Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is getting a fresh start. That’s how actor Tom Holland described Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the just-announced new title for the fourth Sony-Marvel Studios Spider-Man movie, at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Besides a brand new title (the first not to have “home” in the name), there’s a brand new director (Shang-Chi‘s Destin Daniel Cretton, taking over from trilogy helmer Jon Watts), a brand new logo (revealed with the title treatment), and a brand new cast of characters.
“I know we left you with a massive cliffhanger at the end of No Way Home, so Spider Man: Brand New Day is a fresh start. It is exactly that, that’s all I can say,” Holland teased in a virtual message from the set of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, referring to a spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) erasing Spider-Man’s secret identity — and all memory of Peter Parker — to protect the multiverse.
2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ended with Peter forgotten by girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and allies like Doctor Strange and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). It was a reset for the street-level superhero who had been an Avenger mentored by the late Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), a back-to-basics approach taken from the Brand New Day era of Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man comics in 2008.
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After Spider-Man unmasked himself in support of the Superhuman Registration Act during Civil War, he eventually found himself at odds with Iron Man’s registration agenda. He then switched sides to Captain America’s anti-registration team of heroes and was forced to go underground as a fugitive on the run.
From prison, Wilson Fisk, Kingpin of Crime, hired an assassin to kill the outed Peter Parker and his loved ones: his wife Mary Jane and his Aunt May.
Spider-Man: One More Day
When May was shot by the sniper’s bullet, a black-suited Spider-Man desperately tried to save her life at a time when the SHRA made him an outlaw. The events of Civil War and Spider-Man: Back in Black led into Spider-Man: One More Day, a four-part saga spanning 2007’s Amazing Spider-Man #544, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #24, Sensational Spider-Man #41, and Amazing Spider-Man #545.
One More Day not only ended Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane, but the controversial storyline made it so that Peter and MJ were never married at all. (Instead, MJ was Peter’s longtime girlfriend.) After turning to practically the entire Marvel Universe for help saving his dying Aunt May, a desperate Peter and MJ accepted the demon Mephisto’s offer: to give up their love and marriage in exchange for saving May’s life.
Amazing Spider-Man #545 ended with Peter inexplicably back at his Aunt May’s home in Forest Hills. Aunt May was alive, Mary Jane was his ex-girlfriend, and the world somehow forgot that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
It was initially believed that Mephisto put Spider-Man’s secret identity back in the bottle, but the truth wouldn’t be revealed until years later. In 2010’s Spider-Man: One Moment In Time, it was revealed that Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four used a combination of magic and science to make everyone — except Mary Jane — forget Spider-Man’s secret identity.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
2007’s Brand New Day prelude, “Swing Shift” by writer Dan Slott and artist Phil Jemenez, set up Spider-Man’s brand new status quo. With super-crime at an all-time low due to the organized and licensed superheroes, Peter took a months-long break from being a lawless vigilante.
Spider-Man’s Brand New Day officially started in 2008’s Amazing Spider-Man #546. The soft reboot also marked the start of a thrice-monthly comics from rotating creative teams, including Slott and Steve McNiven, Marc Guggenheim and Salvador Larroca, Bob Gale and Jimenez, and Zeb Wells and Chris Bachalo.
Spider-Man: Brand New Cast
This status quo shift saw a single Peter Parker mingling with a new cast of characters. His old best friend, Harry Osborn, returned from Europe (retconning his death as the Green Goblin in 1993’s Spectacular Spider-Man #200). Fresh out of rehab, Harry purchased his and Pete’s old college hangout, The Coffee Bean, and began dating the socialite Lily Hollister (who would later become yet another goblin: Menace.)
Peter would go on to date Lily’s best friend, police forensic expert Carlie Cooper. Now a single bachelor, Peter later had a fling with Michele Gonzales, the sister of Peter’s then-roommate and NYPD Officer Vin Gonzales. Meanwhile, Aunt May, alive and well, was a volunteer at F.E.A.S.T. (Food, Emergency Aid, Shelter, and Training), a homeless shelter operated by the philanthropist Martin Li.
May, who learned her nephew was Spider-Man in the J. Michael Straczynski Amazing Spider-Man run, no longer knew Peter’s secret — and neither did villains like Norman Osborn or Eddie Brock, who were long aware of Spider-Man’s secret identity. Peter was semi-unemployed, working as a freelance photographer at The Daily Bugle, which was acquired by J. Jonah Jameson’s rival, Dexter Bennett, and rebranded as The DB!
Spider-Man: Brand New Villains
Peter resumed Spider-Man-ing around the time that the villain Mister Negative (who turned out to be Martin Li’s dark side alter-ego), sought a lethal poison called Devil’s Breath (a storyline adapted in 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man video game).
Spider-Man’s Brand New Day era also pit him against more new villains like Overdrive, a high-speed techie; the Spider-Tracer killer (a gang of crooked cops using Spider-Man’s Spider-Tracer trackers to frame the vigilante as a serial killer); the new goblin Menace; the mutated Freak; the Wayep deity Dr. Rabin/Emissary; a parkour social media star called Screwball; the dimensionally-compressed Paper Doll; and the new Kraven, Ana Kravinoff, daughter of the late Kraven the Hunter.
As a member of the New Avengers, Spider-Man was among Earth’s mightiest heroes who helped end the shapeshifting aliens’ Secret Invasion. That event led to Spider-Man’s arch nemesis — Norman Osborn, once the Green Goblin — beginning his Dark Reign as the head of H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Dark Avengers (supervillains masquerading as heroes). He then sicked his Thunderbolts — Venom (Mac Gargan), Bullseye, Radioactive Man, and Songbird — on Spider-Man, who joined forces against the team with Eddie Brock (who had been turned into Anti-Venom from Mister Negative’s healing touch).
While facing an onslaught of new enemies, Spider-Man also found an ally in Jackpot: a red-haired heroine he initially suspected was Mary Jane. The registered superhero turned out to be the alter-ego of Sara Ehret, who retired and sold the license and identity to her friend Alana Jobson. Alana used a cocktail of substances, including the dangerous MGH (Mutant Growth Hormone) to become a costumed crime-fighter, resulting in her death.
But for every brand new foe during Brand New Day, there was the return of classic Spider-Man villains like the Shocker, Hammerhead, the Enforcers, and the Scorpion. (Remember, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming ended with Bokeem Woodbine’s Shocker and Michael Mando’s Mac Gargan/Scorpion in prison.) Might they return to ruin Spidey’s brand new day?
Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters July 31, 2026.
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