Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Rising to the challenge.

The fourth Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has officially become the film with the highest grossing opening weekend of all time, surpassing Avengers: Endgame (2019) and going on to break more box office records across its run. The success of the film is remarkable given the challenge of following the very brilliant Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), a struggling MCU franchise, and general ‘superhero fatigue’ at the box office. As a creator, as a writer, I’m interested in how the story on screen helped to overcome all these obstacles.

Spoiler Warning     

Summary of the film

In the wake of Doctor Strange’s spell to make the world forget Peter Parker to restore the boundaries between the universes, Peter has decided to live alone to protect his loved ones, embracing life fighting crime in New York as Spider-Man.

When the Department of Damage Control is targeted, Spider-Man encounters a new villain with the ability to mind-hop and possess people; someone searching for a code phrase ‘v-max’ according to the New Avengers’ Black Widow, Yelena Belova. The Director of Damage Control, Bill Metzgar denies knowing what the code phrase references and asks Spider-Man to help them.

Meanwhile, MJ and Ned move back to New York following their graduation from MIT. Peter follows Ned back to a housewarming party the pair are throwing and sees how they’ve moved on with their lives without him. He is hurt when faced with the love of his life, MJ, kissing her boyfriend. The emotional trauma accelerates a secondary mutation of Peter’s spider abilities.

Although he tries to manage them, he creates a lot of damage taking down a possessed Scorpion which makes him seek out Bruce Banner for advice. Peter takes the idea of Banner’s Hulk suppressor and creates an inhibitor, both for himself and his mind-hopping opponent. But before he can them to work fully, the mysterious opponent threatens MJ.

Peter seemingly rescues MJ and is momentarily convinced that MJ remembers him, sharing a loving kiss with her, only for the mind-hopper to reveal she is possessing MJ and forcing Peter to save MJ. He takes her to hideout with the Punisher where they fix the inhibitors and identify the mind-hopper as Jean Grey.

Peter goes to Damage Control and finds that Jean Grey has taken over Banner in his Professor Hulk mode. He and Punisher fight the Hulk and eventually Peter manages to get the inhibitor on Jean. She mutters the name Sara as she loses consciousness. She is taken away by Damage Control.

Back at the hideout, MJ finds the old note Peter had written to practice telling her about him following the spell. She confronts him and tells him the spell worked; she doesn’t remember him; she doesn’t love him because she doesn’t know him. He takes her home and MJ invites him in to see Ned. He spends time with her and Ned reconnecting with them even though Ned still does not know who he is.

Then, he finds out that Sara is Jean’s sister and realising Metzgar lied to him, deduces that Jean’s motivation was about finding her sister. He goes to find Jean, MJ accidentally giving away his name is Peter to Ned. He fights his way into the building where Jean is being held and tortured by Damage Control. Jean realises that Damage Control killed her sister and her powers grow with the trauma and grief.

Peter takes off his inhibitor and embraces being both Peter and Spider-Man to win the fight and face her. He manages to get through to her via a memory of Aunt May comforting him and giving him advice. Just as he and Jean connect, Punisher shoots to take Jean out and save the innocent people she’s frozen through her mind-control. Peter saves her and gets shot.

Jean and Punisher work together to get Peter to hospital where Punisher protects his identity. Peter recovers and comes across Ned in a local café. He introduces himself as Peter and they do their friendship handshake. Ned realises that ‘Peter’ is Spider-Man.        

Overall review

My extended review can be found here. In summary, I loved the film.

Not going to lie – its predecessor still holds the top position in my heart, but it is a very good Spider-Man film and certainly it jumps up to 2^nd place.

The production is stellar with an eye given to quality at all levels; everything from the set design to the costumes; from the score to the stunts.

The story works thematically. Peter is lonely. He has sacrificed his friendships to keep them safe, an action rooted in love and the loss of his Aunt May. Jean Grey is also lonely and her motivation is rooted in love for her sister, in trying to protect her after her sister sacrificed herself to keep Jean safe.

There is also an exploration of ‘who is the bad guy’ as the Department of Damage Control is acting in a clearly unethical way and doing problematic things yet Jean for all her purer motivation also does some very unethical and problematic things. Punisher also adds to this as his methods are arguably unethical and problematic. Banner ends up in his Original Hulk form driven by instincts; not necessarily a bad guy but still not a good guy in that moment. Even Peter is shown as not entirely unproblematic as he fights when his powers are not under his control and MJ faces him with the fact that he robbed her and Ned of their agency when he made his choice.

Still, Peter’s problematic issues do not detract from the fact that he is a hero. He sacrifices himself, saves Jean, saves the city, and in the end decides to save himself through embracing his friendships once more.

 Key reflections

Understanding the character

The movie is a love letter to the character of Peter Parker, and his superhero alter ego Spider-Man.

In this, it feels like a continuation of the love letter of the previous film, a true sequel in tone almost as though No Way Home and Brand New Day were always meant to be a duology about the real origin story of Spider-Man in the MCU, and the reconciliation of who Peter was in the previous films before them.  

