Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks Peter Parker up four years after No Way Home, and the time jump shows. By most tracking of the MCU timeline, it's somewhere between eight and twelve years since he first pulled on the suit back in Civil War, and the change shows: the wide-eyed kid from those early appearances is gone, replaced by a genuinely lonely man who's let his work swallow everything else in his life. This week we discuss Brand New Day. It works as fan-service in parts, yet Jean Grey's arc remains unconvincing. Aunt May's climactic speech to Peter and Jean is the film's most theologically loaded five minutes. From there we follow the thread through three ideas that keep showing up together across the film: an identity that's declared over you rather than earned, a loneliness that only breaks once you let other people in, and a change you eventually have to stop fighting and let happen.
Initial Impressions
Eve loved Brand New Day — it delivers everything she wants from a Spider-Man story. Tom Holland plays an older Peter this time: four years have passed since No Way Home, and the kid who first played the role in Civil War is gone. He doesn't look like a kid playing a man anymore. He looks older, and it comes through in more than the dialogue — including, Eve noticed, in Zendaya's performance. In the scene where Jean Grey possesses MJ and kisses Peter, Eve picked up on a subtler shift — a softer face, less of MJ's usual sarcasm — and had already worked out it was Jean Grey before the kiss confirmed it. I'd seen the film twice, and for me the kiss is what sealed it.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is also loaded with Easter eggs. I sent Eve an over hour-long YouTube video cataloging them, and she was struck by the depth of it: freeze-frame homages to classic Spider-Man comic covers, references pulled from across the MCU, even on-screen text visible for a split second that reviewers zoomed in and read frame by frame, likely from an early press packet.
Michael Giacchino's score for Brand New Day plays the same themes he's used throughout the Spider-Man MCU movies, but worn down — slower, simpler, missing notes — which we both agreed was an intentional degradation, matching the wear and tear Spider-Man himself has been through.
One thing Eve wanted on the record without turning it into a full episode theme: a lot of reviewers have raised the question of whether Jean Grey is a stone-cold killer. She casually throws people off buildings and in front of cars, and looses villains onto the streets to create mayhem that endangers everyone in range — not just the people she has a personal vendetta against. And yet by the end, Brand New Day wants us to see her as a lost little girl who just needs somebody to believe in her, with no real accountability for however many lives she may have taken along the way. I agreed, and I'm hoping this becomes real character development for Jean Grey in a later movie — that she still has to come to terms with it. (There's a reason for that hope: Jean Grey has already been confirmed as the first classic X-Man recast for the upcoming X-Men film, though — fittingly — nobody announced it was her until this movie revealed her identity.) Eve mentioned she'd seen an interview noting a cut scene where the older man Jean Grey walks in front of a taxi actually gets up and stumbles away, so the film doesn't strictly confirm she killed him — but as I pointed out, there's no way the wreckage from the tank chase alone is fatality-free. Eve's bottom line: this doesn't feel like who Jean Grey really is as a character — even at her most unstable as the Phoenix in the X-Men source material, this level of casual disregard for bystanders isn't her — which is part of why she's hoping it gets addressed rather than left as a loose end.
Eve also made the case for including Frank Castle: he and Peter are wrestling with the same instinct to go it alone, and in that sense Castle works as a father figure for Peter — “the kind of father that most people wouldn't look up to,” as she put it. I'd call it more of a big-brother relationship, and I'd point to the running “Staten Island” gag — Spider-Man having saved Castle there at some point off-screen — as Brand New Day‘s version of Hawkeye and Black Widow's old Budapest references. I also think the more pointed reason Castle's in the film shows up about three-quarters of the way through, in a quick exchange between Castle and MJ that reveals Castle is a preview of where Peter's isolation could take him if he doesn't change course. Eve carried the comparison further, noting that Castle and Jean Grey are, in a way, the same kind of character: heroic villains who don't care who gets in their way but aren't exactly evil. I agree, with a distinction — Castle is the more traditional anti-hero, while I still hesitate to call Jean Grey a hero of any kind yet. “Maybe she will be, in the future,” Eve said, and that's my hope too.
My read starts from a different angle: the MCU itself. Fans of this franchise are a particular kind of passionate — the kind that puts the “fanatic” in “fan” — and Brand New Day walked into theaters carrying more baggage than any single Spider-Man movie should have to carry. It needed to help pull the MCU out of a genuinely rough patch, one that includes Disney's contract dispute with Scarlett Johansson over Black Widow‘s streaming release and the very public collapse of the Jonathan Majors storyline after his off-screen conduct became impossible to ignore.
On the performances, I'm with Eve: Holland has genuinely grown across these four films, from Civil War‘s wide-eyed kid to this quieter, more controlled performance — carried as much in body language and facial expression, even in the way his eyes read through the mask, as in dialogue. Zendaya has grown too, though on a smaller scale; I'd like to see her take on something outside her usual brooding register.
