{"id":339496,"date":"2026-03-20T17:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339496\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T17:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:39:08","slug":"dont-mention-the-m-word-are-mutant-x-men-about-to-show-up-en-masse-in-spider-man-brand-new-day-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/339496\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t mention the M-word: are mutant X-Men about to show up en masse in Spider-Man: Brand New Day? | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when the mere mention of the term \u201cmutant\u201d in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was frowned upon. Rival studio 20th Century Fox<\/a> owned the rights to the X-Men and with it the whole idea of a parallel branch of humanity, which meant superheroes were contractually obliged to have received their powers from somewhere else. Radioactive accidents, experimental serums, infinity stones, the bite of an unusually committed arachnid: Marvel tried them all, but left the mutation thing alone. Occasionally, comic book icons such as Scarlet Witch were retconned in the MCU to remove their X-gene origins, but for the most part, the very notion of mutation seemed to be placed under narrative quarantine \u2013 as if this were a door the studio had quietly agreed not to open.<\/p>\n

This week saw the record-breaking release<\/a> of the debut teaser trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/a>, and it was immediately clear that something had changed. We all know the X-Men are coming to the MCU<\/a>: Deadpool and Wolverine<\/a> have already had their own movies, while various mutants have turned up in post-credit scenes and brief multiversal detours. Now Spidey seems to be edging close to the same territory.<\/p>\n

The new promo sees Peter Parker making his way in a world where nobody knows who he is. Ned and MJ are oblivious to the fact he\u2019s Spider-Man, and don\u2019t even remember his face, thanks to the memory-wipe spell Doctor Strange cast at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home<\/a>. But this is far from his biggest problem, because the wallcrawler seems to be transforming into something a lot more arachnid-like: organic webs are everywhere, and if that doesn\u2019t seem so bad (Tobey Maguire\u2019s Spidey had them, after all), there\u2019s something far more sinister about those red and black eyes. It\u2019s as if David Cronenberg has suddenly touched down in the MCU, bringing with him several deeply unpleasant ideas about what it means when human DNA starts experimenting with alternative arrangements.<\/p>\n

Coupled with widespread rumours that Stranger Things\u2019 Sadie Sink<\/a> could be playing a young Jean Grey in Brand New Day, this all feels a lot like the MCU trying the M-word out in the mirror to see if it fits. Mark Ruffalo\u2019s Bruce Banner (now intriguingly de-Hulked) even warns Parker that mutating DNA could be \u201cincredibly dangerous\u201d. Is Spidey becoming an X-Man? Is this the alien symbiote left behind by Venom\/Eddie Brock<\/a> causing what now seems to be termed a \u201cmutation\u201d? Or is this all simply Marvel smoke and mirrors, designed to blur the definition of \u201cmutant\u201d before anyone has agreed what it actually means?<\/p>\n

Sadie Sink is rumoured to be playing a young Jean Grey in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Photograph: John Lamparski\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The chances are that this is not a massive retcon, but it could be the sly prelude to a main event that will see mutants arrive en masse in the MCU. Then again, this could just be another of Marvel\u2019s famous teases, akin to the bit in Iron Man 3 in which we thought we had just met the Mandarin, only to discover we had in actual fact been introduced to a drunken British actor named Trevor. There is talk that the trailer might be masking the presence of other superheroes in the film<\/a>, just as early footage of No Way Home pretended it only boasted one Spider-Man.<\/p>\n

What is certain here is that Marvel<\/a> has spent years carefully ringfencing the word \u201cmutant\u201d like a fragile heirloom, only for the new trailer to have Banner and Parker casually chatting about warping DNA. Is Sink\u2019s Jean Grey under the hood, apparently controlling everyone\u2019s minds? Is Cyclops about to pop out of the architecture?<\/p>\n

Multiversal overload \u2026 Tom Holland and Benedict Cumberbatch in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Photograph: Sony\\Marvel\/Allstar<\/p>\n

There have been suggestions that Brand New Day will restore Spidey to the kind of street-level crime-fighting he\u2019s often known for in the comics, which feels like a necessary reset after the far-out multiversal overload of No Way Home. The presence of Scorpion, the Punisher and the Hand seems to confirm this is a film in which the wallcrawler won\u2019t be fixing timelines or punching gods. And yet all this talk of mutations seems to lean almost paradoxically in the opposite, universe-expanding direction.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s undoubtedly intriguing. But the risk here is all about what happens to the word \u201cmutant\u201d if Marvel starts using it this loosely. In the comics, the X-Men<\/a> are a distinct offshoot of humanity with built-in differences that often come with consequences. If this same language is now being applied to anyone undergoing a dramatic biological rethink, the risk is that by the time Professor X and co arrive, their defining trait will already have been quietly repurposed. They will no longer be a separate, feared minority, but the latest entry in a long and growing list of people \u2013 pretty much all superheroes, in fact \u2013 who are having a tough day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time when the mere mention of the term \u201cmutant\u201d in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-339496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}