Spider-Man: Brand New Day Initially Had A Very Different Villain
And we may know who it is.
One of the best things about Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes with the revival of Spidey’s rogues gallery. No Way Home both blessed and cursed Marvel’s Cinematic Universe by bringing the villains of past Spider-Man films into the fray to (briefly) wreak some havoc: it was great to see Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, but when they returned to their native timelines, the MCU felt emptier than ever. Brand New Day remedies that somewhat with cameos from Scorpion (Michael Mando), Tombstone (Marvin Jones III), and more minor Spidey villains. Eventually, though, they all have to take a backseat to the film’s true antagonist, who pulls Peter Parker (Tom Holland) in a very different direction.
Spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Brand New Day’s main villain is definitely a surprise, if only because she feels so different.
Brand New Day might have been touted as a fresh start for its titular hero, but it’s also, stealthily, an X-Men origin story. Though nobody utters the word “mutant” in the film, it’s clear Marvel is rolling out the red carpet for the famous team’s arrival. Peter’s efforts to subdue his own kind of mutation lay the groundwork for any number of anti-mutant antagonists to pick up where his good intentions left off. Then, most opaquely, there’s the matter of Brand New Day’s true villain, Jean Grey (Sadie Sink).
A powerful telepath who becomes a victim of the Department of Damage Control, Jean’s MCU origins are a far cry from what any X-Men fan would expect from the character. She wields her powers very differently in Brand New Day, using her telepathy to take over the bodies of civilians and puppet them against their will. It’s unmistakably bad-guy material, and it’s hard to see how this serves as a worthwhile introduction to the character — much less how future movies will smooth the transition from her brief villain arc to a future of heroism with the X-Men. The MCU’s Jean doesn’t feel like Jean at all; if anything, it feels like a very different villain is wearing Jean’s face. That might be because, according to Marvel president Kevin Feige, Brand New Day almost featured a different villain in her place.
Brand New Day considered many different villains before landing on Jean.
Feige recently paid a visit to USC film school, where he revealed quite a bit about the process of choosing a villain for Brand New Day. Per the producer, the script — and the main villain in it — went through plenty of permutations: “There was one version of the bad guy, then another version of the bad guy,” Feige said. “Then a version, essentially, of this bad guy that was revealed to be a very obscure character nobody had ever heard of.”
None of the characters selected by the creative team felt “satisfying,” Feige admitted. Holland himself even suggested a character for his Spider-Man to face off with, but according to Feige, they couldn’t be used. The more the team thought about the confrontation Spidey has with this yet-to-be-determined villain at the end of Brand New Day, the easier it was, apparently, to picture Jean in the role. “It’s a young person very similar in age to Peter,” Feige said — who, unlike Peter, “did not have a mentor” to guide her. The idea of casting Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink in the role really “locked in” the prospect of Jean... but the question of who almost faced off with Spider-Man in Brand New Day is much more enticing.
Was Karma too “obscure” for the MCU?
Jean Grey’s MCU origins lift heavily from another X-Man.
Jean has gone through many origins in Marvel history, but her introduction in Brand New Day borrows less from them than from a very different X-Man. Even the way she wields her powers is textbook Karma: the telepath, otherwise known as Xuân Cao Mạnh (or, by her nickname, Shan), is a member of the New Mutants with a penchant for body-hopping. She even has a sibling — like MCU-Jean — who shares this power, but uses it for darker means. More than that, she was introduced in the comics as an antagonist of sorts to Spider-Man.
When her younger siblings were kidnapped for ransom, Karma inhabited Spider-Man’s body and used him to try and rescue them. This scheme eventually backfired, of course, but Spider-Man agreed to help her save her family anyway. (All this plays out in Marvel Team-Up #100, written by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, for any curious readers.) Karma was recruited by Professor Charles Xavier after that ordeal, becoming the leader of a new X-Men team in the process.
Karma’s had a long history with the X-Men since, appearing here and there as a supporting character for the past 40 years. Still, she’s not very well-known even now: the New Mutants are very much the forgotten team that’s been constantly overshadowed by the likes of X-Force, X-Factor, and the X-Men proper. It’d make sense that Feige would hesitate to pick her to essentially co-lead Brand New Day, but the missed opportunity here is hard to ignore.
Mister Negative was also a rumored villain
Mister Negative would have been a great addition to the MCU.
When Holland announced the official title for Spider-Man 4 at last year’s Cinema Con, most assumed that the film would take some inspiration from the comic of the same name, Brand New Day. That storyline strengthened the presence of villains that most know and love now, like Mister Negative. For a time, this character was rumored to be the main force Spidey would have to work against in Brand New Day; though it’d take some stretching to explain how he was manipulating half of New York, he would have been a plausible addition to the film.
Mister Negative’s origins in the comics are not unlike those of another new MCU anti-hero, the Sentry. A member of the Snakeheads gang in China, the smuggler who would become Mister Negative took on the identity of a runaway slave, Martin Li, when he traveled to America. He was captured by the Maggia and its leader, Silver Mane, shortly after landing in the States — and alongside two other human experiments, Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen (later known as Cloak and Dagger), he was injected with an experimental substance that drew from the Darkforce.
Li was transformed into Mister Negative shortly after, gaining the power to wield the Darkforce and corrupt and brainwash anyone he touches. That “corrupting touch” could have created an army for him to use against Spider-Man in Brand New Day — and might have even been the villain that Holland suggested for the film. Mister Negative plays a big role in Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, and Holland has listed them as a major inspiration for the film. Alas, that’s probably the very thing that made Mister Negative ineligible to appear in Brand New Day. Feige and his team seem eager to break new ground wherever possible, and with a new X-Men team waiting in the wings, Jean Grey seemed to be the most viable option... even if so much had to be changed to accommodate her.
