That has to sting. It’s been eight years since Michael Mando‘s Mac Gargan was set up to become Spider-Man villain the Scorpion in 2017’s Homecoming, which saw the friendly neighborhood wallcrawler (Tom Holland) ground Adrian Toomes/Vulture (Michael Keaton) and two Shockers (Logan Marshall-Green and Bokeem Woodbine), all while dealing with low-level crooks like the Tinkerer (Michael Chernus) and Aaron Davis/the Prowler (Donald Glover). With a total of six supervillains set up in Homecoming, one is finally getting their “tail” told in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
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Mando has already confirmed that he’ll be suiting up as the Scorpion in the new movie, previously taking to Instagram to post a selfie of Gargan’s scorpion neck tattoo. Now the Better Call Saul star has shared a sneak peek of himself in the makeup chair as Gargan’s mangled look — the result of his run-in with the Staten Island Ferry — is created through prosthetics makeup effects:
Mando also offered this stinger of a teaser: artist Kevin Maguire’s variant cover for 2008’s Amazing Spider-Man #573, below, which shows Gargan’s Scorpion being overtaken by the Venom symbiote.
Part of the six-part “New Ways to Die” storyline from the Brand New Day-era comics, the arc saw Norman Osborn — the Green Goblin and the head of a Thunderbolts team that included Gargan’s Venom, Songbird, Radioactive Man, and Bullseye — transform Gargan into the brand new Scorpion. Gargan’s Venomized Scorpion fought the symbiote’s former hosts, Spider-Man and Eddie Brock, who had become Anti-Venom after feeling the touch of Martin Li (aka the dark-sided villain Mr. Negative).
This isn’t the first time Mando has suggested Gargan might don the Venom symbiote as his comic counterpart did back in 2005’s Marvel Knights: Spider-Man #10. The actor has previously shared comic book art of Gargan in both his identities as Scorpion and Venom, hinting he could be the new symbiote host in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Remember, the mid-credits scene of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home revealed that Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) left behind a trace of the alien symbiote in the MCU when the spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) transported him back to his own reality. Now that the Hardy-fronted Venom trilogy has concluded with 2024’s The Last Dance, maybe it’s a brand new day for the symbiote as well?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day — starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/the Punisher, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner, the Hulk, Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Michael Mando as Mac Gargan/Scorpion, with Sadie Sink and Liza Colón-Zayas in undisclosed roles — is slated to open in theaters July 31, 2026.
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