Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is going through changes in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Set four years after the events of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) cast a multiverse-saving spell to make everyone forget Peter Parker, including girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), the new movie finds Peter living alone and shouldering his responsibilities as a full-time friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Per the official synopsis, Peter has “devoted himself entirely to protecting his city,” facing costumed foes Tarantula and Boomerang before tangling with major threats like Scorpion (Michael Mando), Tombstone (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III), and the red ninjas of the Hand. Add the presence of Jon Bernthal’s Punisher and a rampaging Avenger in Mark Ruffalo‘s Hulk, and the resulting pressure on Spider-Man “sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence.”
“What is happening to me?” a sweaty and disoriented Peter Parker asks in the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer. He collapses, only to wake up hanging upside down within a web cocoon before instinctively shooting organic webbing from his wrists like Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. Bruce Banner, now a mild-mannered college professor, has found a way to suppress mutating DNA in the form of the Hulk-inhibiting device he wears to keep his gamma green alter ego in check, so Peter turns to the good doctor for help.
Why Does Spider-Man Mutate in ‘Brand New Day’?
“If DNA is mutating, it would be enormously dangerous,” Banner warns over footage showing Spider-Man’s mutagenic DNA doing just that: his heightened spider-sense is head-splittingly sensitive, his eyes turn black, and the sticky wall-crawler’s arachnid abilities are even more spider-like. Spider-Man is mutating. But what — or who — triggers this change? A mysterious Keith David voice-over about the life and death of spiders suggests that the irradiated spider-bitten superhero is between stages of the spider’s three life cycles, explaining, “When between cycles, it can leave the spider vulnerable to threats. And for those spiders who make it through, it amounts to a kind of… rebirth.”
Or it could have something to do with the apparently telepathic threat being tracked by the Department of Damage Control. “We are faced with a danger that we can’t control, one we can’t even see,” remarks DODC Director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) about this unidentified foe with the power to possess people’s minds. (The leading theory is that the mystery character is Sadie Sink‘s Jean Grey, a mutant with telepathic and telekinetic abilities that allow her to control minds and psychically freeze people in place.) But signs point to a Spider-Man villain with mind control powers who was responsible for Peter Parker’s mutation in the comics.
7 Questions ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Needs to Answer
Brand new phase, tons of burning questions.
’Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Mystery Villain Might Be a Mutant, but Not Jean Grey
2004’s Spectacular Spider-Man #15, by writer Paul Jenkins and artist Michael Ryan, introduced the mutant Spider-Man villain Adriana “Ana” Soria, a.k.a. the Queen. Spider-Man first encountered this insect-themed enemy while investigating the source of a mind-splitting humming, which made his spider-sense go ballistic and left him with a nosebleed so bad it nearly caused him to black out. (The humming noise also turned half of New York City’s population into an angry mob, and the Knicks weren’t even in the playoffs.) Spider-Man teamed up with Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, after the Queen turned police officers, construction workers, and other civilians into an army of mindless drones to do her bidding and took an entire skyscraper hostage.
But the biggest shocker came when she forced a kiss on Spider-Man, rendered helpless by the Queen’s power, and revealed her plan to make him part of her hive by mating with the unwilling wall-crawler. It turned out that those susceptible to the Queen’s telepathic control carried an “insect gene,” and that the mutant Ana had developed into a new subphylum with both insect and human properties, Homo Insectus, giving her power over all insects and one-third of the population that still carried the gene in their DNA. With her kiss, genetic material in the Queen’s saliva awakened Peter Parker’s long-dormant insect gene, triggering Spider-Man’s mutation into a spider.
Who Is Man-Spider in the Spider-Man Comics?
Spider-Man’s mutant transformation into an actual spider wouldn’t occur until a four-part arc (appropriately titled “Changes”) in 2004’s Spectacular Spider-Man #17-20, penned by Jenkins with art by Humberto Ramos (Superior Spider-Man). Sharing a telepathic connection with the Queen and still suffering from nerve-scraping headaches, Peter practically crawled out of his skin as his body underwent a bizarre transformation: His eyes turned black and segmented, making him sensitive to light. He developed urticating bristle hairs all over his body. His senses heightened, Spider-Man felt an instinctual call to the Queen’s hive as Peter Parker changed into a spider.
As Spider-Man mutated into a Man-Spider, the Queen decreed Peter’s terrifying transformation necessary for his “evolution.” During his transition from Spider-Man to Man-Spider — a human-spider hybrid, more spider than man — the Queen planned to unleash a bomb that would kill all human life within 600 miles but leave everything else intact, leaving her to rule over her hive of insect-human hybrids. Spider-Man’s monstrous form retained his intelligence and he was able to resist the primal urge to mate with the Queen. But in one issue-ending reveal, Spider-Man shed his human form and morphed into a giant spider.
Unable to withstand the mutation, Spider-Man died in the form of a man-sized arachnid, which — in another twist — was pregnant. Peter Parker emerged from the spider molt with some changes: besides enhanced senses, a case of Marvel Comics synergizing with Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man movies gave Peter the new power to shoot organic webbing, rendering his wrist-mounted web-shooters obsolete.
If Spider-Man Dies in ‘Brand New Day,’ It Could Mean Major Changes for Peter Parker in the MCU
“Changes” wouldn’t be the only time Spider-Man met an untimely end due to the nature of his spider-powers. After longtime Amazing Spider-Man writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist John Romita Jr. explored the more mystical side of Spider-Man’s mythology with the introduction of the vampiric Morlun — a parasitic, Spider-devouring villain and totemistic force who feeds on the energies of Spider-people across the multiverse — Marvel made another major shake-up to Spider-Man’s status quo in “The Other — Evolve or Die.” The 12-part storyline, which weaved through issues of concurrent Spider-series Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, and The Amazing Spider-Man between 2005 and 2006, pit science against the supernatural as a deteriorating Spider-Man learned his failing powers were a sign he was dying.
Diagnosed with a terminal condition, Spider-Man sought the help of the best minds in medicine, magic, and technology across the Marvel universe: Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, Wakandan King T’Challa, radiation-based mutation expert Bruce Banner, and even the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange, whose prognosis was grim. After accepting his fate to spend what time he had left with his loved ones — his wife Mary Jane, and his Aunt May — Peter was hunted down and nearly beaten to death by Morlun in a knockdown, drag-out, eye-ripping fight that left the hero hospitalized. (Spider-Man eventually succumbs to his wounds, but not before his animalistic Spider side takes over and feeds on Morlun’s life force.) The Man was gone. Only the Spider remained.
Peter Parker died and shed his skin, leaving behind an empty husk (as some spiders do upon death). While enveloped in a web cocoon beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, Peter had a sort of spiritual encounter with The Other, a demi-cosmic entity manifested in the form of a giant spider. There he was faced with a major question: Was he more Man than Spider… or more Spider than Man? Was he the one… or the Other? Offered the option to evolve or die, Peter embraced the Spider within, and Spider-Man’s rebirth brought with it enhanced abilities and new great powers, among them short-lived upgrades like night vision, extra adhesive skin, and insect-like stingers (despite the fact that spiders don’t have stingers).
The Spider-deity explained Spider-Man’s metamorphosis as such: “Once in its life, a spider may shed its skin, shed its past, and begin anew. Every wound, healed. Every injury, repaired. Every muscle, renewed. A lifetime of pain, cleansed.” In other words, a brand-new body and a clean slate — a fresh start for a Brand New Day.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters July 31.
- Release Date
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July 31, 2026
- Director
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Destin Daniel Cretton
- Writers
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Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee