The biggest questions we have after Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Ash Walker • 06 Aug 2026 Features

Does whatever a spider can?

Wow. A lot of people sure went to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day this weekend - $932million worth of people, to be exact - and our team of movie nerds were no exception.

It’s safe to say that we, like most fans and critics, absolutely loved it, but we were left with a few burning questions as the credits rolled. Here are the ones at the forefront of our minds right now… and a few potential answers, too.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

What does Peter Parker do for work?

Seems like a pedantic question, but Brand New Day takes Spidey back to basics in a much more grounded, street-level adventure. Peter is living alone in a crappy New York apartment, listening to the police scanner and sewing his own suits (albeit with a little help from a robot sewing machine).

It’s only fair to wonder how he’s affording all of this. An apartment in the city would not come cheap - even one riddled with asbestos and spider webs. And then there’s all the fancy tech he’s using to build his inhibitor chips…

Is he delivering pizzas? Taking pictures of Spider-Man for the Daily Bugle? Or maybe Aunt May left him some money after her death. We may never know. And maybe we should stop worrying about it and just enjoy the movie.

Are there more mutants out there?

In perhaps the worst-kept secret in MCU history, it turns out that Sadie Sink is playing none other than Jean Grey in Brand New Day. That’s right, the one from the X-Men.

It’s the first time a major mutant character has made an appearance in the MCU (not counting multiversal legacy appearances like Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine or Kelsey Grammar’s Beast), and points pretty strongly to the idea that mutants are out there, unbeknownst to the rest of the world.

But very much knownst to the Department of Damage Control, who are revealed - to no one’s great surprise - to be the true villains of the movie. It seems like they’ve been secretly hunting down mutants in an effort to replicate their powers, and killing them in the process.

Who else might they have come across? And where is this all heading? With Spidey’s accidental invention of a universal inhibitor chip, it looks like DoDC has the tech they need to start rounding up those hated and feared mutants in earnest. Might Sentinels be next on their agenda?

Where was Jean Grey heading?

The movie ends with a nice little montage wrapping everything up, and we catch one last glimpse of antagonist Jean Grey sitting on a bus as it heads upstate through some beautiful woodlands.

But where is she going?

The obvious answer is a certain school for gifted youngsters, which is canonically located in picturesque upstate New York (Westchester County to be exact). Did Jean get a telepathic summons from Charles Xavier? Did she read about the school on Reddit? We’ll likely find out in the upcoming X-Men movie, set to be directed by Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts).

How did the Punisher manage to avoid getting arrested?

I mean… isn’t he the most wanted vigilante in New York? He’s killed hundreds of people, quite violently. Why was he not immediately locked up the moment he stepped into that hospital?

Maybe it was some kind of mind-control voodoo, courtesy of Jean Grey. Or maybe everyone just forgot he’s a mass murderer? Or maybe - and this might be the most likely situation - there was a pile of corpses behind that hospital room door. Cops who tried to take him in and paid the price.

Have we seen the last of Peter’s uncontrollable arachnid DNA?

During the climactic fight with the Hand, Peter finally embraces his out-of-control arachnid DNA, becoming stronger, more agile and… more webby. Crucially, he also doesn’t go all crazy and rage-filled, having seemingly reconciled his two halves.

But is that the end of the story? Will Peter continue to struggle with his mutating genome in future movies? We know that Spidey actor Tom Holland was pushing for even more Cronenbergian body horror in Brand New Day, but the studio decided seeing their lovable hero morph into a giant Man-Spider might be a bit too much for young audiences.

Could we still see a six-armed Peter Parker down the line? Sign me up.

Why did Ned remember Peter when MJ didn’t?

The movie ends with a wonderful final scene where Peter bumps into Ned at the bodega and reintroduces himself. The two shake hands… and then almost without thinking move into their super secret bro handshake that we first saw in Homecoming.

Then Ned looks up and says “Peter?” Cue credits.

It’s a great ending, but what does it mean?! Have Ned’s memories come back? And if so, why? Shouldn’t MJ’s have returned, too?

This could go a number of ways. It could be that the secret handshake was pure muscle memory on Ned’s part, and acting it out was enough to shake something loose. Or, a little more fun, it could be that Ned’s latent magic abilities were enough to eventually break through Doctor Strange’s spell.

Or maybe it was just their version of true love’s kiss. We’ll have to wait for the inevitable sequel to find out!

What was up with that weird post-credits scene?

This one is maybe the biggest headscratcher off the back of Brand New Day. The movie’s sole post-credits sting comes at the very end, as we see Ned’s delightful Spidey Tracker app lose the web-slinger’s location, only to zoom out and away from Earth and pick him up again in the cold blackness of space.

Huh?

This could mean any number of things - maybe Spidey’s headed back into space for his next adventure - but it seems most likely to be a cheeky little teaser for Avengers: Secret Wars, which is due in cinemas next year.

If the comic of the same name is any indication, Secret Wars will be a monumental, multiversal mashup of Marvel heroes and villains, pitting them all against each other (and God Emperor Doom) on Battleworld, a planet cobbled together from the remnants of destroyed universes. This could be hinting at Spidey’s involvement, being taken from Earth and plonked in the middle of parts very much unknown.

Or they’re just messing with us.