"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" Trailer Breakdown: The Comic Easter Eggs, Mystery Characters and Much More

They kept us waiting a surprisingly long time for a massive movie opening relatively soon, in July, but the first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day is finally here. And does it have a bunch of cool references and stuff to speculate on? Of course it does!

After several quick teases throughout Tuesday, the full Brand New Day trailer arrived Wednesday morning, giving us our first real look at the return of Tom Holland's Spider-Man in what looks to be a jam-packed movie also featuring Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, and a bevy of supervillains - and even some mystery characters.

So let's dig into some of the many aspects of this trailer that jumped out!

Good Old, Bummed Out Spider-Man

Brand New Day takes place four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home, but the trailer makes it clear Peter Parker is still living the solitary life set up at the end of that film, where he had Doctor Strange cast a spell to make everyone forget Peter's identity - and by extension, that they ever knew him. The trailer's depiction of Peter watching his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Batalon) from afar not only continues this, but also feels right at home for the often melancholy, nothing ever goes right for Peter vibes of many a classic Spider-Man story.

On top of that, the trailer reinforces No Way Home's tease that the MCU Spider-Man has fully transformed into the more scaled down, street level hero many fans had been hoping he would be, after his nano-tech, Tony Stark-backed adventures in earlier films. Seeing Peter washing his homemade Spider-Man costume in a dumpy looking apartment building basement certainly underlines this classic take on the character.

Organic Web-Shooters?

A notable sequence in the trailer finds Peter awakening in confusion, find himself within a web cocoon up against a building. He panics, realizing he doesn't have his web-shooters on, but then when he begins to fall, we see he somehow is able to save himself, accompanied by a sound effect that sure sounds like a Spider-Man web. While kept oh-so slightly vague, this sure seems to lean towards Peter developing organic web-shooters in this movie.

This would be an amusing turn of events, because the idea of Spider-Man with organic web-shooters, rather than a device Peter built, was introduced in Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie in 2002 as a rather polarizing, much-debated change to the character. And as popular as Tobey Maguire's take on Spider-Man was, future live-action incarnations with Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland notably returned to the manmade web-shooters. So will we now see things go a bit full circle with our cinematic Spider-Men here?

Also it's worth noting that all of these references to something odd happening to Peter and a potential metamorphosis he and his powers are going through feel like they are (very) loosely based on the 2006 comic book story "The Other."

The Spider-Man / Punisher Dynamic

We knew The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) would be in this movie, but the trailer gives us our first indication of how he might fit in. And interestingly, rather than us seeing a more openly hostile first meeting between the two -- which certainly could still occur early on -- what we get shows two guys who already have some form of pre-established relationship, complete with Spider-Man calling Punisher "Frank." We also see Spidey trying to curtail Frank's murderous approach to crimefighting, which very much lines up with their comic book encounters, where they have been allies, but also frequently see each other as obstacles in the way of those they are pursuing thanks to their very different philosophies.

All in all, it's a very fun element to include, especially given Punisher first appeared in an Amazing Spider-Man comic and most of his early appearances were alongside Spidey.

Did They Just Sorta Spoil Daredevil: Born Again?

Jon Bernthal's version of Punisher was first introduced via the Daredevil series on Netflix, and Bernthal reprised that role last year on Daredevil: Born Again. In a recent interview with Black Girl Nerds, Born Again EP Sana Amanat had both confirmed Brand New Day will take place after Born Again Season 2 (which premieres next week) and that there were additional characters from that series in the film besides Punisher.

A quick moment in the trailer sure seems to be telling us one of those, since that appears to be Born Again cast member Zabryna Guevara as her Daredevil character, Sheila Rivera, giving Spider-Man the key to the city. However, given the Born Again storyline right now involves Wilson Fisk as the Mayor of New York and staunchly anti-vigilante, this sure looks like things will have changed by the time Brand New Day takes place. Then again, the Born Again creators haven't been shy about saying the Mayor Fisk story will conclude in Season 2, so...

ESU

When Peter approaches a certain college professor (more on him in a second), he's wearing an Empire State University hoodie. ESU is the fictional school Peter attended in the comics, and which he's presumably either now attending in the MCU or posing as a student at to get info. And for Marvel Comics obsessives, it's nice to see ESU in the movies, after the Sam Raimi films had Peter attending Columbia instead.

Professor Banner

We knew Mark Ruffalo was in Brand New Day as Bruce Banner/Hulk, but the trailer lets us know how he first enters the story, and gives us an update on his status. Turns out Bruce is an ESU professor now, who Peter approaches for help (whether Peter is actually in his class or not is unclear).

And for those wondering, the device on Bruce's arm looks to be the latest version of the Hulk inhibitor device we first saw Bruce wearing in his cameo during the mid-credits scene of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where he was back to human again -- after we'd seen him only in his evolved, fully intelligent Hulk form in Avengers: Endgame -- but with his arm in a sling and the device on his other wrist. In She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, we learned Bruce made this device so he could physically transform back into Bruce again in the hope of it healing the damage done to his arm from using Tony Stark's Infinity Gauntlet in Endgame. It worked, and his arm healed, but Bruce has used the device again on occasion when he wants to appear in a less Hulk-like form.

Scorpion

It took nine years, but Michael Mando is finally back in a Spider-Man movie, suited up as the supervillain comic book fans had been waiting for since he played Mac Gargan in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming. In that movie, Mac was a criminal sporting a scorpion tattoo, who had a vendetta against Spider-Man by the end of the film. But Scorpion is one of Spider-Man's oldest foes in the comics, so it's awesome to finally see the MCU version of Mac suited up, giant tail included, as his alter-ego.

