Spider-Man: Brand New Day Ending Explained

Contains spoilers for "Spider-Man: Brand New Day"

As is the case with most Marvel Cinematic Universe projects, Tom Holland's fourth solo outing as Peter Parker has been shrouded in secrecy. Trailers for "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" revealed that Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle and Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner would play a part, and that the narrative would circle back to Peter dealing from the emotional fallout of his best friend and his girlfriend no longer remembering who he is. But there was no official confirmation of who the main villain was (even if a rumor had long been doing the rounds about the character Sadie Sink was playing) or what the film's place was within the wider MCU leading into "Avengers: Doomsday." Now, we have our answers.

The events of "Brand New Day" take place shortly before the events of the next "Avengers" movie, but don't directly link into them; there are supporting performances from familiar Marvel stars, but not in any way that sets the stage for sequels. If anything, "Brand New Day" lays more of the groundwork for the long-gestating full "X-Men" reboot, and even that we probably won't see paid off for another few years. Instead, the most tantalizing teases are those which remain strictly within Spidey's neighborhood, with the very final moment of "Brand New Day" likely to be one fans wildly theorize about for some time.

We've set out to answer every nagging question you may have about the ending of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," what it means for Peter's next chapter, and the major ramifications it has for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.

After playing tricks on Peter throughout the movie, getting into people's heads and manipulating them into carrying out attacks on Damage Control, the film's mysterious villain goes one step too far by taking over MJ's (Zendaya) body. After saving her life, Peter takes her to Frank "The Punisher" Castle's (Jon Bernthal) hideout for safety. There, his AI manages to finally clock the face of the person jumping into each body, and a quick search reveals it to be Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), who is searching for something called V-Max within their system. With the help of Frank's tools, he makes some quick adjustments to his universal inhibitor and heads back to the city to corner her and attach the device before she causes any more destruction.

This is easier said than done, as Jean has entered the mind of Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and triggered him to Hulk out, leading Peter to change tactic and try to attach the inhibitor to Bruce. He can't do this because of how thick Bruce's Hulk skin is, so Peter appeals to his inner humanity and gets him to calm down like Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) used to do. Peter apprehends Jean with the inhibitor in just enough time for Damage Control to take her in. 

Before passing out, Jean says the name Sara, which department director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) confirms is a name that was on his mind when Jean inhabited him. Back at Frank's, MJ and Peter have an emotional confrontation after she discovers the letter detailing their shared past but brings him to her apartment to see Ned anyway. There, she reveals she doesn't have any memories from when she was inhabited, which causes Peter to realize Bill was lying.

After Peter makes a return call to Yelena (Florence Pugh) in her bathhouse headquarters, Yelena's internet sleuthing reveals that Sara is Jean's sister who was taken in by Damage Control. Peter returns to Damage Control's Roosevelt Island headquarters where Jean is being held, which is when Jean discovers she's in the room her sister was killed in — V-Max was the last thing that Sara saw, a glimpse of a chipped Vent Max label on a ceiling vent that she sent out to Jean with her powers. When that realization hits, Jean sends a power jolt to freeze people in the city and, not realizing that Peter is on her side and trying to save her, unfreezing The Hand to fight him, as they have weapons to counter his artificial web shooters.

After an emotional talk with Jean in his head, Peter takes off his inhibitor to capture The Hand in organic webbing, which they don't have the tech to stop. He then allows Jean to enter his mind, where she has a heart-to-heart with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), with Peter then telling Jean neither of them need to do this alone. Unfortunately, Frank has just tried to shoot Jean from a distance, and Peter saves her by taking the bullet. He's taken to hospital, with Jean using her powers to keep him alive. While he's recovering, Peter is told to pause his crime fighting, and it's just after this when he spots Ned (Jacob Batalon). Ned doesn't initially recognize him, but when Peter leads him into their secret handshake, he suddenly seems to remember his best friend.

It's the handshake that could forever change the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as Doctor Strange's spell from "Spider-Man: No Way Home" appears to have broken all thanks to muscle memory associated with a best friends' greeting. Does Ned actually remember Peter when they perform their secret shake? Let's not forget that Ned twist in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" that nobody saw coming – Ned comes from a family with an intense, superstitious belief in magic, which is why he was able to use Doctor Strange's Sling Ring to the multiverse without any prior training. That belief in magic could be a decisive factor in why the spell could be unknowingly broken.

There is, of course, a reading staring us all in the face that allows Ned to know who Peter is without Doctor Strange's spell being broken: Peter visited MJ and Ned's apartment earlier in the movie in his full Spidey costume, and his named was let slip when MJ said "goodbye Peter" as he flew off, immediately raising Ned's suspicions. Seeing the awkward guy from his housewarming party whose name he didn't remember, and who clearly recognized him, could have led Ned to put two and two together to realize it was Peter beneath the mask. This doesn't really explain why Ned remembered the handshake, but perhaps there's a link.

There were lots of clues that Sadie Sink was playing Jean Grey in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" — in fact, the identity of her mysterious character was one of the worst kept Marvel secrets in a long time. Introduced as a villain, we learn later on that Jean's attacks on various Damage Control facilities across the city are an attempt to free her sister Sara, who was kidnapped in broad daylight. Peter is shot by Frank's bullet intended for Jean as he's trying to right his wrongs by freeing her from Damage Control HQ, but with Spidey on death's door, we don't focus too much on Jean's escape — Frank does later reveal she was using her powers to keep Peter alive and bring him out of his coma as a thank you, though.

