Spider-Man: Brand New Day's Blacked-Out Eyes Scene May Set Up Avengers: Doomsday

The Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer was awesome. I loved it, it looked visually stunning, and I am genuinely excited about Jon Bernthal's Punisher being back in it. But the detail I want to dig into here is MJ showing up in the reflection of Peter's blacked-out eyes in one shot from the trailer, and why I think that single frame could be the final scene of the movie, one that leads directly into Avengers: Doomsday.

MJ really is in the reflection of Peter's blacked-out eyes

Yes, that is one hundred percent MJ in the reflection. I know some people online are saying they can't see it, but trust me, it's her. Here's the nose, the cheek, the eyes, it's MJ.

From the moment I saw the trailer, I got the impression there was some trickery happening in the editing room. I did a whole video elsewhere going through how the scene where Spider-Man is in the cell block fighting the Hand, and then there's a quick cut to a close-up of his blacked-out eyes, is definitely hiding something, maybe a Daredevil, maybe a Hulk. That close-up is one hundred percent from another scene.

It wasn't the MJ reflection that gave it away for me, since I didn't notice that until someone pointed it out online. I think it's just years of editing my own videos and trailers, and analyzing Marvel trailers specifically, that made me immediately recognize it wasn't the same scene. As I put it, whoever cut that trailer, "you're not sneaky." But once people online started pointing to MJ in the reflection, I connected that to my own theory that this shot is actually from the final scene of the film.

Two rumored endings, a report I'd already seen

The question that inspired this came from a viewer who asked whether I'd seen the rumor that Sony shot two endings for Brand New Day and is still deciding which one to use, and which one I think they'll pick. I had already seen that report, and here are the two potential endings as described to me.

Potential ending number one has Peter and MJ reunited, and whether she remembers him or figures it out on her own is still unclear, but they're back together in a relationship. Then an incursion hits, reality starts breaking apart, and their moment gets interrupted because Peter has to jump into action.

Potential ending number two has Peter finally working up the courage to tell MJ the truth about who he is and what they meant to each other. He's about to confess everything, and then the incursion happens before he can finish telling her, and before they can officially get back together.

Why I like MJ figuring it out herself, like she did in Far From Home

With the first ending, I love the idea that MJ figures it out herself, just like she did in Far From Home. In that film, Peter was actually about to tell MJ he had feelings for her, but she thought he was about to tell her he's Spider-Man, blurting out lines like "MJ, I'm Spider-Man," and "What? That's what you're going to say, that you're Spider-Man?"

This time around, I think Peter could actually be telling her he's Spider-Man, only now it's Spider-Man telling MJ that he's Peter Parker. We could get another flipperoo, where instead of MJ interrupting to say she knows he's Spider-Man, she interrupts because she thinks he's about to say he has feelings for her, and blurts out something like, "Yes, Spider-Man, I like you too."

We know Peter and MJ meet again in Brand New Day, and she probably starts to crush on him because those feelings are still there deep down in her subconscious from when they already fell in love. I also think we're going to learn MJ is obsessed with Spider-Man, because even though she's forgotten Peter Parker, she still remembers her encounters with Spider-Man and is probably confused by finding herself in love with him.

How the incursion could tie into breaking Strange's spell

My idea is that the incursion happens the second Peter tells MJ about how they used to know each other. If Peter says something that breaks through Strange's spell and MJ starts to remember everything, the sky could begin cracking open from an incursion, and Peter might think, "I messed up, I shouldn't have said anything." That's because the whole reason no one remembers who he is is that the sky was cracking open, with an incursion about to happen.

Then, in Doomsday, where I'm not sure he has a big role if any, or maybe in Secret Wars, we could get a scene of Peter saying something like, "It's because I told MJ who I was, I broke the spell and now the multiverse is cracking," followed by a line from another character along the lines of, "We're aware of your abuse of your timeline, you were so abusive of it," even though I acknowledge that has nothing directly to do with this.

The Raimi films comparison and which ending I actually want

Both ending options sound feasible to me. I like the idea of MJ cracking the secret herself, but I also like the idea of her simply falling for Peter Parker again, having this massive crush or feeling of being in love with Spider-Man without knowing why, because she doesn't know who he is.

That's kind of like MJ in the Raimi films, where her love for Spider-Man likely stemmed from deep down knowing that was Peter Parker, captured in the line, "I always knew. All this time. Who you really were." She wasn't sure, and there was even a point where she thought her fiance, astronaut Jameson, might be Spider-Man, which tells me she was wondering why she felt this way about someone she'd only met a handful of times.

I think we could see something similar with MJ in Brand New Day, maybe thinking her new boyfriend might be Spider-Man and even asking him outright, with him responding, "What?"

If Peter gets interrupted, MJ still needs to learn he's Spider-Man

If they go with ending two, where they get interrupted, I think it would at least need to have MJ learn that her new friend Peter Parker is Spider-Man, and that alone could serve as the thing that breaks the spell. If MJ knows Peter Parker and knows Spider-Man, learning they're the same person might be enough to break through.

That could also connect the dots for why she wears the necklace. MJ likely thinks the Spider-Man who saved her abroad is the one who gave her that necklace, she doesn't remember the Peter part, but she does remember the Spider-Man part. As Peter stands there with his mask off in the suit, just like in Far From Home's ending, she may actually be able to break through the spell. As I said, "Yes, that's it, that's what I want to happen. I like that. That's the ending. I have spoken."

Sony may be picking the ending, but I think Marvel has the bigger say

I've read reports stating Sony is trying to decide which ending to go with, but I don't think that tells the whole story. Marvel will decide which ending to go with. Sony has a say, but I think Marvel probably has a bigger say, since they're the ones doing Doomsday and Secret Wars.

I think Sony would be smart to defer to whatever works for the overall narrative, and I hope that's what they'd do.

The blacked-out eyes may be a new mutation, not the Man-Spider

As for the black eyes in this moment, it's theorized this is Peter morphing into the Man-Spider, who has blacked-out eyes. But I think this may actually be part of Peter's new mutation, alongside his organic webs, with a new addition to his powers being that his eyes go black when his spider-sense goes off.

My read on the scene is that Peter is standing on the rooftop with MJ, mask off, having their moment, and then he senses the incursion about to happen. His eyes go black, we see MJ in the reflection asking, "What's wrong?" and then the incursion begins, with the sky starting to crack.

Brand New Day may run alongside Doomsday, like Ant-Man and the Wasp did with Infinity War

We could learn that Brand New Day takes place alongside the events of Doomsday, kind of like Ant-Man and the Wasp did with Infinity War. If the multiverse collapses and Universe 616 falls victim to an incursion and dies at the end of Doomsday, and we're seeing that same incursion start to happen at the end of Brand New Day, that could work like the snap at the end of Infinity War, which we also saw play out at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp because those films were happening at the same time.

That could be what's setting up not just Doomsday and Brand New Day, but Secret Wars too, and it could explain why Tom Holland's Spider-Man isn't in Doomsday, since Doomsday will probably take place mostly outside Universe 616 anyway, and even when it is in 616, it won't all be set in New York.

Those are just my thoughts. Which ending would you rather see, MJ figuring out who Peter really is on her own, or Peter finally getting to tell her the truth himself?