Rumors were rife that Spider-Man: Brand New Day would finally bridge a divide that fans have been waiting decades to heal between the MCU and the former Fox X-Men, as speculation swirled around Sadie Sink playing a familiar red-headed hero.
Yet, even as the Sadie Sink reveal played out in the cinema, I stifled a small squeal as Peter’s facial recognition from his AI-sidekick EV revealed her to be none other than Jean Grey. Sure, we’d had a brief post-credit scene after The Marvels when Monica Rambeau wakes up in an alternative universe with Beast looking after her, and the mayhem of cameos in Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness (which the less said about the better), but nothing longer-lasting than a brief dopamine fix of seeing a surprise character cameo.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day collides two universes with such ease that you wonder if they always co-existed together. Director Destin Daniel Cretton has ensured that first and foremost this feels like a quintessential Spider-Man film, reminiscent more of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s maturer take on the web-headed hero than the vigorous, quippy teenage version that Tom Holland has become known for. As much as the slow-motion swings, on-the-fly jokes, and identity crisis about who he is behind the mask feel inherently Spider-Man, Brand New Day also doubles as a great X-Men film.
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No inhibitions
After an immense period of isolation following the trauma of losing Aunt May and having his identity wiped from the memory of everyone he’s ever loved, Peter’s spidey-senses become more unreliable. Blackouts, headaches, and destructive behaviour follow as his mutation develops and interrupts his friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man routine. His body’s physical reaction to the burnout that comes from never switching off causes his DNA to mutate to become more spider than human, as his arachnid hormones spike. Similar to the plot of many of the X-Men films, Peter now has to decide whether to embrace this darker, less inhibited version of his powers, or to suppress them, control them in an effort to go back to ‘normal.’ Or as normal as a man who can crawl around the ceiling in a lycra onesie can be.
As much as the slow-motion swings, on-the-fly jokes, and identity crisis about who he is behind the mask feel inherently Spider-Man, Brand New Day also doubles as a great X-Men film.
To begin with, Peter attempts to fix the problem in a Tony Stark-like way by building an inhibitor that will decrease his spider hormones and control his DNA from mutating any further. Despite warnings from Bruce Banner about the dangers of this technology – which could be used to control any enhanced individual (and may be setting up a future X-Men movie) – Peter builds his own means of genetic silencing to cure the parts of his abilities that he doesn’t like, namely its self-destructive, primal animalistic side.
The inhibitor is reminiscent of Agents of Shield, where a device was used to control Daisy, aka Quake’s, powers to prevent her from imploding the Earth. As opposed to simply copying the plot of X-Men with a serum that cures enhanced individuals, this scientific approach feels far more suited to the former aspiring MIT student.
Back in the Fox days, Magneto’s biggest concern was humans creating cures for mutants to not only muzzle their powers but get rid of them entirely, out of fear and prejudice. It comes up time and time again in the X-Men prequels, too, that the biggest threat to mutants (apart from the in-fighting about whether to trust or fear humans) is experimentation on them to create a cure or inhibitor that would stop them from simply existing as themselves.
Mutant mayhem
In the Avengers universe, Peter wouldn’t be called a mutant, just superhuman, as he wasn’t born with a genetic mutation. But, of course, just like Jean, he is a mutant. Half spider, half human, an individual who is special with powers that other people don’t understand and can fear and want to control. Part of the reason that Jean seamlessly slots into this world is that she’s almost a mirror to Peter.
Peter has to go on his own journey to realise that Jean, as powerful and dangerous as she is, is being exploited simply because she’s different. To begin with, this ignorance of the suffering that mutants can face (Mysterio incident aside, he’s always been celebrated as one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes) leads Peter to trust the suave director of Damage Control and use his universal inhibitor as a means to stop the supposed baddie, Jean.
Instead, in true X-Men style, the department experiments on Jean in the hopes of manipulating her powers to replicate them and turn regular individuals into telepathic weapons of destruction. In the MCU, we’ve briefly seen experimentation on Bucky, but this weaponising of superpowers, whatever the cost, is a trope predominantly seen in the X-Men universe.
In the end, Peter learns to embrace what makes him special, as it’s a gift, not a curse – a relatable message that comes through time and time again in the X-Men comics and films. Jean feels fully integrated into this universe, an equal and mirror to Peter’s own suffering, as they both have to learn to live after immense trauma. And come to terms with the darker, more unyielding depths of their powers that trigger after the devastating loss of people they love.
Alone together
Brand New Day pulls off a rare feat to be able to merge two existing franchises in a way that feels seamless and reminiscent of the crossovers in earlier Avengers movies. Jean also fits in with Peter, as she’s a young mutant who is trying to come to terms with who she is outside of her powers and how she navigates this profound responsibility alone. All of which Peter can instinctively relate to, in a way other heroes might not.
The gradual introduction to characters from the wider Marvel canon also helps establish the dynamics and structures of this world ahead of Avengers: Doomsday. A major part of Marvel’s shortcomings in the Multiverse Saga has been how disconnected the universe has become. So, it was a welcome change to see echoes of The Infinity Saga’s approach to universe-building in Brand New Day. Naturally, Yelena would be concerned with ‘big potato stuff’ as part of the New Avengers, but is on hand to offer advice to the ‘sad’ Spider-Man when he stumbles across a potato that’s slightly bigger than the ‘small, baby’ problems he’s meant to be solving.
The film also naturally sets up the next film in the MCU slate, Avengers: Doomsday, as it starts to bring different heroes together – Yelena, Peter, Jean and Frank, aka The Punisher – as well as introducing a new technology that most likely will appear again in the future. If we learnt anything from Ultron, it’s that even the smartest heroes, when desperate, will utilise questionable inventions to try and protect the Earth from alien invaders, such as the incoming storm with Doctor Doom.
Ultimately, Brand New Day should be used as the blueprint for future MCU crossovers as it merges multiple existing worlds, familiar storylines and characters to show how they co-exist together in one universe. In fact, they may be the only people who can truly understand the isolation, burden, and trauma that comes with being an enhanced individual in a society that fears anyone who is different.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is out now. For more, check out the breakdown of the Spider-Man: Brand New Day ending and our ranking of the best Spider-Man movies.
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