Spider-Man: Brand New Day Ending Explained: Every Comic Easter Egg and the Post-Credit Twist

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the fourth film in Tom Holland's run and, by my count, the 38th overall MCU entry. It hands the reins from Jon Watts, who oversaw the Home trilogy set in Peter's high school years, to Destin Daniel Cretton, and it kicks off a brand new trilogy that follows Peter making his own way in the world after asking to be erased from everyone's memory at the end of the previous film.

Peter's Isolation Nine Months After the Previous Film

The film opens nine months later in New York City, and Peter is unable to remain simply a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. He has written a letter to MJ hoping deep down she remembers she loves him, but he decides not to contact her because of the dangers his life has put her in. That gives him time to just be Spider-Man for the first time ever, but the loneliness is starting to take hold, and though he is beloved by the city, no one can really know who he is.

To cope with the isolation, Peter has developed an AI called EVE, which Cretton said "was the closest thing he's had to a friend for several years." He still holds onto mementos of his past too, whether that is MJ's old coffee cup or the fact he is always checking their social media. He is clearly miserable, though at least he gets some solace knowing Ned and MJ are happy.

A More Practical Suit and a Homemade Fabricator

I really like this setting for the chapter because it takes things away from feeling like a junior knockoff of Iron Man. There is no Stark tech, no money, no gadgets, and though the homemade fabricator is a bit far-fetched, it makes more sense to me than the Tobey Maguire version where he built a million-dollar-level costume in his bedroom. Holland's suit here is taking a lot of inspiration from both Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's costumes, and it is my favorite suit of Holland's entire run.

It has a lot more of a tangible feel than the ones that came before. Marvel were notorious for doing fully CGI suits, and this one is far more practical and realistic, kind of like what Amazing Spider-Man 2 achieved by making the comic book look feel tangibly real.

Comic Cover Callbacks Fill the Four-Year Time Jump

The film begins with Peter watching MJ and Ned start their first day at MIT, then jumps forward four years to where most of the story takes place. That jump gives us incredible callbacks to several classic covers, starting with Amazing Fantasy 15, the wall crawler's debut created by Stan Lee and drawn by Steve Ditko. We also get Amazing Spider-Man 134, showing Spider-Man clinging to a ship while battling Tarantula, and Amazing Spider-Man 345, with Spidey swinging at the camera while dodging boomerangs.

The Tombstone cover is brought to life as well, along with nods to Amazing Spider-Man 318 and the Evolve or Die covers, which is where the cocoon, webbing, and the web hammock that appears later come from. New Avengers 27 is clearly recreated with the arrival of the Hand, Scorpion gets a nod from Amazing Spider-Man 318, and the Punisher's Amazing Spider-Man 129 cover, where he aims a rifle at Spider-Man, is echoed when the two characters interact, even if it is not fully recreated shot for shot.

Ned's Spider-Man Suspect Board and the Spidey Tracker App

MJ and Ned return from MIT, and one day Peter spots Ned buying beer at a convenience store and follows him to a party at his apartment, where he meets MJ again. He learns Ned has been searching for Spider-Man just to thank him, and has built a suspect board that includes suspicions that Flash Thompson or their teacher Mr. Harrington might be Spider-Man, since they were at the rescue scene too.

Ned has also built a Spidey Tracker app, which works as both a plot device and a bittersweet reminder of their former friendship, and it becomes a major thread that plays into the ending and the post-credit scene. After the previous film I did want a bit of a break before they all met back up, and with five real years having passed since that film released on top of the story's own time jump, I think enough time has now passed for them to reconnect in the next one.

MJ's New Love Interest Plays Off Paul From the Comics

Unfortunately for Peter, MJ has a new romantic partner who is playing off the character Paul from the comics, who was widely disliked around the time he appeared. He is played by the actor recognizable from playing Ezra Bridger, and despite rumors that he would turn out to be Boomerang, that does not materialize in this film. Peter seeing them kissing spikes his anxiety, and he returns home and crashes, waking to find he has mutated and sprayed white webbing all over his apartment as he starts becoming more like a spider.

I have been telling some of this out of order, but the movie is really about suppressing mutations, government overreach, and how Peter unintentionally almost gets someone killed as a result of his own escalating powers.

Sadie Sink's Jean Grey Is the Darkest Live-Action Introduction Yet

The biggest mystery going into the movie was who Sadie Sink was playing, and the answer is simply the first guess anyone would have: she is playing Jean Grey. This feels like probably the darkest introduction the character has ever had on film, and I think "it definitely feels like it's laying the groundwork for her Dark Phoenix arc," putting her on the back foot from the very start rather than easing into it the way past versions have.

