There’s a lot to admire about Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s marketing campaign: it started with an unprecendented global event that made the Avengers: Doomsday chairs look like a walk in the park, and then Sony and Marvel went mostly quiet for what felt like months. And just when you thought the second Brand New Day trailer was never going to drop, Sony revealed the Spider-Tracker website, then the misdirection of the cast’s “tickets on-sale” video, and finally, the trailer itself. And despite showing off a lot, including the first look at the Savage Hulk after years of Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner doing everything to keep the pirest form of the Jade Giant under control and out of sight.
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The other big thing to admire is just how much we don’t know about Spider-Man: Brand New Day, even with the tickets on sale. We don’t know who the biggest new cast member is even playing (yes, there’s a lot of speculation on that front); we don’t know how all of the many villains tie together; and we don’t even really know why the hell Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is suddenly turning into a completely different hero. Or monster, depending on how you look at it. With those questions and more burning a hole in my very excited brain, I set about trying to unpick the biggest mysteries we still don’t know the answers to…
5) Who Is Sadie Sink Playing?
This far into the marketing campaign, it’s actually impressive that Sony and Marvel have decided to not spoil Sadie Sink’s character name in Brand New Day. Obviously, there’s been a lot of speculation, and it’s feeling increasingly likely that she is, as always suspected, playing Jean Grey, but the fact that there’s no concrete confirmation is just enough to sew some doubt. Why wouldn’t they confirm such a popular X-Men character was involved in the movie, when the usual play is to leverage recognizable brands to boost ticket sales? If they’re willing to show Bruce Banner’s Savage Hulk return for hype, surely a solid gold chip like Jean Grey would be trotted out gleefully? Maybe, just maybe, we’re being sold a clever lie?
Then again, there’s also a lot of evidence to suggest she IS playing Jean Grey: she’s obviously got red hair, for a start, there’s someone involved who can control the minds of others, and the new Brand New Day trailer shows what looks suspiciously like her Psychic Blast power. There’s also a bona-fide X-Men villain, in the shape of anti-mutant official, Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman), which fits with Spider-Man struggling with his mutation, but fits even more when there’s also another God-tier mutant on the loose. The only issue here is the question of motive: if Jean Grey is involved, and is behind the mind control, why would she be a villain? Could the marketing be massively misleading us on what’s actually happening in those mind control sequences? Or is Jean Grey being manipulated into being “evil”? It’s a little early for a Phoenix storyline, and we’ve already seen a powerful young mutant mind control the Hulk after a misguided alliance with a bigger villain, in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Repetition would be weird. So I still feel like the jury is out.
4) Why Are the Hand Involved?
No matter how many times I try and piece the plot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day together from what we know and what we’ve seen in the marketing, I cannot account for why the Hand are involved at all. Aside for the Netflix branch of the MCU, the Hand have no background in the mainline MCU, and if the Defenders canon is now MCU canon, the villainous group was destroyed from the top down. So have they just been rebuilt quietly and nobody – including Mayor Wilson Fisk – noticed? Or Daredevil, who had reason to be hyper-aware of anything that pointed to their return? That’s all quite problematic for my understanding.
But then there’s the simple question of story. Scorpion’s return makes sense, because he has unfinished business with Spider-Man, and actively vowed revenge on him back in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Bruce Banner’s role makes sense because of his expertise in mutant genetics. Bill Metzger makes sense because of the mutant storyline, too. The Punisher being a safe haven to protect MJ and Ned is logical because of his own personal trauma (and Peter Parker can leverage that to ensure his loved ones are protected). And Sadie Sink makes sense at the heart of the mutant story for various reasons (assuming she is one). But then there’s the Hand, off to the side, without any real connection to anything else we know. It’s not a bad thing, per se, and we only don’t know because of artful concealment, but it’s still a headscratcher.
3) What’s Going on with Peter’s Powers?
As the first Brand New Day trailer said, the life cycle of spiders is broken into 3 stages – egg, spiderling, and adult spider – and the final stage is met with major metamorphosis, which the MCU is essentially branding as Peter Parker’s rebirth. We know, thanks to the marketing footage, that Peter goes go through a major transformation: he develops organic webshooters, and seems to also develop a black-eyed fuge state when under duress. There may be more, and speculation has pointed towards the ultimate nightmare of him becoming Man-Spider, but that feels too much like a Cronenberg-like horror for a family film. But what’s going on with his powers?
As Peter asks Bruce Banner for his expertise, it seems likely that he recognizes that the mutation brought about by the original spider bite that gave him powers and wants to halt the changes. But what has caused the changes? Is this a literal manifestation of his trauma? Or is his mutation influenced by a different external factor that literally speeds up his metamorphosis? This all feels a little like the symbiote saga, with Parker wrestling with changes that make him more powerful but come at significant cost. I’m fascinated to see how it plays out, and whether any of those changes are permanent.
2) Where Did Marc Gargan Get the Scorpion Suit?
Mac Gargan’s return has been a long time coming. 9 years in fact. After being thrown into prison during Spider-Man: Homecoming, Michael Mando’s villain vowed revenge, and then seemingly decided not to do anything about it for the next near-decade. He was obviously incarcerated for at least some of that time, but every Spider-Man movie since Homecoming has been met with questions of whether he’d actually show up again. We finally have that confirmation, and we can all only hope that Scorpion is given a real chance to shine and isn’t relegated to a glorified cameo that wraps up his arc as part of the “here’s what Spidey has been up to since you last saw him” montage. And hopefully, we’ll find out how he got that gnarly suit of armor.
Gargan has now completed his own transformation into the Scorpion, but as far as we all know, the supply of black market tech was disrupted by Adrian Toomes’ arrest in Homecoming, so it’s surely unlikely this is repurposed Stark or alien tech. Unless something dramatic has changed, of course. And then there’s the question of the DODC, who would surely not just overlook a known criminal dealing in armor that could rival Iron Man’s. There is a possibility that Michael Chernus’ Tinkerer from Homecoming is back on the scene after going into hiding, but the question of how the tech was actually built feels like a relevant gap.
1) So… Who Exactly is the Invisible Villain?
From the trailers, it looks like we’re being fed the story that Sadie Sink’s character is the one controlling the minds of the civillians who interact with Spider-Man, as well as who removes Bruce Banner’s power dampener and lets loose the Savage Hulk. But is that really the case? The official Brand New Day synopsis mentions a villain who can’t even be seen, which doesn’t actually work for Jean Grey. Or Sadie Sink’s character at all, come to that, because she is demonstrably visible in the trailers. If you want to establish that she’s invisible, that’s sort of rule number one of storytelling. So this invisible element has come as a bit of a left-field curve.
Again, though, there are some Jean Grey-coded things to wrestle with here. Well, one at least. As an Omega-level mutant, Grey can possess minds, and the way the possessor jumps between multiple targets, and the “Psychic Blast” that freezes the New Yorkers in the secodn trailer is all very fitting with what we know of her powers. And if it’s not Jean, who on Earth could it be? The most likely outcome here is that Jean Grey is indeed Sadie Sink’s character, but she’s either being manipulated or perception of her is (likely by Metzger’s organisation – which could still have a hidden head, which technically works with the synopsis still). There have been other suggestions like Mister Negative, and The Jackal, and “Jean’s” central placement does feel a lot like misdirection, but who even knows at this stage…? Kudos to the studios for keeping it largely under wraps to this point.
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