Not What, but Who
There's a speech about two-thirds of the way through Brand New Day that carries more theological weight than anything else in the movie, and I think it's the moment the whole story actually turns on. It's staged as a continuation of a conversation we never got to see in the earlier films — May reminding Peter of what Uncle Ben told her right before her death, then building past it into something new. But the film does something clever with who's actually receiving the words: it starts with May talking to Peter, but partway through, Jean Grey has swapped into his seat, and by the end, Peter himself is watching from outside the memory, the same way Jean Grey started out. Here's what May says:
“You're a really special person, and I know that will always make you feel really great about yourself. But I know sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you'll be really lonely, and sometimes because you're special, people can do dark, monstrous things to you. But this is what I want you to know. You're beautiful. And the people who love you, we love you. Not because you're special, but because you're you. I want you to remember that even when it feels like you are totally alone. That's your deepest responsibility. Never forget that. No matter how powerful you become.” — Aunt May, to Peter (and, by the film's staging, to Jean Grey as well)
I went looking for the writers behind this scene, expecting to find some kind of theological background, because a mostly scripturally accurate speech doesn't usually happen by accident. It didn't happen that way here either. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the two primary writers who've been on every one of the Holland Spider-Man movies, come out of comedy — Family Guy and the like. A third writer, Justin Kuritzkes, was brought in to punch up specific scenes with more dramatic weight, and his own body of work centers on sexuality and desire, most of it explicitly queer. None of the three bring any particular church background to the project. And yet the speech around which Jean Grey's redemption hinges demonstrates exactly what Romans says about the law written on the human heart.
What May's speech reflects, whether the writers meant it to or not, is how Christ himself was introduced to his own ministry. When the adult Christ first appears in the Gospels, it's at his baptism — John baptizes him, a dove descends, and God speaks: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” At that point, Christ hadn't done anything yet. His first miracle, turning water to wine, was still weeks away. God identified him and declared his pleasure before there was a single work to point to. From the baptism, Christ goes into the desert, and every one of Satan's temptations starts the same way: “If you're the Son of God, then prove it.” Christ's identity never depended on what he'd done. It depended only on what God had said. That's exactly what May is telling Peter, whether she knows it or not: identity is by declaration, not by perception, action, belief, or proof.
Because God Saw
Hollywood tends to hand us three counterfeit authorities for identity: look inward, since you're already you; the crowd, in the form of applause or rank or platform; or achievement, where you are whatever you've produced. Scripture offers something else entirely.
And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)
It's not hard to see how three secular writers landed on the same conclusion Scripture already reached, because Scripture says this isn't unique to believers in the first place:
So, when Gentiles, who do not by nature have the law, do what the law demands, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts either accuse or even excuse them on the day when God judges what people have kept secret, according to my gospel through Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14–16)
That's a convicting law — an innate sense of guilt under God's rule — and it's not the same thing as the covenant God makes with his own people:
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, the Lord's declaration: I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. (Jeremiah 31:33)
And that covenant was never a reward for merit to begin with:
The Lord had his heart set on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors. He brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7–8)
God's Blessing Attracts
It's easy for May's line to curdle into something like an inverse curse. She says people can do dark, monstrous things to you because you're special, and it doesn't take long for that little voice in your head to twist it: it's your fault they treat you that way, because you make yourself a target. Push it further and it becomes, if you were just more like everyone else, they wouldn't hate you so much. But that's backwards. God's children get targeted by the deceiver, and more often than not, the instruments of that harassment are other people, not just outright unbelievers:
When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him. (Genesis 37:4)
So when they had gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Who is it you want me to release for you — Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called Christ?” For he knew it was because of envy that they had handed him over. (Matthew 27:17–18)
May's speech also names the loneliness directly, and Scripture doesn't shy away from that either:
Elijah replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God of armies, but the Israelites have abandoned your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are looking for me to take my life.” (1 Kings 19:10)
I never sat with the band of revelers, and I did not celebrate with them, because your hand was on me. I sat alone, for you filled me with indignation. (Jeremiah 15:17)
About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” Which is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Matthew 27:46)
Elijah wasn't actually alone — God had already set aside a remnant of prophets he didn't know about. Jeremiah's isolation was self-imposed, the weight of a hard calling. Christ's cry from the cross may be the only place in Scripture where that abandonment was completely real, because that separation is part of what sin costs. But even that loneliness had an expiration date:
Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, “I will never leave you or abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5)
Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon, or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. (Psalm 139:7–10)
None of this promises an easy road. It just promises we're not walking it unaccompanied:
Now this is what the Lord says — the one who created you, Jacob, and the one who formed you, Israel: do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and the rivers will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, and the flame will not burn you. (Isaiah 43:1–2)
Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword? As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35–39)
The Cost Does Not Compare
None of this — Elijah's fear, Jeremiah's isolation, even Christ's cry from the cross — compares to what we're actually given in exchange:
When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then God has made you an heir. (Galatians 4:4–7)
We're not contractors working off what we're owed. We're heirs to something we didn't build and couldn't have earned on our own:
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:2–4)
Don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
This is where May's speech, for as much as it gets right, runs out of road. It has no divine spark to point to — no one who paid the price it keeps gesturing toward. The Heidelberg Catechism gets at what's actually underneath all of this, in its very first question and answer:
Q. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
A. That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head — yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation. And therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
(Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1)
Our deepest responsibility isn't to remember that we're special, or good, or deserving. It's to remember that we're loved because God chose us — not for anything we bring to the table, but simply because he decided to. Any identity I try to build for myself is meaningless unless it starts with that: I am a beloved child of God. That's not an identity I earned, and it's not one I can lose. It's the identity of someone who is, quite simply, loved beyond doubt.