Like Peter, Jean is a symbol of isolation who has not yet connected with the X-Men, so she has no one guiding her onto the right path. She is persecuted by Damage Control, who clearly cannot control her abilities to possess people, jump between bodies, and freeze people in place, a power set that is akin to what we saw at the start of X2 and that has precedent in the comics and cartoons, including a moment in the Wolverine and X-Men animated series where she set off a blast that knocked out countless people around her.

Bill Metzger and Damage Control Come From X-Men: Children of the Atom

Jean spends the film constantly attacking Damage Control sites, riding an explosives-laden truck into one facility, freeing Scorpion, and attacking further sites as things ramp up. Peter is immune to her psychic jumping unless Damage Control brings him in to help, which is how he comes face to face with Bill Metzger, played by Tramell Tillman.

Metzger first appeared in the X-Men mini-series Children of the Atom, where he led an anti-mutant militia, ran cross-country lecture tours, made media appearances, and published a propaganda newspaper called the Militia Press that demonized mutants. In the comics he was killed by Magneto in Children of the Atom issue six, and he represented the organized anti-mutant sentiment within the government.

Detective Jean DeWolff and the Mystery of Sarah

The film also introduces Detective Jean DeWolff, a character taken directly from the comics. Peter learns throughout the movie that Jean Grey had a sister named Sarah who was also psychic, and though we do not see much of their interactions, it is clear Sarah was the stronger of the two. Sarah comes from the comics too, though different versions of her story exist over the years, including an older one where she and Jean were kidnapped by a villain who wanted to breed with mutants to build a colony he could rule.

In some comic versions, Sarah's death is what sets off Jean's mutation, and the trauma of that is mirrored in the film. Here, Sarah is caught by Bill and experimented on so her brain waves could be mapped and her ability recreated. We learn Sarah sent out a psychic message reading V-Max before she died, and both Jean and Peter go looking for what it means, with Peter getting help from Yelena Belova during the investigation.

Brand New Day the Comic: Civil War, One More Day, and the Deal With Mephisto

Brand New Day the comic acted as a soft reboot for the character rather than a self-contained story, spanning several years and building out of the fallout from Civil War, where Peter was pushed forward as one of the faces of the Superhuman Registration Act before switching sides after seeing how things had spiraled out of control. Without Stark's protection and with his identity exposed, his loved ones became targets, and May was shot, though she survived, which made Peter reassess what his life was costing the people around him.

That led into Spider-Man: One More Day, where Peter saved May by making a deal with Mephisto, trading away his and MJ's love, which the villain described as something for the ages. Peter added a caveat that everyone forget he was Spider-Man, which is where the title Brand New Day comes from, and it was wildly controversial at the time. The MCU is not beat for beat with this: in the comics Peter was not erased from people's minds entirely, just from knowledge that he was Spider-Man. The comic run went on to introduce new characters and villains, bring back Harry Osborn, and put Peter back to work as a Daily Bugle photographer, giving fans a back-to-basics Peter Parker, and I do wonder if the film series will adapt bigger aspects of that run later given how much it is already leaning into horror elements.

Bruce Banner's Inhibitor Subplot and the Thanos Question

Peter's ongoing mutation builds off comic and cartoon arcs like The Other, the Six-Arm Saga, and the Man-Spider storylines, and it led to fan theories before release that he might become Man-Spider or be possessed by Venom, both of which I made videos on. The mutation brings organic webbing and power-ups, and thematically it plays off the idea that he is drifting from the Peter persona toward Spider-Man, becoming more of a spider himself.

That same slide toward the dark side through mutation is reflected in Bruce Banner, who starts off as an unlikely scientific ally working as a professor at Empire University while still using an inhibitor device to keep the Hulk in check. Peter goes to him for advice on building a universal inhibitor of his own. In one scene a student asks why Thanos did not just use the Infinity Stones to make more of them, a question that has actually been put to Josh Brolin in interviews, and the film's answer is essentially Hulk smash, though Banner does give Peter real advice on the science behind the device, which he finally gets working with a little help from MJ.

Peter, MJ, and the Punisher: Jean's Cruelest Manipulation

Peter grows closer to MJ after Jean threatens to harm her unless Peter stays out of her way, and he takes her to see the Punisher, which builds off Matt Murdock's appearance in the previous film and Frank Castle's appearances in Daredevil: Born Again and One Last Kill, with minor plot threads like the Kingpin's map and the key to the city carrying over. On the way, Jean takes over MJ's mind in a genuinely cold sequence, questioning things, figuring out how close they were, kissing Peter while pretending to remember him, and then throwing MJ off a building, echoing the death of Gwen Stacy.

