a new life for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, as well as Spider-Man. Four years ago, Spider-Man chose to erase all memory of his life as Peter Parker from the world. To be fair, he was facing a literal end-of-the-world scenario if he didn’t. But, still grieving the death of Aunt May, Peter chose not to remind his loved ones who he was. He believed they’d be safer without him. He’s spent the last four years living without connection.
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the story of how Peter regains that. In doing so, it challenges him to accept that he is more than just Spider-Man; meanwhile, it confronts him with the difficult questions of agency raised by his choice to wipe out all trace of his existence. It does so by bringing him face-to-face with another person who’s seeking connection, Sadie Sink’s telepath Jean Grey, whose powers strip others of their agency in a dark mirror of Doctor Strange’s memory-warp spell. This time round, we don’t have an end-of-the-world scenario, but the stakes do expand nonetheless.
Spider-Man Embraces Both Aspects of His Nature
Image Courtesy of Marvel studios
“Are you the Spider, or are you the Man?” To paraphrase Jean Grey, that’s the question running through Brand New Day. The film is all about duality, because Peter has unwittingly found himself in a place where those two aspects of his identity are in conflict. Hulk symbolizes this, explaining his role here. Banner has developed inhibitor technology to control his own Gamma-powered mutation, but this turns him into a pawn for others – before leading to the latest Hulk rampage. Spider-Man initially follows Banner’s example, reworking inhibitor tech to control his own mutation. But he eventually learns he, too, has been used as a pawn. This time, by Damage Control, not Jean.
In the end, as he storms Damage Control’s base at last, Spider-Man chooses a simple answer to this question: he is both Spider and Man. Peter symbolically removes both his mask and his inhibitor tech, acknowledging both sides of his nature, and he becomes so much more powerful. Earlier in the film, Spider-Man’s research told him arachnids undergo dramatic mutations in their life-cycle as they become adults; this is his moment of transformation, as he becomes what he was meant to be. His senses are heightened but controlled, his spider-sense is more precise, and his strength and agility are greater than ever before.
Spider-Man’s Willingness to Connect Saves Jean Grey… & Changes the Punisher
Image Courtesy of Marvel Studios
The stakes have been raised much higher than Spider-Man wanted, though, because Jean’s powers “evolved” in response to Metzger’s experiments and her trauma. She’s now holding a vast chunk of Manhattan under her psychic control, even as she prepares to use her telekinesis to kill Tramell Tillman’s Metzger. Thankfully, the unmasked Spider-Man bursts into the lab and offers Jean the one thing that can save her: connection. He invites Jean into his mind, sharing a defining memory of his beloved Aunt May. Both Peter and Jean have lost so much, but Peter assures her that she now has him, despite all the ways they’ve hurt one another over the course of the film.
Jon Bernthal’s Punisher has a different solution to Spider-Man, of course. Punisher is another mirror-image of Spidey in this film; this antihero has chosen to put connection behind him, leaving his loved ones in the past. His home is literally booby-trapped so no-one can enter. Unsurprisingly, then, he only knows one way to deal with Jean: a sniper shot. Spider-Man senses it coming and gets in the way, saving Jean’s life. Her powers drop across Manhattan, as she focuses purely on keeping Peter alive while Punisher rushes him to hospital.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day capitalizes on two common narrative arcs. The hero’s journey is traditionally one of isolation, a hero removed from community who triumphs alone by killing the bad guy. Punisher embodies this perfectly, and his “solution” to Jean Grey is a kill-shot. In contrast, the “heroine’s journey” is typically the story of a person who has lost connection and must regain it, tending to triumph through redemption. Leaving aside the annoying gendered language, Spider-Man: Brand New Day brings hero and heroine’s journey into head-on collision. Punisher becomes an obstacle to redemption, but Spider-Man’s act of self-sacrifice even exposes Frank Castle’s connections as the Punisher cries.
Jean Grey’s Connection to Spider-Man Keeps Him Alive
image courtesy of Marvel Studios
Jean follows Spider-Man’s advice, running. Even as she flees, she retains a psychic connection, her mind in his body, breathing for him. It’s a beautiful, intimate way of paying off the psychic connection between the two, and it mirrors the comics themselves. There, Jean’s powers first triggered when a childhood friend was fatally wounded in a car accident, and she experienced her death with her. That was a less experienced Jean, and this one knows how to keep someone else’s body breathing through her psychic presence. Spider-Man’s connection to Jean saves both of them, in the end, while Jean travels upstate – likely to Westchester, where the X-Men are traditionally based.
The recovering Spider-Man learns there’s been a massive vigil outside the hospital. In a wonderful scene, Peter slips away and watches in awe as New Yorkers celebrate Spider-Man; in that moment, he learns he wasn’t as alone as he thought. Even the Punisher enters into it by wearing Spider-Man’s mask, receiving the adoration of the crowd he’d never get walking around in his skull-vest. The film’s theme of evolution through connection is completed.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Sets Peter Parker on a New Path to Doomsday
image courtesy of marvel studios
In the aftermath of Brand New Day, Peter chooses connection with his loved ones again. He’s already had a sort of reconciliation with Zendaya’s MJ, although the relationship between them is strained; she learned the truth about the memory wipe, but dislikes his taking away her agency. Jacob Batalon’s Ned Leeds embraced the idea of getting to know Spider-Man, and is finally reconciled with Peter. There are hints memories are returning; MJ is seen with a very familiar necklace Peter gave her in Far From Home, while Ned muscle-memories his habitual greeting with Peter. Only time will tell how much (or how little) has been restored.
There is, however, one subtle piece of evidence suggesting we should interpret this as Ned and MJ remembering pretty much everything. Brand New Day riffs on countless comics, and the final scene between Peter and Ned feels reminiscent of Amazing Spider-Man #591. There, in the aftermath of a similar reality rewrite, Peter unmasked to the Fantastic Four; Jonny Storm’s reaction was almost identical to Ned’s, as all his memories returned. That particular comic was part of the “Brand New Day” story, so this feels like a very deliberate reference.
Florence Pugh’s Black Widow shuts down Damage Control on Spider-Man’s behalf. Peter originally reached out to Yelena because he feared the psychic possessions could be experiments like the Red Room; they were very different, but they still involved experiments on two sisters (one of whom is a redhead, the other a blonde). It’s safe to assume Yelena takes all this very personally as a result. That said, Metzger has escaped with ideas for experimenting on mutants to create super-soldiers, and knowledge of the inhibitor tech Spider-Man unwisely developed. He’s clearly being set up for a major role in the Mutant Saga, perhaps even the MCU’s Weapon X Project.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s post-credits scene is a fun one, revealing the wall-crawler has been taken offworld. There’s some debate over whether this is setup for Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars. my money’s on the former, because Thunderbolts*‘ post-credits scene revealed there’s a space subplot going on when the Fantastic Four arrive on Earth-616. Yelena has previously told Spider-Man he should deal with “small potatoes,” and it would be hilarious for Spider-Man to be involved in a space subplot she’s annoyed at being left out of.
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