Spider-Man Just Officially Invented the MCU’s Most Dangerous Weapon

Spider-Man: Brand New Day officially saw Spider-Man become the new Tony Stark, as he single-handedly invented the MCU’s most dangerous weapon. For all his powers, Peter Parker’s greatest ability is his scientific genius. This is the guy who developed spider-powers, and then figured out how to build web-shooters too. Even Tony Stark was impressed by Spider-Man’s scientific genius, and it’s one reason he took the kid under his wing in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

And yet, when it comes to superhero films, there’s a basic rule: no scientific genius goes unpunished. Tony Stark swore to stop weapons development, but he accidentally created Ultron, an artificial intelligence that almost wiped out the human race. In fact, it’s easy to join the dots between Tony Stark and so many of the MCU’s greatest threats. There’s a straight narrative line between Stark and war in Sokovia, leading to the creation of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. His treatment of Quentin Beck set him on the journey to become Mysterio. Now, Spider-Man is following his mentor’s example in the worst way.

Spider-Man Just Invented the MCU’s Doomsday Device

Spider-Man’s powers were mysteriously mutating in Brand New Day, and the wall-crawler initially tried to reject it. He headed to Bruce Banner, who had developed similar DNA inhibitor technology to control the Hulk, but Peter knew he had to reverse-engineer the approach and figure out a way to apply to his own powers. Remarkably, he was successful; he created technology that generated a loose inhibitor field, initially bound to his own powers. It took a lot of work to get it right, not least because Peter didn’t realize the slight electromagnetic field generated by his mask lens would disrupt the inhibitor field. But he cracked it in the end.

Here’s the catch, though; Peter went one step further, developing a universal inhibitor for any super-powers. It didn’t actually work on the Hulk, whose skin was too tough for the field to properly penetrate it, but it proved shockingly effective against Jean Grey. That’s a remarkable piece of technology, and anyone familiar with the comics (or, indeed, with the ’90s X-Men animated series) will know exactly where this is headed.

Yes, Spider-Man Just Invented the MCU’s Inhibitor Collars

Over in the comics, the 1980s saw the X-Men face one of their most dangerous foes; an entire nation who saw mutants as a resource to be used. The Genoshan government developed inhibitor collars, devices they attached around a mutant’s neck that stripped them of their powers. Mutants were literally treated as slaves, forced to use their powers for the state, and even the most powerful mutants were vulnerable to these collars. Taking a step back, then, you can immediately see where Spider-Man’s technology is headed.

The end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day revealed Damage Control had been seeking to weaponize mutants in a similar way (an idea seeded in Destin Daniel Cretton’s Wonder Man, where Simon Williams was seen as a potential “asset”). Damage Control boss William Metzger escaped with everything he’d learned of superhumans, including the fact a universal inhibitor is possible. The genie has been let out of the bottle, because many of the MCU’s scientists will undoubtedly be paid to replicate the inhibitor.

Spider-Man’s Universal Inhibitor Is Even Worse, Though

So far, so bad. But it gets worse, because Spider-Man hasn’t just developed a mutant inhibitor. No, he’s come up with a universal inhibitor, one that generates an energy field to suppress any and all DNA-based expressions of super-powers. It would work on super-soldiers like Captain America and Black Panther, Gamma-irradiated beings like Hulk and Abomination (assuming the field penetrated their skin), mutants like Jean Grey and Ms. Marvel. It wouldn’t be any use against sorcerers like Doctor Strange, and likely wouldn’t be effective against aliens like Thor. But it can neutralize anyone else.

Even more disturbing, this is done through the generation of an energy field. Yes, that field is sensitive – Spider-Man’s lenses were enough to require fine-tuning – but there’s no reason a stronger power source couldn’t generate a field covering an entire area. Imagine the Avengers attacking a Hydra base, only to find their powers failing them the moment Red Skull flicked a switch. Imagine the X-Men trying to take down a Sentinel facility, only to lose their powers the moment battle began – because Sentinels have a vast power-source, and could potentially generate these fields as well.

Again, we’ve seen this idea in the comics. During Brian Bendis’ New Avengers run, the criminal underworld cracked a universal inhibitor field that meant street-level criminals almost took down the Avengers. That’s how dangerous this technology really is, because it turns the most powerful superhero into a base level human. Worse still, if the hero doesn’t know it’s happened, they’re vulnerable; perhaps assuming they’re invulnerable when a gunshot will be fatal, or punching a wall expecting it to break and instead injuring themselves. That’s the kind of tech Spider-Man has just developed, and he may well have just outdone even Tony Stark.

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