Ryan Airy pointed out that the Punisher and the Hulk thematically represent the two opposite sides Peter is battling internally: Frank is someone who has lost his humanity and become a vigilante full time, while Banner is repressing something inside him so he can keep living as Bruce, mirroring whether Peter can hold onto his own humanity as the arachnid DNA takes over.

The Hulk Battle at the Damage Control Skyscraper

Jean takes Bruce to the Damage Control skyscraper to break into its vault, with Frank pushed by MJ to go help, and Peter's group first squares off against Professor Hulk, with Castle uselessly firing his gun the whole time while explosives actually do the damage. Jean gets the idea to take over Frank and strap him to the vault to blow the door open, and while that happens, Banner loses his grip on the Hulk while being psychically scrambled, bringing out the Savage Hulk.

The pair have a massive battle in the skyscraper that riffs off the helicarrier scene from Avengers, and Peter busts out the Shocker gauntlets from Homecoming, which are stored at the location. Damage Control operates on the idea of turning something bad into something good, which is what they wanted to do with Sarah and Jean and have already done with villains like the Hand. Peter helps capture Jean as she finally reaches Bill, and before passing out she utters the name Sarah, though Bill lies to Peter afterward and claims it was just an ex-colleague.

My Own Hulk Hopes: Smart Hulk, Endgame, and World War Hulk

I am glad they brought back the Savage Hulk, because I felt the character had been muted over the last couple of years. I loved Smart Hulk in Endgame and remember chuckling when I first saw him in the cinema wearing glasses, a t-shirt, and a cardigan, taking selfies like a normal guy. In retrospect I kind of wish they had done that transformation in Infinity War, which was reportedly the original plan before a deleted scene where he merged with the Hulkbuster and burst forth as Smart Hulk was cut, and that meant little character development was left for him afterward.

Hulk is actually my favorite Marvel character, even though I do not talk about him much because he does not get much of his own material. I would love to do an episode by episode breakdown of the 1970s Incredible Hulk series the way I have been doing with The X-Files, though I do not know if I have time. I am really hoping this lays the groundwork for World War Hulk to eventually make it to the screen.

MJ's Rooftop Rejection and Ned's Muscle-Memory Handshake

Back with MJ, Peter learns she has found the letters he wrote at the start of the film and wants to talk face to face. It is just as much of a gut punch as the rooftop scene when she tells him she does not love him because she has no memory of him at all, and it makes sense: to her, Peter is a stranger hiding behind a mask. The film really asks whether Peter can be Peter again or whether the mask has become his true face.

After an awkward swing home, MJ invites Peter in to meet Ned, and his main internal conflict becomes whether to tell Ned about their shared past or stay isolated with the mask as the only part of him people remember. MJ mentions they look like they were best friends and even shows sketches of the two of them, and it comes out that her possession by Jean felt like blacking out. Peter later runs into Ned again while buying flowers for May's grave, and when they shake hands, they end up doing their old signature handshake without thinking, a moment buried in Ned's subconscious, though it does not bring the memories flooding back, only shows the friendship is still there deep down.

Sarah's V-Max Message and Jean's Citywide Psychic Freeze

Realizing Bill lied, Peter races to the Roosevelt Island headquarters, and it turns out V-Max was actually written on a vent, the last thing Sarah saw before she died, which she sent out as a psychic blast to her sister. The emotional weight of that realization evolves Jean's abilities further, tying into the film's recurring idea that stress causes evolution, something we see in Peter, Bruce, and now Jean. She sends a psychic wave across the city that freezes everyone in place, and Peter heads out to stop her, fighting through Damage Control and the Hand along the way, discovering weapons they built specifically to defeat him and realizing the organization has always had ulterior motives.

Peter Accepts Being Both Peter and Spider-Man in the Final Battle

Beaten by the Hand and Damage Control at first, Peter levels up by accepting that he is both Peter and Spider-Man, taking his web abilities to a new level in a sequence that looks like it is ripped straight out of the games. He finds Jean holding MJ at a glass point while Frank sets up a sniper rifle nearby, and Peter finally lets Jean into his mind, triggering a scene the film has been teasing throughout.

