Don’t mention the M-word: are mutant X-Men about to show up en masse in Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
An intriguing chat about warped DNA in the record-breaking trailer for the new Spider-Man movie could mean a host of long-awaited arrivals in the MCU
There was a time when the mere mention of the term “mutant” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was frowned upon. Rival studio 20th Century Fox owned the rights to the X-Men and with it the whole idea of a parallel branch of humanity, which meant superheroes were contractually obliged to have received their powers from somewhere else. Radioactive accidents, experimental serums, infinity stones, the bite of an unusually committed arachnid: Marvel tried them all, but left the mutation thing alone. Occasionally, comic book icons such as Scarlet Witch were retconned in the MCU to remove their X-gene origins, but for the most part, the very notion of mutation seemed to be placed under narrative quarantine – as if this were a door the studio had quietly agreed not to open.
This week saw the record-breaking release of the debut teaser trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it was immediately clear that something had changed. We all know the X-Men are coming to the MCU: Deadpool and Wolverine have already had their own movies, while various mutants have turned up in post-credit scenes and brief multiversal detours. Now Spidey seems to be edging close to the same territory.
The new promo sees Peter Parker making his way in a world where nobody knows who he is. Ned and MJ are oblivious to the fact he’s Spider-Man, and don’t even remember his face, thanks to the memory-wipe spell Doctor Strange cast at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. But this is far from his biggest problem, because the wallcrawler seems to be transforming into something a lot more arachnid-like: organic webs are everywhere, and if that doesn’t seem so bad (Tobey Maguire’s Spidey had them, after all), there’s something far more sinister about those red and black eyes. It’s as if David Cronenberg has suddenly touched down in the MCU, bringing with him several deeply unpleasant ideas about what it means when human DNA starts experimenting with alternative arrangements.
Coupled with widespread rumours that Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink could be playing a young Jean Grey in Brand New Day, this all feels a lot like the MCU trying the M-word out in the mirror to see if it fits. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner (now intriguingly de-Hulked) even warns Parker that mutating DNA could be “incredibly dangerous”. Is Spidey becoming an X-Man? Is this the alien symbiote left behind by Venom/Eddie Brock causing what now seems to be termed a “mutation”? Or is this all simply Marvel smoke and mirrors, designed to blur the definition of “mutant” before anyone has agreed what it actually means?
The chances are that this is not a massive retcon, but it could be the sly prelude to a main event that will see mutants arrive en masse in the MCU. Then again, this could just be another of Marvel’s famous teases, akin to the bit in Iron Man 3 in which we thought we had just met the Mandarin, only to discover we had in actual fact been introduced to a drunken British actor named Trevor. There is talk that the trailer might be masking the presence of other superheroes in the film, just as early footage of No Way Home pretended it only boasted one Spider-Man.
What is certain here is that Marvel has spent years carefully ringfencing the word “mutant” like a fragile heirloom, only for the new trailer to have Banner and Parker casually chatting about warping DNA. Is Sink’s Jean Grey under the hood, apparently controlling everyone’s minds? Is Cyclops about to pop out of the architecture?
There have been suggestions that Brand New Day will restore Spidey to the kind of street-level crime-fighting he’s often known for in the comics, which feels like a necessary reset after the far-out multiversal overload of No Way Home. The presence of Scorpion, the Punisher and the Hand seems to confirm this is a film in which the wallcrawler won’t be fixing timelines or punching gods. And yet all this talk of mutations seems to lean almost paradoxically in the opposite, universe-expanding direction.
It’s undoubtedly intriguing. But the risk here is all about what happens to the word “mutant” if Marvel starts using it this loosely. In the comics, the X-Men are a distinct offshoot of humanity with built-in differences that often come with consequences. If this same language is now being applied to anyone undergoing a dramatic biological rethink, the risk is that by the time Professor X and co arrive, their defining trait will already have been quietly repurposed. They will no longer be a separate, feared minority, but the latest entry in a long and growing list of people – pretty much all superheroes, in fact – who are having a tough day.