Moreover, given the rich comic book history of Spider-Man and how beloved that version of the character is to Marvel fans, the movie centres on what fans love about Peter, addressing the complaints of previous outings without necessarily being overly obvious it.

Peter is alone. He keeps his secret identity in order to protect loved ones. He fights crime in New York as a street level hero. He creates his own tech and suit. With the secondary mutation we see him relearning his powers and control. At the heart of it, he is a good person, trying to always do the right thing, always trying to help people, always trying to save people.

This is the Peter Parker/Spider-Man which audiences wanted to see after the promise and tease of it at the end of No Way Home, following the years of being associated with the Avengers, and being mentored and supported by Tony Stark and his tech.

Yet the story also brings Peter full circle in his journey as he reconnects to the wider world again; he seeks help from the New Avengers and Bruce Banner which is counterbalanced by seeking help from the Punisher (another street level hero) and being helped by the New York Detective who is his contact in the New York Police Department; he finally reintroduces himself to MJ and Ned, and he and MJ have the long-awaited reunion he promised her in No Way Home.  

At the end of the film, Peter is still a lonely young man behind the mask, but he now has the promise of a newly reinvigorated support system, even if things are not perfectly back in place (he and MJ are not miraculously back together).

A human challenge

The imperfection of Peter’s life is always at the heart of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man narrative, and it gives the character a relatability that resonates with people at a human level.

He is a character who is perpetually painted as being on the outside of the popular kids, outside of the image of the picture perfect life people are supposed to aspire to (suburbs, kids, relationship, steady job). His life is a struggle, an outsider trying to fit in, and that connects with people because many of us consider ourselves in that same way.

He is also someone who experiences loss and grief. While Far From Home explored Peter’s grief at losing his mentor, in Brand New Day we see how the loss of May in No Way Home has shaped him even more. The two films are a contrast. In Far From Home, Peter wanted to stop being Spider-Man in the wake of losing Tony, to just be Peter Parker. In Brand New Day, he has embraced being Spider-Man at the expense of being Peter Parker to keep his loved ones safe. People resonate with the feeling of losing someone, of grieving, of reacting and making choices for right or wrong in the wake of loss.

And his choices do lead to Peter making mistakes which hurt Peter, but also others such as MJ and Ned. His choice not to tell them about their friendship robbed them of their agency to make their own choice about it, and of the years of friendship which they would have enjoyed with Peter.

His choice to make a mutation inhibitor may end up hurting others and have many implications for the wider MCU.

Not afraid of complexity

The story embraces complexity.

There is the complexity of Peter’s individual story at the heart of it, but there are also other elements which layer further complexity into the story such as the inhibitor.

Peter’s reason to create it is personal as he needs to find a quick way to deal with his secondary mutation as he cannot control it fast enough for him to still be able to operate as a superhero in the ‘now.’ Yet the implications of having a universal inhibitor are shown in the movie; others will use it, not only to stop a mutant from harming people but to control mutants full stop. As the MCU seeks to introduce the X-Men, the themes the inhibitor introduces (and potentially the inhibitor itself) lays the groundwork for the future narrative; mutants can be dangerous to humans but humans can be dangerous to mutants.

The idea of ‘who is the bad guy really’ poses a philosophical, societal and ethical question to the audience. Damage Control kidnapped Jean’s sister off the street, put her through unethical experimentation trying to recreate her powers scientifically which caused her death. Jean possesses people without their consent and doesn’t really care about the collateral damage of her actions as she seeks to find her sister. Punisher prefers to kill people who are doing the wrong thing rather than save them.

We also see in Punisher and Jean the imperfection of their lives, the loneliness they have, and how their love, loss and grief is shaping their choices. They are not a perfect mirror for Peter, but there is enough thematic similarity to resonate.

This complexity in the narrative – the wider implications of the story’s events, the questions it poses and the repetition of theme with other characters – it all creates a richness and depth which doesn’t just make for a satisfying movie, it develops a want to watch it again and again.

Concluding thoughts

Character construction is a critical element in writing. Bringing a character to life on the page (real or virtual) is an art. Sometimes the character will leave and breathe in the writer’s own heart and head but somehow fail to resonate with people.

The reason why many writers drift to fanfiction to practice the craft is because characters are fully formed already. That’s not to say every fanfiction writer succeeds still in bringing them to life in the story they write, but it does take away one of the major challenges of writing.

Knowing your character inside and out is essential. Maybe you meet your character on the way through multiple drafts or maybe you get to know them before you even begin to write about them. But this knowledge of who the character is vital.

Understanding how to make the character relatable in some way is also essential in character construction. Or alternatively how to make the character aspirational. While a generalisation, readers who feel some kind of connection to the character will want to read about their journey, will want to return and re-read.

Finally, layering complexity into the narrative also helps to bring the reader back to the story over and over; themes, the supporting characters and their purpose in the story, societal or ethical questions, story beats with future implications.

I believe all of these elements in the story told in Spider-Man: Brand New Day are at the centre of why it has become a huge success and risen to the challenge it faced.

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