Don’t Mention the M Word: Are mutant X-Men about to appear en masse in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? | film

TThis was a time when even mentioning the term “mutant” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was frowned upon. Rival studio 20th Century Fox owns the rights to the X-Men and with it the whole idea of ​​a parallel branch of humanity, meaning superheroes are contractually obligated to get their powers from elsewhere. Radiation accidents, experimental serums, Infinity Stones, and an unusually committed spider bite: Marvel has tried them all, but left the mutation alone. Sometimes, comic book icons like Scarlet Witch have been retconned in the MCU to remove their X-gene origins, but more often than not, the idea of ​​mutation itself seems to have been cast under narrative stone — as if this were a door the studio had quietly agreed not to open.

This week saw the record-breaking release of the first teaser 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 films, while several mutants have appeared in post-credit scenes and brief multiverse diversions. Now it looks like Spidey is approaching the same area.

The new trailer sees Peter Parker making his way in a world where no one knows who he is. Ned and MJ ignore the fact that he’s Spider-Man, and don’t even remember his face, thanks to a memory-wiping spell cast by Doctor Strange at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home. But that’s not his biggest problem, because the wall-crawler seems to be turning into something more like a spider: organic webs are everywhere, and if that doesn’t sound too bad (after all, Tobey Maguire’s Spidey had them), there’s something far more sinister about those red and black eyes. It’s as if David Cronenberg has suddenly landed in the MCU, bringing with him several very unpleasant ideas about what it means when human DNA starts experimenting with alternate arrangements.

Coupled with the widely circulated rumors that Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink could play a young Jean Gray in Brand New Day, this all feels like the MCU is trying to take out the M-word in the mirror to see if it fits or not. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner (who’s now pretty interesting) even warns Parker that DNA mutation could be “incredibly dangerous.” Did Spidey become an X-Man? Is this the alien symbiote that Venom/Eddie Brock left behind causing what now appears to be called “mutation”? Or is this all just Marvel smoke and mirrors, designed to blur the definition of “mutant” before anyone can agree on what it actually means?

This probably isn’t a huge setback, but it could be a sneaky prelude to a major event that will see mutants arrive en masse in the MCU. Then again, this could just be another popular Marvel tease, similar to the bit in Iron Man 3 where we thought we’d just met the Mandarin, only to discover we’d actually been introduced to a drunken British actor named Trevor. There’s talk that the trailer might hide the presence of other superheroes in the film, just as early footage for No Way Home pretended to boast just one Spider-Man.

What’s certain here is that Marvel spent years carefully cordoning off the word “mutant” like a fragile legacy, only to have Banner and Parker casually chat about DNA forgery in the new trailer. Does Sync’s Jean Gray seem to be under the hood controlling everyone’s minds? Is the giant about to leave the building?

There have been suggestions that Brand New Day will return Spidey to the kind of street-level crime fighting he’s mostly known for in the comics, which seems like a necessary reset after the multiverse overload of No Way Home. The presence of Scorpion, Punisher, and Hand seems to confirm that this is a movie where the Wallcrawler won’t be repairing timelines or punching gods. However, all this talk of mutations seems almost paradoxically leaning in the opposite direction, which is the expanding direction of the universe.

It’s definitely interesting. But the danger here has to do with what happens to the word “mutant” if Marvel starts using it more loosely. In the comics, the X-Men are a distinct branch of humanity with built-in differences that often come with consequences. If this same language is now applied to anyone undergoing dramatic biological rethinking, the danger is that by the time Professor X and his colleagues arrive, their distinctive traits will have already been quietly redirected. No longer will they be a separate, fearsome minority, but rather the latest arrivals in a long and growing list of people — almost all of them superheroes, in fact — having a rough day.