The next thing see of Jean is her back on the same park bench where she sat with her sister just before she was taken away. After some quiet contemplation, we see Jean getting on a bus; although no destination is shown, the rural, autumnal landscape she passes through has led some fans to theorize she's already making her way to the Xavier Institute, which is located in Westchester County, Upstate New York. We know a full "X-Men" reboot is on the way, but it might be a little while longer before we pick up that thread, considering the characters from the Fox X-Men movies are getting a last hurrah in the upcoming "Avengers: Doomsday."

One figure introduced in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" who could play a significant part in the X-Men reboot is Bill Metzger, the director of Damage Control played by the Emmy-winning "Severance" star Tramell Tillman. The character isn't affiliated with Damage Control in the comics, where the institution is focused on cleaning up the mess caused by superhero battles and doesn't grow into an authoritarian institution pulling anybody with superpowers off the streets. Instead, William "Bill" Metzger only appears in the "X-Men" comics storyline "Children of the Atom," where he's introduced as a vocal anti-mutant activist who publishes his own anti-mutant propaganda newspaper and even leads a militia designed to track them down.

In "Children of the Atom" (which was actually an early title for the animated show "X-Men: Evolution"), Bill reveals that his militia has support from the FBI in their objectives, which is the closest parallel to his characterization on the big screen; "Brand New Day" has him using a government agency's resources to push his anti mutant agenda and also further his own political aspirations. Throughout the six "X-Men" issues in which he appears, we come to learn that Bill's spearheading an initiative called The Trenton Project, in which he kept someone with a genetic mutation locked behind closed doors to try and utilize their powers to make an anti-mutant weapon. That plan failed when Magneto turned up and hurled Bill into space, with his militia crumbling without a leader. Tillman's Bill is nowhere to be found after being right next to Peter during his attack, so the door remains open for his MCU return.

The last we see of Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner is him being carried away on a stretcher after a Savage Hulk outburst, a result of him being split from the inhibitor we see him wearing earlier during his Empire State University lecture. Ruffalo hasn't been confirmed to play a part in any future Marvel projects, which makes sense; Bruce will want to resume his quiet life as a professor after Hulking out for the first time in years here, and who could blame him? But Peter being influenced by his inhibitor to create a Universal Inhibitor, designed to neutralize the non-human DNA cells inside a superhero, will continue to have vast consequences.

Even before putting his plan into action, Bruce tells him that any device with this impact is tantamount to playing God — the world needs superheroes, and this technology getting in the wrong hands effectively neuters that. This argument is echoed when MJ sees Peter continuing to experiment with his universal inhibitor at Frank's place, with the MIT graduate warning about the grave implications of technology that could control "a monster," regardless of his personal justification for needing it at this time. 

Thankfully for Peter and everyone else, the device doesn't fall into the wrong hands here, but the focus on the universal inhibitor feels like it's setting up a future obstacle for an MCU hero. We don't see what happens to Bill Metzger, so we can't rule out that he managed to swipe the universal inhibitor that was being used on Jean before he bolted from the Damage Control facility. A device that could suppress all mutant DNA would be a big first obstacle for the new X-Men to face, that's for sure.

Earlier in the film, MJ discovered the letter Peter had written to her, where he poured his heart out about their shared past he made the world forget. She believes him but can't offer more solace than that; she doesn't have the memories which would make her love him, even as she doesn't doubt it. The picture she draws of him and Ned in their apartment shows she can picture that close friendship, too, even if she doesn't recollect it. As Peter and Ned engage in their secret handshake which may or may not rejog his memories of their history together, we see MJ return to the rooftop where she last sat with Peter and Ned in "Spider-Man: No Way Home," clutching the Black Dahlia necklace Peter got her as a gift in "Spider-Man: Far From Home." Does she remember more than she's letting on?

It's an evocative end to their deeply emotional arc in this movie, but one which ultimately doesn't change where they stand. MJ knows that she's had core memories removed by the boy she loved and has the physical evidence that their relationship wasn't just a figment of Peter's imagination. Was her returning to that familiar location also a kind of muscle memory reaction? Of course, she has a still-unnamed and seemingly-jerky boyfriend to deal with first, but this ending suggests she's open to exploring whether her feelings towards Peter could still be the same even without that first-hand knowledge of their history.

Tom Holland isn't officially signed up for any future Marvel projects, although he has said he wants to continue making "Spider-Man" movies for as long as he's wanted. The emotional endings with Ned and MJ allude to how their relationships will develop in a likely fifth movie, especially after Peter accepted that he no longer needed to do things on his own, but the only hint at a big threat in a future sequel is the ongoing presence of the universal inhibitor — though using it as a weapon against Peter would diminish the impact of him rejecting it to fight off The Hand here.

For those of you who stayed through the credits of "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," the post-credits scene sees Ned's Spidey tracker charting Peter disappearing from New York and arriving in the far reaches of outer space, which doesn't exactly hint at a continuation of his relationship arcs in the Big Apple. However, this could be revealing that Spider-Man will play a part in either "Avengers: Doomsday" or "Avengers: Secret Wars."

In the 2015 "Secret Wars" comics, Doctor Doom brings together heroes and villains from numerous timelines for a big multiversal fight, creating his own planet called Battleworld (not the most imaginative name, we know) where each conflict will take place. We have some details about the "Secret Wars" movie, but the plot remains unknown. However, if it's going to stay true to the comic, that offers an explanation as to why characters from across the multiverse (like Steve Rogers, who popped up at the end of the trailer for "Avengers: Doomsday") are being brought together.