Tarantula

We get some quick glimpses of other new (to the MCU) villains here, in what it's easy to suspect is likely part of a montage sequence letting us know that Spidey has been busy battling plenty of supervillains through the years. This includes the character Tarantula, sporting a version of the bladed boots that are his weapon of choice since his debut in 1976.

Boomerang

And then there's Boomerang, a villain who supplements his trick boomerangs with flying boot jets. And if you don't know comic books well, but do remember Captain Boomerang from the Suicide Squad movies, yep, it's amusingly true - both Marvel and DC have supervillains whose gimmick is they throw boomerangs. And yes, they're both from Australia.

The Hand

A surprise inclusion here is this gang of ninjas we see multiple shots of near the trailers end. Unless there's some odd, unneeded swerve, their red costumes would indicate this is The Hand - even though they didn't sport such comic accurate costumes in their previous live-action appearances in Daredevil and The Defenders (but it's best to mostly forget about Defenders...). Though they are mostly connected to Daredevil and Elektra in the comics, which was also the case in their TV appearances, they have certainly battled other Marvel heroes through the years.

...and in case you don't know, they were the basis for the name and overall vibes of The Foot clan in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was mostly riffing on Frank Miller-written comics when it began in the 1980s (Miller was the writer who created The Hand when he wrote Daredevil).

But wait a second, why is Peter unmasked in that one shot with them above!? Peter, are you going to need to call Doctor Strange again!?

MJ's New Boyfriend

Peter is less than thrilled to see MJ is dating someone. We don't get any info on him, but that's Eman Esfandi, who plays Ezra Bridger on Star Wars: Ahsoka, playing the role. Recent Spider-Man comics had a, ahem, less than beloved character named Paul dating Mary Jane Watson, so it would be funny if that turned out to be Esfandi's character here.

Mystery Role #1: Sadie Sink

Though Brand New Day opens in just four months, this is the film's very first trailer. Though not labeled a "Teaser," it feels like one in many respects, including not showing us all of the main cast yet. The most notable face it excludes is Sadie Sink, considering the Stranger Things star is the third-billed actor in the cast (after only Tom Holland and Zendaya) and yet she's not seen in the trailer at all... Or is she? The multiple glimpses pf a hooded figure in a long coat are quite likely Sink, especially given they hint at someone of great significance to the story.

Rumors abound to who Sink is playing, but a popular theory is the X-Men's Jean Grey. A lot of that could just be fan speculation run rampant, simply sparked by Sink's red hair and the fact that we know a new MCU version of the X-Men is in the works from Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier means having her show up in that role here would make sense, timing-wise, if they wanted to set up an important part of the team early. But for now, all of that is still up in the air. But if that's Sink in the shots above, it does feel like her character will have an antagonistic role in the film of some sort.

Mystery Role #2: Tramell Tillman

Severance breakout Tillman has another mystery role in Brand New Day, though we do see him in the trailer - and the closed captions identify him as "Bill." Bill is seen seated behind a desk, speaking to Spider-Man (in full costume). We hear Tillman say "We are faced with a danger that we can't control. One we can't even see," indicating he's someone else Peter goes to for help.

Mystery Role #3: Keith David

Many were rightfully excited to hear one of the best voices in film and TV, the great Keith David, in the trailer for Brand New Day, despite him never having been announced for the film. His dialogue hints at him being another person with great insight into what's occurring to Peter - and perhaps involved in it? -- as he intones "Spiders have three life cycles. When between cycles. it can leave the spider vulnerable to threats. And for those spiders who make it through, it amounts to a kind of... rebirth."

David is a welcome presence in anything, and there's some nice history here because he's voiced some Marvel characters before in animation, an FBI agent in the MTV Spider-Man series and the Spidey villain Tombstone in the first episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man. And speaking of that...

Still MIA: Tombstone

In a trailer packed with villains, we notably never see Tombstone, who will be played by Marvin Jones III, the same actor who voices the character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Usually a criminal mastermind (albeit except in Spider-Verse, where he's a flunky for Kingpin), it feels less likely Tombstone would merely be used in a fight montage, but we'll have to see how he fits into the story.

What's With This Lady?

An intriguing moment in the trailer has Spider-Man tear open a tank, only to find this unassuming older woman inside - before we get a moment that insinuates someone is mind controlling her and then hopping through the minds of the soldiers surrounding Spidey.

The fact that mind control may play a part in the story isn't exactly dissuading those Jean Grey rumors, of course...

That's Probably Not Rogue

Look, I get the instant online reactions. We see a quick glimpse of a girl with brown hair with white stripes up front - and she's even wearing a green shirt! So could that be the X-Men's Rogue?! Anything is possible, but probably not. As in, it's very very doubtful this unknown actress is the person who will be the MCU's Rogue going forward. But is it an intentional visual nod to the character? That seems more likely. Especially if it turns out this movie is playing into any sort of X-Men/mutant build up, depending on if Sink is playing Jean or not.

Those Cover Homages

Lastly, it's gratifying to see several moments in the trailer -- that again, likely all come from some sort of "Catching up with Spidey" montage -- that have direct visual nods to the comic books. This includes the shots of him fighting Tarantula and Boomerang, and also the shot of him carrying someone, which of course goes all the way back to Spider-Man's very appearance in 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15.

Hopefully there might be more of these in the movie, perhaps for Punisher, Hulk, Scorpion and Tombstone?

We'll find out when Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31, 2026.