Eve pushed back on me a little here, and I think she's got a point worth consideration. Read the other direction, May's speech could just as easily be making identity culture's actual argument: you're loved because you're special, and the world resents you for the identity you've chosen. Given that one of the writers behind this scene built his career writing explicitly toward that worldview, that reading isn't a stretch. I still think the speech lands closer to Scripture than to the culture it came out of — but I'll admit it's genuinely both there, depending on which thread you pull.
Fellowship and Accountability
In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter's got his own inner demon forcing its way out — the spider-side of him that, according to one of the commentaries Eve watched, seems to erupt more the more emotionally stressed he gets. The more time he spends sitting with how lonely he is, the more it comes out. It's what sends him to Banner looking for a way to inhibit it, and it's where the movie asks its own version of the question directly: what parts of our nature are actually good or bad, and what happens when we spend all our energy trying to block something that actually needs to be expressed?
Scripture doesn't treat that question as neutral. Left to ourselves, we don't process what needs to come out — we suppress it, or we let it curdle into something worse:
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; he is not able to understand them since they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
For the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace, since the mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God's law, for it is unable to do so. (Romans 8:7–8)
I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don't do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things — as I warned you before — that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:16–21)
Peter says as much twice, close to the end of the film. First to Jean Grey: “Just because we lost someone doesn't mean we have to be alone.” Then, in one of the movie's very last lines: “I am not going to do this on my own anymore. Miss you, May.”
Scripture doesn't leave that same point implicit either:
Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts. For if either falls, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm; but how can one person alone keep warm? And if someone overpowers one person, two can withstand him. A cord of three strands is not easily broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9–12)
And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24–25)
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so you also won't be tempted. Carry one another's burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:1–2)
Peter finally lets himself be found instead of staying hidden, and that's exactly when he's able to talk Jean Grey down — something he couldn't have pulled off from inside his own isolation. God uses plain, ordinary fellowship like that to keep us from unraveling the way Jean Grey nearly does.
Inhibiting the Flesh/Spirit
Later in the Brand New Day, Peter removes the inhibitor he built for himself and tells Jean he doesn't have to choose — he can be both Peter and the fully-powered Spider-Man.
Eve reads that two ways. The more obvious one is negative: you can't actually have both.
Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, God's wrath is coming upon the disobedient, and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. But now put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, you are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. (Colossians 3:5–10)
No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
Eve offers a second, less obvious reading too: if you read the mutation as the Spirit reshaping Peter into someone new rather than corruption, then building the inhibitor was really Peter quenching the Spirit, and ripping it off at the end and letting it take over was the surrender Scripture actually asks for.
I came out of the theater already thinking along those same lines. Peter was resisting a necessary change, and the moment he stopped resisting it, he was stronger and more in control than he'd ever been. Eve was careful to leave both readings on the table rather than pick one — and having sat with it, I think she's right to. The text supports both.
Conclusion
This episode really moves through three ideas: identity, fellowship, and surrender. Aunt May's speech hands Peter and Jean an identity neither of them did anything to earn — the same case Scripture makes in Galatians 4:4–7, where we're not slaves working off a debt but sons and heirs. That kind of identity doesn't stay sealed off in your own head, though: the movie stages Peter's most decisive act — removing the inhibitor and finally accepting the change happening in him — right in the middle of his conversation with Jean, not off by himself. Scripture makes a similar move in one continuous passage: Colossians 3:2–4 tells us our life is hidden with Christ in God, and just two verses later, Colossians 3:5–10 tells us to put to death what belongs to our earthly nature and put on the new self. Identity and surrender show up back to back in Paul's own argument. And in the movie, neither one happens in isolation — letting Jean and May back in is what frees Peter to stop fighting who he's becoming, and it's that same acceptance that lets him turn around and do for Jean what May did for him.
Not every movie is secretly working an agenda. Most of what makes it big is just formulaic, because formulaic is what sells — that's not really the question worth asking. The question worth asking is whether the perspective a story hands us actually holds up against Scripture, and whether it's worth embracing. Landing on no is worth just as much as landing on yes, because it shows us exactly why, and that gives us a foothold into God's Word. That's the same discernment that turns an ordinary conversation about a movie into a gospel conversation with whoever you watched it with.
Where to watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day
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