For all of its recent faults, the MCU has (almost) always done a remarkably good job with its adaptations. The franchise has found a lot of success over the years by taking core narrative elements of beloved comic book stories and blending them together with the film universe’s own continuity in a way that is suited for movies, but still respects the history of the characters and books that made them icons.
It doesn’t always work (Thor: Love and Thunder) but the majority of the adaptation-heavy Marvel movies have. In some cases, the MCU versions are significantly better than the source material. If you’ve ever heard about Thanos lusting after the Grim Reaper during The Infinity Gauntlet, you know what I’m talking about.
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I love the way the MCU adapts famous storylines like Civil War and Iron Man: Extremis (though I don’t love the way it neglects to give the original creators credit and compensation) and I believe the franchise’s best chance of survival is to continue mining the best ideas from the history of Marvel comics – as long as the source material makes a good fit for the stories Marvel Studios wants to tell.
With next year’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the MCU is trading on a title that fans have strong, often negative opinions about. This may be one case where drawing a connection to the comics isn’t going to help the film succeed.
One More Day Becomes No Way Home
Until its final moments, 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home has almost no connection to the infamous 2007 comic book Spider-Man: One More Day. That was a wise decision, as the multiversal crowd-pleasing No Way Home fared much better than the controversial No Way Home, which saw Peter Parker make a deal with the devil to save Aunt May’s life in exchange for his life with Mary Jane.
There are a lot of reasons people don’t like One More Day – more than I have time to get into here – but to oversimplify: Marvel decided it was time to give Spider-Man a reset, and it did so in a clumsy way that felt disrespectful to fans. Spider-Man was married, Aunt May was dead, and thanks to the Superhuman Registration Act, his identity had been exposed to the world. Marvel wanted to take Spider-Man back to a simpler time (and create a nice jumping-on point for new readers in the process), so it used One More Day to rewind the clock, tearing Peter and Mary Jane apart, bringing Aunt May back to life, and giving Spider-Man his secret identity back.
In No Way Home, Peter tries to make a similar deal with the devil (this time with Doctor Strange rather than Mephisto), which causes a series of multiversal shenanigans, as well as Aunt May’s Death. Unlike One More Day, Peter doesn’t just change the timeline; he erases himself from it. While Spider-Man’s history ostensibly remains the same, Peter Parker has been completely erased from everyone’s memory. No Way Home is not an adaptation of One More Day, but it echoes it in a way that many great MCU movies do.
Spider-Man 4 Is Brand New Day, Or Is It?
For Spider-Man 4, the MCU is picking up at the same place the comic books did after One More Day with a new story called Brand New Day. By sharing its title, the MCU is setting a certain expectation among comic fans. This won’t just echo a comic; it will be an adaptation of one, in the same way that The First Avenger, Winter Soldier, and Ragnarok are adaptations of their own namesakes. That’s a fine proposition, but is Spider-Man 4 really equipped to take on Brand New Day, or is it making a mistake by borrowing the title?
Brand New Day was the back-to-basics era for Spider-Man. Beginning in 2008’s issue #546, Peter is living with Aunt May and on the hunt for an affordable place to live. He’s in an on-again off-again relationship with MJ that is definitely off-again at the moment, and Peter once again finds himself snapping photos of Spider-Man for the Daily Bugle while reveling in his new-found anonymity. It’s as much of a comic book reset as there’s ever been, canonically retconning more than a decade of Spider-Man’s history to bring him back to a status quo that is most familiar to casual fans.
This was Marvel’s plan to revitalize Spidey, and it’s a move that’s arguably necessary for the never-ending format of comic book storytelling, but do we have any reason to think the MCU has a similar agenda? Are we in need of a reset for Holland’s Spider-Man just three solo movies in, and if so, how do we square that with the big multiverse-spanning Avengers event films Spider-Man 4 will clearly tie into?
What Does MCU’s One More Day Look Like?
I don’t imagine One More Day will be any kind of real fresh start for Peter Parker or Spider-Man. Yes, the world has forgotten Peter Parker in the MCU, but that feels more like a problem to solve rather than a quick way to get Spidey back to basics.
I can see some connections manifesting in small ways. Peter has to learn to stand on his own without the resources of Stark Industries, or even his man in the chair having his back. He may discover his love of being Spider-Man again, which is something we’ve never really gotten from the film version of the character. There will be echoes of the One More Day run in the movie certainly, but you can’t take on a book’s title unless you’re willing to take on the identity of that book as well.
And that just doesn’t seem possible. This is the fourth MCU Spider-Man movie – likely Holland’s last – and it’s sandwiched right in the middle of Avengers: Doomsday and Secret War. There are rumors that Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Mans will return again, and even if that’s not the case, there’s just no way this is going to be a smaller, more personal Spider-Man movie at this point.
It can’t be. It would be a huge missed opportunity to build off of what came before and raise the stakes on the new Avengers duology, which is in desperate need of some stakes raising. One More Day would be a great way to introduce a new Spider-Man actor post-Secret War without breaking continuity, but calling Spider-Man 4 One More Day makes me think Marvel Studios either doesn’t get the point of the book, or just doesn’t care.
Marvel Cinematic Universe