Did "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" Introduce a New Spider Hero?

Marvel's Spider-Man: Brand New Day hit theaters this weekend and fans are buzzing about a lot of different topics from the film. There are several different ways this latest entry can have a giant impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there is one that is flying a bit under the radar. Could we have seen the next spider hero in this movie?

Minor Spider-Man: Brand New Day spoilers ahead!

Let me preface all of this by saying, Marvel loves to mess with us. After nearly two decades of this, they know we are going to over analyze every last detail in each an ever movie, series, short, trailer and anything else they choose to release. So it wouldn't be surprising if everything we're about to dive into was put into this movie simply to send us further down the rabbit hole.

With that being said, it certainly seems as though Spider-Man: Brand New Day introduces us Cindy Moon.

In one brief scene, we see Dr. Bruce Banner teaching a class at Empire State University. As he tries to go through his lesson, a female Asian-American student raises her hand. Banner refers to her as Cindy and asks if her question is going to be about the lesson or another question about the Avengers. Spoiler alert: it's about the Avengers.

That's really all we have to go off of here, but really, it's enough to make me believe it's certainly not a coincidence. A young, Asian-American woman named Cindy showing up in a Spider-Man movie is more than enough to get those fans looking for the nearest keyboard. Obviously, me being one of them.

So why does this matter? Who is Cindy? There are plenty of spider-based heroes in the Marvel universe, but Cindy Moon, who goes by the alias of Silk, is among the most popular. So much so that Amazon was developing a series for the character, though it was eventually canceled before it was shot.

Silk made her Marvel Comics debut in 2014 before getting her own series a year later. She has since gone on to be the subject of several more series and has appeared in a number of crossover events as well.

As for the character herself, she has your typical spider powers: web-slinging, wall-crawling, all of the fun stuff. She had a brief romantic relationship with Peter Parker and has teamed with him and other heroes on numerous occasions. And, probably not coincidentally, she was temporarily killed in the incursion that wiped out both Earth-616 and Earth-1610 in the events leading up to "Secret Wars." Of course, Avengers: Secret Wars is on the upcoming slate of films, set to follow Avengers: Doomsday.

So whether this was a tease of Silk's eventual appearance in the MCU or just another red herring designed to get us nerds composing our own head canon, it seems pretty clear that Silk is at least on Marvel Studios' radar.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.