A lot goes down in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is now in theaters and about to blow the roof off the box office. And with all the huge, MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) changing events, you might be a little overwhelmed in terms of where it leaves all of our characters at the end and what happens to them. Guess what? I just invented this thing called “ending explained” that nobody has ever done on the internet before, and so I’m going to explain the ending of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Before we get to that, though, I’ll do a very brief recap of the movie, and then afterwards we’ll break down what you might need to know about what comes after Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as well as any big character deaths. So let’s get into it.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Recap
When we pick up in this movie, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has decided to be Spider-Man full time. Thanks to Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter watches from afar as his former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) go through four years of MIT, ultimately graduating and moving back to New York.
Spider-Man, meanwhile, has become a local hero, cleaning up super-villain after super-villain and sending them to jail courtesy Damage Control, an organization led by William Metzger (Tramell Tillman) that has changed its purview from cleaning up after superhero fights to proactively trying to prevent them. Someone, though, is attacking Damage Control facilities, and after Spider-Man and The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) are unable to stop an out-of-control tank from breaching one of the facilities, Spidey discovers there’s some sort of unfettered mind control that’s jumping from person to person, leading to the release of Scorpion (Michael Mando).
Why is this happening? Thanks to naked appearance by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) in a Russian bathhouse, Spidey discovers it’s something called “V Max.” The mind also discovers Spider-Man is on its tail, and though it can’t enter Spider-Man’s brain, it can attack his friends: specifically, MJ. Peter thinks he’s saved her, but really, the mind takes her over and tortures him with something he can’t ever have: MJ back, because she doesn’t remember him.
Side-note: while this is all going on, Spider-Man is dealing with his arachnid DNA going out of control, causing him to grow organic web-shooters and black eyes, blacking out and getting more violent. He’s trying to suppress that aspect of himself with the help of Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who hasn’t Hulked out in years and is now teaching at Empire State University. And though Banner warns him not to do this, he builds an inhibitor that can be used on himself, and potentially others.
In any case, Spider-Man takes MJ to safety with The Punisher, and while there he refines the inhibitor. They also figure out who is behind the mind: Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), a telepath whose sister was taken by Damage Control. Discovering this, he heads off to stop her, but she’s almost breached the massive safe in the Damage Control office and has the Hulk under her control… Until she doesn’t. He Hulks out even more than before, The Punisher gets his mind taken over by Jean, and she’s about to kill Metzger to discover where her sister is and what V Max is, until Spider-Man — who managed to get through to the Hulk — puts the inhibitor on her neck.
Jean is taken in by Damage Control, who begin to experiment on her just like they did on her sister. Meanwhile, MJ finds the letter Peter wrote her back in No Way Home, but she still doesn’t remember him. He takes her back home, meets Ned, and they hang out and play LEGOs. Which is when Spider-Man — thanks to a casual mention about Jean’s powers — realizes that the future X-Men hero may not be the bad guy. So he swings off to Damage Control to try and make things right.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Ending Explained
At Damage Control, while Metzger tortures Jean in order to copy her powers and give them to regular humans, she discovers what V Max is: it’s an old label on an AC unit, the last thing her sister Sara (Olivia Booth-Ford) saw before she died. Amping up her powers to the maximum, Jean blows the Damage Control facility to smithereens and sends a bubble of mind waves out into the city, freezing everyone in the radius. The Punisher is not in the radius, and tries to find a place where he can set up a sniper rifle to take out Jean.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man enters the facility, fights some guards, and then is confronted by the ninja clan The Hand, who have been ostensibly reformed by Metzger. He fights them, and in the midst of this realizes he doesn’t need to suppress his spider side; he needs to be both the spider, and the man. He beats The Hand, and makes his way upstairs to confront Jean, who is about to kill Metzger.
Instead of fighting her, Spider-Man uses his own revelations to try and talk to her. But it’s not just him: he allows Jean into his mind, in his place, as he recalls an old pep talk from Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), who essentially says that she/he is beautiful, and people will see her/him as a monster anyway. Basically, after giving the great power/great responsibility speech last movie, she in essence tells Jean that she needs to protect a world that will hate and fear her, the whole MO of the X-Men.
This causing Jean to not kill Metzger, and unfreeze her mind bubble. At which point, Punisher shoots, Spider-Man blocks the bullet and gets shot. It’s cool, though, Punisher somehow hops across the river, then carries Spider-Man to a hospital. And Jean keeps him alive mentally while he heals. Punisher stays with him the whole time, and when he wakes up, dresses up as Spider-Man so the crowd of fans outside can see Spider-Man is okay; and Peter Parker can wander among them, finally able to appreciate what he’s done for the city.
Last we see Jean, she’s on a bus out of town (to Westchester, perhaps?), while Metzger is missing. Meanwhile, Banner is in a mental hospital after losing control of The Hulk, and The Punisher is off doing whatever he does. And the last bit? Peter sees Ned in a bodega, reintroduces himself as Peter, they do their secret handshake and Ned says, “Peter!” one more time, as if his memory has come back. Which it probably has.
There’s also a post credits scene which we went more in depth about, but that’s pretty much the whole movie!
Who Dies In Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
Nobody! Well, some thugs, but as for major characters they’re all alive and well. There’s a moment that riffs on the classic Spider-Man jumping to save MJ as she drops from a building, catches her with his webs and it looks like she died anyway… But she’s actually alive and okay. When Spider-Man gets shot by The Punisher, he probably should have died, but again, he lives to fight another day. And The Punisher, Hulk, even Williams Metzger… Everyone lives through the movie. So, no major deaths you need to worry about, unless you’re very into Damage Control Guard #3.
Where And When Will Spider-Man Return? Will There Be Another Spider-Man Movie?
As detailed in the post credits scene, Spider-Man will return. But when? And where? We don’t actually know, though reportedly Tom Holland is not in Avengers: Doomsday. However, the space set end credits scene definitely implies we’ll see him either towards the end of that movie, or more likely in Avengers: Secret Wars… It’s also reported that Sadie Sink will be back as Jean Grey in Secret Wars, which makes sense.
And as for yet another Tom Holland Spider-Man movie? Almost definitely, as it looks like this will be a monster at the box office, and Holland seems enthused about playing the character forever. Even if something bizarre happens, there will definitely be another Spider-Man movie as long as there are movies. And of course, there’s also Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse, which is scheduled to be released on June 18, 2027, though we’ve heard that before. Whenever and wherever, they’re right on the money: Spider-Man will return.
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