In it we see Peter remembering May, likely from sometime after Homecoming, telling him he is special and should not be alone. Jean receives that memory and, for the first time, feels what someone is feeling rather than just reading their thoughts, a big turning point since she has puppeted and read minds all film without ever truly standing in someone's shoes. Peter tells Jean they will have each other if they need someone, since both have lost people they loved. He then senses Frank firing and takes the bullet meant for Jean, who psychically keeps him alive and controls his breathing while a devastated Frank rushes him to the hospital, in a moment that is again pulled right from the comics. Peter leaves the hospital surrounded by adoring fans, finally seeing firsthand how much the city loves the hero he has become.

The Ending: MJ's Necklace and a Possible Mutant School

The film closes with Jean heading off on a bus, potentially upstate, and I am guessing her actions in New York may have caught the eye of others, since mutants clearly exist in this world even if they have not been formally classified yet. I think someone might be assembling a school for gifted youngsters, and since Sadie Sink is signed on for multiple films, I suspect she will be found by Professor X and could end up being our eyes into mutants in the MCU, the way Wolverine served that role in the first X-Men film.

Ryan also raised the idea that Damage Control could evolve into a government sector that solely hunts mutants, suggesting the Iron Fleet from Age of Ultron could become the basis for the Sentinels, and I think that is plausible given how Wonder Man showed Damage Control arresting people merely suspected of having powers. We also see MJ sitting on the rooftop from the previous film clutching the black Dahlia necklace, a location and object she should have no connection to, which gives me hope things could eventually be rekindled between her and Peter, even though her comments about him feeling like a totally different person suggest, similar to what happened with Gamora in Guardians 3, that things may never fully reconcile. It reminds me a bit of Edge of Tomorrow, where Cage falls for a version of a woman who, due to memory resets, never experienced what he did. Identity has also been the closing focus of every Home-era film: Homecoming ended with May learning the truth, Far From Home with Mysterio exposing him, the previous film with everyone forgetting him, and this closes that pattern in a way that feels like poetry.

The Post-Credit Scene: Ned's Tracker Finds Peter Somewhere in Space

In the post-credit scene, Ned's Spider Tracker tries to locate Spider-Man, starting in Queens before zooming out to reveal he is not on the planet at all. The tracker scans space, glitches a few times, and finally locks onto him somewhere among the stars, and those glitches look a lot like the multiverse jump effects seen in Into the Spider-Verse and when Venom entered the MCU, suggesting Peter is out in the multiverse or in space, likely because of the upcoming Doomsday.

My biggest long-shot theory is that the tracker is picking up Miles Morales, since Donald Glover's Aaron Davis lines in Homecoming still leave the door open for him in the main universe, though I think any live-action version would more likely come from Earth-616. My other theory is that Peter has ended up on Battleworld clashing with heroes and villains of the wider Marvel universe, or possibly on the life raft that some 616 heroes were on when the multiverse was destroyed, which could even be how he ends up with the black suit, since Venom is on Earth but may have traveled to space with him, similar to how Peter got the black suit for the first time in the Secret Wars comics after his original suit was destroyed.

My Theories on the Doomsday Leaks

This next theory touches on plot leaks, so consider this a spoiler warning if you have avoided them. According to those leaks, Doomsday is supposed to open with a major incursion between the Fox X-Men universe and Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man world, with Maguire and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine partly fighting each other to save their own reality. If that is accurate, the Spider Tracker may be locking onto Maguire's Spider-Man on another Earth, which would explain the glitches and also tie thematically back to this film's own story of a Spider-Man fighting a mutant, given the X-Men connection to Jean Grey.

My Verdict: The Best MCU Spider-Man Film Yet

Every movie carries some recency bias, but I think this is probably the best MCU Spider-Man film they have done, even if it is not quite at the level of Spider-Man 2 or the Spider-Verse films. It plays like a great comic book run, pulling in lots of villains for small moments, balancing humor and drama well, and stepping up across the board. After Daredevil and this, alongside Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four, it feels like the MCU is finally getting back to the level people expect from it.

Tom Holland delivers what I think is his best performance yet, and the swinging scenes are the best I have seen in any Spider-Man movie. Cretton has taken the reins of the character, done his own thing, and still evolved him from where things left off, with enough comic nods throughout that it is hard not to admire what he has built. I left the film on a high, relieved they toned down the spectacle after the previous film in favor of a more street-level story about what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man. Overall, I think it is a story about how with even greater powers comes greater responsibility: as Peter's abilities evolve, he takes on more responsibility, becomes a hero to people who do not even know his name, and in losing his identity becomes more of a figure than a person, literally turning into more of a spider in the process. It is a story about isolation, sacrifice, and what that costs him.

Do you think Peter and MJ's memories can ever be fully repaired, or has that door closed for good?